Holdout

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Wednesday he has no plans to leave his job despite a stormy tenure marked most recently by a cascade of criticism about how his Justice Department handles leak probes.

The top U.S. law enforcement official told NBC News in a televised interview that there are still things he wants to accomplish before he eventually steps down.

"There's some things that I want to do, some things I want to get done that I've discussed with the president, and once I have finished that I'll sit down with him and we'll determine when it's time to make a transition to a new attorney general," Holder said.

I doubt one of those things was having to publicly explain this.

The Obama administration is collecting the telephone records of millions of U.S.-based Verizon Communications customers, relying on a secret court order obtained under a Bush administration policy that sparked a national controversy, the Guardian newspaper reported.

The administration is defending the practice this morning. The reason they're defensive is because they have been doing this kind of thing since, you know, they took over from the Bush administration.

And, as a concurrent Guardian report points out, the government has long argued that this kind of data is perfectly legal to collect because it's similar to collecting the information on the outside of an envelope. But even that so-called "transactional" data—phone numbers, phone serial numbers, time and length of calls—can represent a goldmine of information. Collect a ton of data and you can use it later to identify individuals.

Remember what I said a couple of weeks ago about lingering past one's expiration date? Yep; it got worse.

I know Holder doesn't want to hit the door while the VRA hangs in the balance. He suggested as much when he spoke in Houston at the NAACP convention last summer. But he is quickly moving down a track to a point where that is impossible. He is just not going to be around to fight that battle.

The longer he keeps holding out, the worse the stench gets.

You can read more analysis on this NSA business from Booman, Americablog, and emptywheel. But the news for Obama just isn't going to begin to get better until Eric Holder resigns. And after that, somebody is going have the dirty job of cleaning up after him.

Then again... it could just be business as usual. After all, not many of us expected Obama's people to do the same thing as Bush's.

Update -- Holder got off real easy at his first post-Verizon hearing on the Hill this morning:

Toward the end of his testimony, which lasted less than an hour, Holder made one statement that appeared to be the only one to betray his inner feelings. "Whoever the attorney general is a year, two years from now," he said, he would want that person to be able to do his job without encumbrance. It was a very vague, very off-handed reference to someone else doing his job, an idea that he — as recently as last night — has consistently suggested wouldn't happen.

And if he continues to face a level of critique similar to what he saw this morning, there's no reason to think that he's going anywhere any time soon.

Headline, money graf

Why do we throw prostitutes in prison?

Texas, not exactly known for its leniency to offenders, also came close to  eliminating its felony penalty this year. (A bill made it out of committee but wasn’t voted on, and there is still felony prostitution in Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan and Missouri.) ”It’s nuts that we’ve got this many prostitutes in prison, people that we’re not afraid of, but we’re just mad at,” the state’s Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire  told the Austin American Statesman last year. “By locking them up, we’re not fixing the problem — we’re just spending a lot of money incarcerating them, warehousing them, when we could be spending a lot less getting them treatment so they can get out and stay out of this business.”  

Why we don't need the Keystone XL pipeline:

Here are some interesting facts you might not be aware of:

• The United States now exports gasoline: Some 15 million barrels of gasoline a month. That's about 500,000 barrels a day. We're selling so much that exports have quadrupled in just seven years.
  

• Americans are using a lot less gasoline. Demand peaked back in September 2007 at almost 9.3 million barrels a day. Today, we consume about 8.7 million barrels a day — a drop of 600,000 barrels a day.

We're producing way more gasoline than we need. The gap between supply and demand is so great, in fact, that the only market oil refiners can find for their product is overseas, where demand is growing (and prices are often much higher).

And this is happening even before booming U.S. shale oil and natural gas production really kick into high gear over the next few years, which brings me to two more observations:

• The United States is on track, says the International Energy Agency, to become the world's top oil producer in just seven years — bigger than Saudi Arabia by 2020.
  

• The U.S. will become a net exporter of oil around 2030 and nearly self-sufficient in energy by 2035.

That means that we'll have so much oil in just a few years that we'll be able to export it — like the Saudis do now — and won't need a drop from anyone.

So with all of that in mind, tell me: Why do we need the Keystone pipeline?

Zimmerman and Martin: Some facts so simple that even Fox 'News' should be able to understand ...

1) George Zimmerman had been arrested and charged for an act of violence. Trayvon Martin hadn't.

2) George Zimmerman had had a restraining order granted against him for alleged domestic abuse. Trayvon Martin hadn't.

3) George Zimmerman had a history of racial conflict. Trayvon Martin didn't.

George Zimmerman's attorney seems to think the personal history of the shot dead unarmed black teenager is relevant. And he's right. It is. Because the shot dead unarmed black teenager had no history of legal problems arising from acts of violence. George Zimmerman, on the other hand, did.

Frank Lautenberg, the last of the New Deal liberals

One of the few members of Congress who could remember listening to Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the radio and going to college on the initial GI Bill, Lautenberg served five terms in the US Senate as a champion of great big infrastructure investments—especially for Amtrak and urban public transportation—great big environmental regulations, great big consumer protections and great big investigations of wrongdoing by Wall Street.

Lautenberg was the only remaining US senator who served in WWII.

True or false

Your first news item.

Texas legislator drops marijuana cigarette while speaking on floor

While speaking during the Texas legislative session, representative Tom Alvin (R) Altruria, dropped something unexpected on the House floor. Upon picking up the item, cameras caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a marijuana cigarette.

He quickly put it back in his pocket as legislators looked on and then continued to speak. Several DPS officers were on hand but did not seem concerned about Rep. Alvin’s possession of an illegal substance.

Ironically, the bill being discussed pertained to decreasing penalties for the possession of small amounts of cannabis. If passed, the bill would change state law and no longer jail those with small amounts and would instead only require a fine.

Rep. Alvin spoke in opposition to the bill stating “marijuana is a deadly and dangerous drug. It ruins people’s lives and is so addictive that people can become hooked on it just by touching it. We have to keep in mind that allowing any steps towards its legalization will ensure that children have access to this drug. Only by keeping it illegal and imposing tough sentences can we continue to ensure that this plant is no longer consumed by people who should not have it.”

Your second news item.

Teenage Pregnancy In Decline, But Texas Still #1 For 'Repeat' Teen Births

Jajuana Thomas, 19, and her toddler son Nathan outside their apartment in Greenspoint. Thomas is five months pregnant with another child.

It's hard enough having one teen pregnancy, but what happens when you have two or more?

Public health researchers say teen birth rates are at a record low in the United States, falling 44 percent since the peak in 1991. But the problem remains, with more than a thousand teenagers giving birth every day.

Now, for the first time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has examined a troubling sub-group: teens who give birth to a second, third or even fourth child. These are called “repeat teen births.” Of all 50 states, Texas ranks #1 for this phenomenon. (CDC Factsheet.)

Jajuana Thomas, 19, is five months pregnant with her second son.

“I wasn’t expecting to have a second child but now that I am I’m happy about it,” she said during an interview at her apartment in the Greenspoint neighborhood of Houston. “I wanted a girl, but I’m having another boy. So it’s okay.”

Here's a better question than true/false: Which news item is true but ought to be false, and which is false but likely to be true as well?