Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

It's early in Las Vegas, but I'm still on East Coast time. I'm here for Netroots Nation. Today, at 10:30 a.m. Pacific time, I'll be moderating a panel titled, Marriage Equality: Building a Movement Online. My co-panelists are Adam Bink from Open Left, Julia Rosen from PCCC, Michael Crawford from Freedom to Marry and Jesse Connolly who managed the No on 1 campaign in Maine last year. It will be livestreamed here.

The President isn't in Las Vegas, although many people here would like to speak to him about a variety of progressive issues. I know I would (but interesting factoid: Obama has not spoken to anyone in LGBT media since his election. Not once.) The Obama administration is sending the Secretary of Transportation Ray Lahood. So, the President won't be here in Vegas. He'll be at the White House where he's going to sign the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act. Those improper payments add up. The White House reports that it costs us $110 billion last year.

Let's hope that crack political team at the White House learned something from the disastrous way they handled the Shirley Sherrod situation. Here's some advice for Rahm and Messina: Stop fearing the right wing media machine. And, don't trust Breitbart videos. I have more advice but I'm not sure the geniuses at the White House would ever deign to listen to anyone outside their circle.

Okay...let's get hopping...