Tea-Fueled Republican Resistance Compels Obama

As President Obama is discovering, election, or more particularly reelection, can be a waning mandate. Yes, he won his top rate tax increases in January'but less because Republicans accepted the verdict of last November than that they feared the blame in November 2014 if they conspicuously shattered the credit-worthiness and economic stability of the United States. And now we are at a point where Obama himself suggests that the differences are just "too wide" to achieve a "grand bargain" on America's fiscal future. The president says he won't yield if the GOP position is "we can only do revenue if we gut Medicare ... Social Security ... or education."

Read the whole story at The Daily Beast

James Zogby: I Was Wrong: Israeli-Palestinian Peace is on the President's Trip Agenda

A few weeks ago, I assumed that the main emphasis of President Barack Obama's upcoming visit to the Middle East would not be the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Taking my cues from Secretary of State John Kerry's recently completed trip and the way the White House had been "low-balling" expectations about making any progress in restarting Israeli-Palestinian talks, I thought that the president would focus his visit largely on the challenge posed by Iran's nuclear program and the humanitarian and political crises resulting from the ever-worsening conflict in Syria.

However, after an hour-long meeting with the president and his national security staff, followed a few days later by a detailed press briefing on the president's itinerary by a Deputy National Security Advisor, it is clear that I was wrong.

Earlier this week, I was part of a group of Arab American leaders who met with President Obama and his senior advisers to discuss his visits to Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. Following our conversation, the White House issued a statement saying, in part, that the president "underscored that the trip is an opportunity for him to demonstrate the United States' commitment to the Palestinian people -- in the West Bank and Gaza -- and to partnering with the Palestinian Authority as it continues building institutions that will be necessary to build a truly independent Palestinian state".

Our discussions with the president were instructive on many levels -- in particular, his interest in hearing our ideas about how to make the visit as productive and meaningful as possible. We offered a range of suggestions including the need to reach out directly to the Palestinian people: the business community struggling to create jobs; young people in need of hope; Christians concerned about their future in the Holy Land; women seeking empowerment; and those who are committed to a non-violent approach to challenging the occupation.

We emphasized that just as he intended, in Israel, to speak directly to the Israeli people, making clear to them his understanding of their history and his commitment to their security, it would be equally important to find opportunities to address remarks directly to ordinary Palestinians. In this context, we found promising the post-meeting statement issued by the White House and the details of the final trip schedule.

As has been made clear on several occasions by Administration officials, the president will not use this visit to offer a plan to immediately restart negotiations. Conditions simply do not exist for a peace-making initiative to bear fruit. The newly constituted Israeli government leans too far to the right. The Palestinian house is also in disarray, with reconciliation talks still stalled.

Given this, the best the president can do, in the short term, is attempt to speak directly to both peoples reasserting his commitment to them and to a peaceful future in an effort to change the discourse in both societies away from the cynicism and hardline views that have made progress toward peace so difficult.

Seen in this light, almost every aspect of the president's visit contains a message to the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. He will want to win their confidence, demonstrating that he understands their histories and current realities. He will then note the dangers inherent in the current trajectory of regional developments and pose the challenges and opportunities that making peace will entail.

He will engage the leadership of both communities, but he will also go beyond the leaders to speak directly to young Israelis and Palestinians about their futures.

No doubt, both Iran and the Arab Spring will be topics of conversation in Israel and Jordan. While in Jordan, the president will want to support the changes underway and will encourage the King to continue on the path of reform. He will also focus on the impact of the humanitarian crisis which has seen hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees coming into Jordan, testing that country's resources and political order.

Another aspect of the Syrian war and the Middle East's tumultuous last decade is the increased vulnerability of the region's Christians. In a surprise move the White House added a stopover in Bethlehem between the President's visit to Israel and his trip to Jordan. Going to that city's Church of the Nativity will allow the president to focus attention on the two thousand year presence of Christians not only in the Holy Land, but in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq.

It is important to note that while in Bethlehem the president's team will be able to see first-hand the impact of the occupation on Palestinian daily life. First and foremost will be the 30' wall that snakes around the little city cutting Bethlehem off from Jerusalem. And then there is the Israeli settlement of Har Homa. While the Israelis refer to this development as a "neighborhood" of Jerusalem, it is actually built on land seized in large part from Bethlehem. It will be recalled that in the late 1990s then President Bill Clinton strongly objected to Prime Minister Netanyahu's plans to build Har Homa on the green hill of Jabal Abul Ghnaim. Netanyahu defied the U.S. Today that green space is gone, replaced by a settlement that is home to 15,000 Israelis (with expansion plans calling for a few thousand more). It, like the wall, separates Bethlehem from Jerusalem.

This will be the president's first trip of his second term and while he will not table a peace plan, every indication is that he remains committed to an Israeli-Palestinian peace. This trip is designed to be the beginning of a process to engage the Israeli and Palestinian peoples (and American Jews and Arab Americans) in an effort to win new support for peace-making efforts that will follow.

Kevin A. Sabet, Ph.D.: Closer Than You Might Think: Where the UK Can Look for Drug Policy Answers

This week, the 56th Session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs - the single most important drug policy gathering in the world - met amidst new calls for legalization from some NGOs (no, Colorado and Washington did not send delegates and the US federal government maintained their position favoring demand reduction over legalization). These legalization groups, which represent a minority who want radical change, are riding a recent wave of renewed interest in their ideas from the landed gentry.

In January, for example, the United Kingdom All-Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform launched a new report on drug policy recommending the decriminalization of all drugs, including crack-cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, and cannabis. The Group also called for the legalization of "less harmful drugs" because then "they will not be sold by dealers who sell dangerous substances and they will not be adulterated." The Group went on to indict UK drug policies as harsh and ineffective, praising other countries like Portugal instead. In fact, despite a very mixed record, Portugal has peculiarly become the poster-child for legalization, even though its policy represents nothing of the sort.

The UK, however, is an interesting example worth examining in detail. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government has rejected legalization and will soon embark on an international expedition to find out what works. Indeed, the rest of the world has a lot to show Her Majesty's government - for example, the importance of community-based prevention and efforts to move addicts from incarceration to treatment. But while the recent emphasis on health-oriented approaches should be welcomed, the UK doesn't have to look as far as it might think to find real progress in drug policy.

In fact, one could argue that the current UK approach is one of Europe's best-kept secrets.

Slowly and quietly, with much contemplation and little fanfare, the UK has, over the last ten years, embarked on a new, recovery-oriented drug strategy that has produced impressive results.

And it deserves our attention.

Drug use has been falling in the UK while it has been rising in other countries (like the US and Portugal): overall drug use has fallen almost 15% between 2005 and 2011. And fewer people are using or injecting heroin and crack in England. This has translated to fewer people needing treatment. And it is not just drug use where we have good news. The National Treatment Agency is able to report that the average wait time for treatment has fallen from 9 weeks in 2001 to 5 days in 2012. Five days is still five too many, but it is certainly dramatic progress. The number of people living drug-free now has almost tripled. And, finally, their efforts contributed to a dramatic decrease in crime, saving the UK taxpayer almost a billion pounds.

Of course, it is hard to measure how many people stay drug free once their treatment (e.g. methadone) is terminated. We don't really know what happens when they do not return to treatment. There are likely multiple, complex factors that have contributed to these numbers. But Her Majesty's policy approach deserves at least some credit. Emphasis has been placed on prevention and treatment, while also reducing the harms drugs cause. The ultimate goal was to get people off of drugs, not maintain or encourage their addictions. This was done in a health-orientated way: involving hospitals and doctors, vastly expanding treatment, and implementing evidence-based drug prevention. It turns out that this has paid off, even if we have heard little about it amidst calls for reviews and Royal Commissions.

That the UK has experienced some unheralded successes in drug policy does not mean there isn't room for improvement. The "drug treatment court" model, which offers treatment alternatives to prisons has been successful in places like Scotland but desperately needs to be scaled-up and expanded in other regions. Drug prevention must begin to move from school-based interventions to more holistic approaches involving multiple community sectors. Efforts to curb the UK's dangerously high binge drinking rates, which result in car crashes and violence, must be tackled immediately through expanding existing pilot programs centered on random testing and modest sanctions. And the UK might learn something from innovative drug market initiatives shown to reduce street-crime and give low-level drugs dealers an honest second chance at entering the legal economy.

Besides omitting these real successes, the recent drug policy debate has put too many eggs into the legalization basket. Regulation of drugs by the state will do little to ensure street versions of those very same drugs - in higher potency and at a cost that just undercuts the government's offer - will simply go away. These drugs, then, still run the risk of adulteration and misuse. Advocates make the mistake of claiming that since alcohol and tobacco - two highly addictive drugs - are legal, others should be too. These two legal highs, however, point precisely to why we don't want to legalize anything else: they are cheap, easy to obtain, normalized, and ruthlessly promoted by big industries that rely on addiction for profit. As a result they are used more - and are the cause of more illness and crime - than all illegal drugs combined. How, then, do they provide any example for what to do with crack-cocaine or heroin?

And then there is the famous Portugal example, grossly mischaracterized by almost everyone in the drug debate. It is important to remember, first, that Portugal has not legalized or "regulated" drugs by any stretch of the imagination. They have removed criminal penalties for drug possession and they do refer people to panels of social workers that determine what is best for the user. And their record of success is mixed: overall drug (including cocaine) use has risen there and drug-deaths are also slightly increasing, but more people are entering and completing treatment than before. It seems that their policy is more of a work in progress than a case of unequivocal victory. One could argue that the UK policy is still a work in progress, but if we are to be frank about the numbers, the UK is farther along than one might initially think.

We are often faced with a false choice in this debate: either we must incarcerate drug users or we must legalize drugs. This false dichotomy fails to recognize that we can both reduce the consequences of drug use and discourage people from taking up drugs in the first place.

Isn't that, after all, what this is all about?

Follow Kevin A. Sabet, Ph.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kevinsabet

Ex-JPMorgan Executive Points Finger At Others Over 'Whale' Loss

WASHINGTON ' JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon held back showing federal regulators reports in May that revealed the bank had accumulated billions of dollars in trading losses, according to congressional testimony Friday from the firm's former chief financial officer.

Douglas Braunstein, who is now a vice chairman at the bank, told the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that Dimon did not submit the daily reports for two weeks because he was concerned about "confidentiality."

Dimon ultimately acknowledged later that month that the firm had lost $2 billion on risky trades out of its London office. The losses have since been revised to more than $6 billion.

The Senate hearing was held a day after the subcommittee issued a scathing report that ascribed widespread blame for losses to key executives at the firm. The report said that the executives ignored growing risks and hid losses from investors and federal regulators.

After reading the report and hearing executives testify that they didn't know who was responsible for informing regulators, members of the panel questioned whether the nation's biggest bank had become too large to manage.

The "trading culture at JPMorgan ... piled on risk, hid losses, disregarded risk limits, manipulated risk models, dodged oversight and misinformed the public," Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the subcommittee's chairman, said Friday at the hearing.

On Thursday, JPMorgan acknowledged it made mistakes but rejected any assertions that it concealed losses or risks. A spokesman declined to comment directly on the accusation that Dimon knew of the trading loss in April.

Dimon was not a witness at Friday's hearing.

In April, news reports said a trader in JPMorgan's London office known as "the whale" had taken huge risks that were roiling the markets. Dimon immediately dismissed the reports as a "tempest in a teapot" during a conference call with analysts.

But Dimon acknowledged the losses a month later. And he told a separate Senate committee in June that the bank showed "bad judgment," was "stupid" and "took far too much risk." He also had his compensation last year reduced by 50 percent, as did Braunstein.

The hearing featured testimony from Braunstein and Ina Drew, who was the firm's chief investment officer overseeing trading strategy at the time of the losses.

Both were asked about information that bank executives gave to federal examiners in April that significantly understated losses for the first quarter of 2012. The numbers they gave the regulators were well below what was known inside the bank, said Levin.

"The number I reported (to the regulators) was the number that was given to me," Drew testified.

Drew blamed the losses on executives under her watch who failed to control risks out of the London office. She said that undermined her oversight and kept her from preventing the losses.

Braunstein acknowledged that risk models for the trading operation were changed in a way that was improper early last year. The changes made the bank's trading losses appear smaller than they were.

After the trading loss came to light, Drew resigned after 30 years with the firm and voluntarily paid back two years of salary.

She said Friday that while she doesn't believe she bore personal responsibility for the losses, she decided to step down to make it easier for JPMorgan "to move beyond these issues." Her comments were her first public remarks since leaving the firm.

The loss came less than four years after the 2008 financial crisis and hurt the reputation of a bank that had come through the crisis known for taking fewer risks than its competitors. Three employees in the London office were fired ' two senior managers and a trader. It also led to Drew's resignation.

Also on HuffPost:

• London Whale

  The bank's chief investment office gambled on credit derivatives, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/13/jpmorgan-chase-q02-earnings-2012_n_1670629.html" target="_hplink">losing $5.8 billion</a> (so far), and its trading desk may have tried to hide the losses from the home office. The bank says it is being sued by shareholders over the losses and has gotten subpoenas and requests for information from "Congress, the OCC, Federal Reserve, DOJ, SEC, CFTC, UK Financial Services Authority, the State of Massachusetts and other government agencies, including in Japan, Singapore and Germany."

• Milan Swap Deal

  The bank has faced <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-18/milan-swaps-prosecutor-seeks-ban-on-4-banks-from-government-work.html" target="_hplink">lawsuits and criminal investigations</a> over an interest-rate swap deal it made with the city of Milan, Italy, back in 2005. The bank settled a civil suit, but criminal charges are still pending against the bank and several employees, with hearings in the trial "occurring on a weekly basis since May 2010."

• Enron

  The bank and some of its executives are still being sued over the bank's relationship with the failed, fraud-ridden energy giant, more than a decade after its failure.

• Energy Manipulation

  Speaking of Enron, the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-gongloff/jpmorgan-chase-power-market_b_1647131.html" target="_hplink">Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is investigating</a> charges that JPMorgan manipulated power markets in California and the Midwest.

• Credit Card Swipe Fees

  The bank said in the filing that <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-09/jpmorgan-says-credit-card-swipe-case-cost-1-2-billion.html" target="_hplink">it will pay about $1.2 billion</a> to settle charges that it conspired with MasterCard and Visa to rig credit-card swipe fees.

• Libor

  The bank is being investigated by regulators all over the world for its <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/09/jpmorgan-chase-libor-subpoenas_n_1760015.html" target="_hplink">alleged involvement in manipulating Libor</a>, a short-term interest rate that affects borrowing costs for people, businesses and governments all over the world.

• Madoff Ponzi Scheme

  Several lawsuits have accused the bank of aiding and abetting Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, the biggest in history. The Madoff bankruptcy trustee and others have also sued the bank to get back some Madoff clients' money.

• MF Global

  The bank is under investigation by regulators for its <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CFEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fhalahtouryalai%2F2012%2F06%2F04%2Fjpmorgans-other-messy-problem-mf-globals-missing-money%2F&ei=Ui0lUNP7Eqe96QHP94CABA&usg=AFQjCNEJVDksnFTh3KP1uS3u73bLgoSfZQ" target="_hplink">relationship with the failed brokerage firm MF Global</a>. It is also being sued for allegedly aiding and abetting MF Global misuse of customer money.

• Mortgage Backed Securities

  The bank is being sued by hordes of investors for its bundling and selling of mortgage-backed securities packed with bad mortgage debt before the financial crisis. "There are currently pending and tolled investor claims involving approximately $130 billion of such securities," the bank says.

• Mortgage Foreclosures

  The bank was part of the big <a href="http://nationalmortgagesettlement.com/" target="_hplink">$25 billion settlement</a> with the government over mortgage-foreclosure abuses. But there are still several lawsuits and regulatory actions pending against the bank over its foreclosure practices.

• Peregrine Financial

  The bank didn't mention this in its regulatory filing, but it is also involved in the failure of the Iowa brokerage firm Peregrine Financial. JPMorgan <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/12/pfg-customer-account-jpmorgan-chase_n_1668386.html" target="_hplink">holds some customer money for the firm</a>, and recently <a href="http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/08/06/jp-morgan-objects-to-terms-proposed-by-peregrine-trustee/" target="_hplink">tussled in court</a> with the PFG bankruptcy trustee.

Rev. Dr. Cindi Love: Republicans, Report Cards & Roll Call

On March 11, 2013, I was privileged to join hundreds of my fellow citizens for Equality Texas Lobby Day in Austin.

I wore several hats that day -- member of the Religion & Faith Council for the Human Rights Campaign, Executive Director of Soulforce, licensed clergy fourth-generation Texan and, I like to believe, a disciple of Jesus.

Our lobby group came from around the state, encouraged to join the effort by Chuck Smith, Executive Director of Equality Texas. Lobby Day has happened before but this one was the largest in attendance ever 550-plus. Chuck and his team did an extraordinary job communicating the issues to all of us and lighting a fire under us as voters and concerned citizens. Thank you, Chuck!

We arrived on the first day of Spring Break. It seemed particularly fitting that the Capitol Rotunda was filled with families with children and teachers because we were there to visit with legislators about inclusive policies that protect all children, end discrimination and strengthen relationships.

In advance of our arrival, I called six legislative offices of Republicans and made an appointment for my team of five colleagues to discuss House Bill 1300 (sponsored by Rep. Lon Burnam in Fort Worth). This bill will repeal language added to the family code in 2003 that prohibits the freedom to marry for same-gender loving couples.

The history of this bill is that in 2003, the Texas Legislature passed the Texas Defense of Marriage Act eliminating the freedom to marry for lesbian, gay, bisexual Texans in same-gender relationships. In 2005, the Texas Constitution was similarly amended.

HB 1300 will also add language to the family code to ensure that the rights and responsibilities of marriage are available to every committed couple. Less than 50 words must change in the current code to release LGBT families from overt discrimination under the law in Texas.

We all took time off work to travel to Austin because we wanted to ensure that our representatives knew this bill was in committee since they have to sort through thousands of bills.

We wanted them to know that the most recent study of baseline registered voters in Texas indicates that 69 percent of Texans believe that there should be some form of legal recognition for same-gender couples.

And we wanted to stand with the bill's sponsor Rep. Burnam and echo his words:

"Texans have long valued personal freedom (and) it is time to apply that value to this issue. And, the nation and the people of Texas have evolved on the issue of marriage since the Constitutional amendment was approved by voters in 2005. Attitudes are changing."

As we made our rounds, we heard a recurring concern about the ability of our representatives to truly represent us.

They talked about report cards or score cards being used to rate them by ultra conservative groups within the Republican party and external funders of the party.

Bottom-line, these groups are holding our representatives "hostage" to voting blocs or covenants that exclude justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Many of our representatives seem more focused on getting an "A" from these groups than on representing us.

Our legislators talked about the "difficult environment" in which they were trying to work. It made me think about a movie i just saw -- Lincoln. He seemed to manage in a tough environment, to keep his commitment to liberty and justice for all citizens at the center of his understanding.

No doubt his report card from his opponents was often failing. I shudder to think where we would be today if his grade from them had been an A.

As we neared the end of our meetings, a siren began to sound in the offices and hallways of the Capitol. It was a loud, unpleasant and persistent reminder that roll call was underway for legislators due on the floor to vet and vote on the bills before them.

It was a shrill reminder that they can't hide from their responsibilities as our elected officials even if our current environment might encourage them to do so. They have to show up. Their job is to ensure that every citizen of Texas has a voice and, I believe, we elect them to face lines of resistance to full equality and try to break through.

In spite of my ideological differences with my Republican representatives, I had a moment of understanding and empathy as the roll call siren continued to blare. There must be moments when they would rather hide under their desks than enter a room full of people set to disagree and disavow equal protection under the law.

They are engaged in a game they cannot win, a gridlock of mindsets and power brokers. If they "break" with the master plan of the most conservative factions in their party, they lose. If they don't vote for true equality and justice for all of their constituents, they lose. They have to decide where they want to stand.

I want to thank each of these representatives for meeting with us and for listening to our stories and our requests. I felt respected and heard.

I hope they will remember us and see our faces and hear our stories when they deliberate about what it means to be equal under the laws of Texas and our nation. I hope each of of them will vote according to his or her conscience and in accordance with the people they represent, not the people they fear.

I plan to pray for each of the six representatives whose offices we visited. If you pray, I hope you will join me. If you set positive intentions and affirmations for the world, I hope you will set them.

If you want to join me in thanking them for hearing us and/or write them your wishes and dreams about justice, their names are:

• Senator Robert F. Deuell. His Legislative Director is Scot Kibbe. scot.kibbe@senate.state.tx.us
• Representative Pat Fallon District 106 His Administrative Assistant is Megan Titford. megan.titford@house.state.tx.us
• Representative Joe Farias District 118. His Legislative Director is Ana Ramon. ana.ramon@house.state.tx.us.
• Representative Larry Phillips District 62. His Legislative Aide is Matt Ashley. matt.ashley@house.state.tx.us
• Representative Van Taylor District 66. His Scheduler is Rachel Pace. rachel.pace@house.state.tx.us
• Representative Craig Eiland. District 23. His Legislative Aide is Anne Drescher. anne.drescher@house.state.tx.us

When the thumb of fear lifts, we are so alive. -- Mary Oliver

Follow Rev. Dr. Cindi Love on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SoulforceLove

Ryan Addresses Conservatives At Annual Conference

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- It's like the November election didn't even happen.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Friday gave a speech to GOP activists at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the largest annual gathering of conservatives. Instead of taking a step back from the daily grind of politics and laying out a new path for the movement based on the lessons learned from his and Mitt Romney's loss in November, Ryan stuck to the same sharp fiscal promises that he and Romney ran on -- and which voters largely rejected -- in the 2012 election.

"Our debt is a threat to this country. We have to tackle this problem before it tackles us. So today, I want to make the case for balance. That case, in a nutshell, is that a balanced budget will promote a healthier economy," said Ryan.

The audience was certainly sympathetic to Ryan's governing philosophy. He's still a star in the Republican Party, and most likely, he didn't have to make the case for a balanced budget to them; they were already on board.

But while some sessions at CPAC have offered introspection on the election losses suffered by Republicans, Ryan chose to keep the focus on his budget, which he unveiled this week.

The plan by Ryan, who is the House Budget Committee chairman, includes $4.6 trillion in cuts over the next decade. It plans to balance the budget in 10 years by slashing Medicare, Medicaid and programs to aid the poor, including food stamps. It would also repeal Obamacare -- a position that Romney and Ryan promoted heavily in the 2012 campaign as well.

"The president says we're in a recovery," said Ryan. "I say we're in critical care. ... We are on the verge of a debt crisis."

"We don't hide behind our beliefs," Ryan added. "We argue for them, because a budget is more than just a list of numbers; it's an expression of our governing philosophy. And our budget draws a very sharp contrast with the left. It says to the people in unmistakable terms: 'They are the party of shared hardship, we are the part of equal opportunity.'"

On Tuesday, Ryan told reporters on Capitol Hill that the election outcome essentially didn't matter.

"The election didn't go our way. Believe me, I know what that feels like," he said. "That means we surrender our principles? That means we stop believing what we believe in? Look, whether the country intended it or not, we have divided government. We have the second largest House majority we've had since World War II. And what we believe in this divided government era, we need to put up our vision."

He also suggested that maybe most voters did agree with the GOP after all.

"Are a lot of these solutions very popular, and did we win these arguments in the campaign? Some of us think so," Ryan said.

Romney is scheduled to give a speech at CPAC on Friday afternoon.

Below, a liveblog of the latest updates from CPAC:

(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Alex Seitz-Wald reports that Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann "had the honor of handing out the 'Blogger of the Year' award" at this year's CPAC. 'Bloggers are where it's at!' enthused Bachmann.

This year, the winner of the CPAC award was Julie Borowski, who blogs (or more accurately vlogs) at "Token Libertarian Girl," where she offers very spirited, high-energy costumed-comedy schtick about the news of the day. Here's Borowski, funnin' on John McCain's "wacko bird" diss of Rand Paul's filibuster:

Supreme Court Justices Talk Potential Puerto Rico-Born U.S. President

WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer seemed to indicate Thursday they'd consider a U.S. citizen born in Puerto Rico "natural-born" and eligible to run for president. Their comments, directed at Puerto Rican-born Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.), came during a House Appropriations Committee hearing on the Supreme Court's budget.

"We're waiting for your case on the Puerto Rican presidency to come to us, but you also have to be 35 years old, don't you? Have you met that requirement?" Kennedy joked. "It's Article II Section I."

"I may double that soon," Serrano replied. "It may come up some day, you might have someone born over there running. But thank you for your semi-opinion."

Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, but residents do not get to vote for president. They do elect a non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives.

"I know many possible people from Puerto Rico ... who could be elected," Breyer said. "Modestly, in this room, I will not say exactly who."

Serrano said he was "pretty sure, confident" that a Puerto Rican-born citizen could become president, a view he said Kennedy and Breyer's statements supported.

"No, I have not given an opinion, sir," Breyer said in response.

"I understand, I understand. You have not given an opinion, and nobody here would write that, but let me just say my exploratory committee is coming together in the next half hour," Serrano joked.

Kennedy noted that the "likely explanation" for the natural-born citizen clause of the constitution was that the founding fathers were trying to prevent European royalty from occupying the White House.

"That's the probable reason," Kennedy said. "I wasn't there at the time."

Also on HuffPost:

• Activists dance in an event to support "One Billion Rising" global campaign in New Delhi, India, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

• A churchgoer prepares to receive ashes from Baltimore Archbishop William Lori's outstretched hand during an Ash Wednesday mass in Baltimore, Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

• Portuguese performer Pauliana Almeida, 34, kisses her fiancee Japan's Yuga Hatta, 26, after rappelling down the Clerigos' Tower during a performance to mark St. Valentine's Day, Porto, Portugal, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013. (AP Photo/Paulo Duarte)

• North Korean army officers and soldiers attend a rally at Kim Il Sung Square on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013, in Pyongyang, North Korea, in celebration of the country's recent nuclear test. The writing reads "We warmly congratulate the 3rd successful underground nuclear test." (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)

• A 'Naga sadhu' or naked Hindu holy man attends to a call as he plays a small drum at the Maha Kumbh festival in Allahabad, India, Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

• A Palestinian wears a mask during clashes with the Israeli army north of the West Bank city of Jenin in support to the Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails and against the administrative detention, Friday, Feb. 15, 2013. (AP Photo/Mohammed Ballas)

• Ferris wheel attendants walk up the inside of the wheel to make it spin at a rural carnival in South Dagon Township on February 14, 2013 in Yangon, Burma. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

• A 'Gilles of Binche' throws an orange during the Binche carnival, in Binche, Belgium, Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

• Revellers take part in Mardi Gras carnival parade on February 12, 2013 in Fort-de-France on the French Caribbean island of Martinique. (JEAN-MICHEL ANDRE/AFP/Getty Images)

• Indian Sikh school students participate in a protest against the ban on wearing turban in public schools in France, in New Delhi, India, Friday, Feb. 15, 2013 on the occasion of a two-day visit of French President Francois Hollande in India. (AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal)