The people running the United States are idiots:

"If you're living in that area of Moore in Oklahoma, the likelihood of being hit by another tornado is about zero in terms of odds," Sen. Coburn said.

MSNBC's Brian Shactman attempted to correct Coburn, but the senator dug in.

I would love to see the look on some career diplomats' faces if Dennis Rodman's foray into international diplomacy ends up working.

Rodman to North Korea: 'Do me a solid' and release American prisoner

A major potential problem with Obama's healthcare bill is that it requires companies with 50 or more employees to provide health insurance for every employee who works 30 hrs. or more.

I've created a space for new comments.

This diary presents some polls on the social and political views of the growing Latino/Hispanic US population. Overall, the evidence I've come across clearly suggests that Latinos are more economically liberal than the general population, the evidence is equivocal about whether they're socially conservative, but it appears that whatevr their views on social issues, Latinos/Hispanics do not prioritize them as highly as conservatives generally.

There will be plenty of negative commentary on Chavez in the US press (and after reflecting on the recent Malaysia scandal, I wonder how much of that will be directly financed by Venezuela's Chamber of Commerce, Fedecameras, which headed the conservative opposition to CHavez).

So this is just a brief diary seeking to counterbalance likely negative news and support the proposition that Chavez was in fact a highly successful leader if we judge success in terms of leaving the people of Venezuela much better off than when he took power.

I don't know about you, but I'm attempting to blot out the sequester and the sociopaths in the GOP and Democratic Party who designed this little fiscal cherry bomb, and who are playing politics with the well-being of American workers and families.  

To that end, here's a soulful tune, so soulful it feels like you've always been singin it:

I've noticed an uptick in the idea on the left that the federal government should shift its spending from seniors to kids. Some progressives friendly to the Obama admin have written on this, e.g. Ezra Klein and Kevin Drum. Some on this site have mentioned that they believe we should be willing to look at cuts to spending on the elderly to focus more dollars on, for example, funding universal preschool. 

What do you want the president to say (and presumably follow up on) in the SOTU speech?

What would you like to talk about in an open thread? 

Either question can be answered in the friendly space Hank's provided below.

Open Thread thought: Maybe instead of all that security and defense spending we could ...