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Interesting Paul Krugman column today about the state of the Republican Party - as illustrated by last week's health care protest rally. The upshot: "What all this shows is that the G.O.P. has been taken over by the people it used to exploit."

Of course, since Reagan came to prominence, the far right has been comfortable in the Republican Party, but, up until now, they haven't been in charge. Krugman wrote:

But something snapped last year. Conservatives had long believed that history was on their side, so the G.O.P. establishment could, in effect, urge hard-right activists to wait just a little longer: once the party consolidated its hold on power, they’d get what they wanted. After the Democratic sweep, however, extremists could no longer be fobbed off with promises of future glory.

Furthermore, the loss of both Congress and the White House left a power vacuum in a party accustomed to top-down management. At this point Newt Gingrich is what passes for a sober, reasonable elder statesman of the G.O.P. And he has no authority: Republican voters ignored his call to support a relatively moderate, electable candidate in New York’s special Congressional election.

Real power in the party rests, instead, with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin (who at this point is more a media figure than a conventional politician). Because these people aren’t interested in actually governing, they feed the base’s frenzy instead of trying to curb or channel it. So all the old restraints are gone.

Democrats may view this as good news, as it makes it difficult for Republicans to put forward candidates with broad appeal, but Krugman warns of the consequences of the Californiafication of America. In the Califlornia legislature, Republicans have become a minority that has no interest in actual governance, but enough presence to derail any actions to resolve that state's fiscal crisis.

"If this happens to America as a whole, as it all too easily could, the country could become effectively ungovernable in the midst of an ongoing economic disaster" Krugman warned.

Watching the irrational beast the Republican Party is becoming, I think Krugman's warnings bear heeding.

(Hat tip: Steven Benen at Political Animal)

Politico has an interesting story today on an earmark reform panel created by the Republicans almost a year ago (Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor played a role). The committee was supposed to issue a report with ideas about to effect “meaningful change to the process by which Washington spends taxpayers’ hard-earned money.”

Since then, the committee has done nothing - literally - except request earmarks. No meetings. No report. Nothing.

The chairwoman of the committee, Cathy McMorris of Washington, has requested $129 million in earmarks this year. Rep. Doc Hastings, also of Washington, even requested earmarks to benefit a big campaign donor. In all, eight of the committee's 10 members have requested earmarks.

Politico quotes a statement by Cantor when the committee was created: "“It’s now or never to start making Washington work again for the hardworking American families, and this commission is a step forward into the right direction.”

Just not a very big step.

First Oprah, then Roanoke. Yes, the Star City is one of the confirmed stops on Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue" book tour, according to an Associated Press story posted on our breaking news site.

Palin is shunning the bright lights of the nation's big cities and is planning to drop by smaller, more Republican friendly towns.

Do any of you plan to read her book or turn out to see her again?

The votes are counted and the people have spoken. Thursday, we'll congratulate Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell on a well-run, focused campaign and express the hope that the Republican who ran as a moderate candidate is the Republican who shows up in the governor's mansion.

The religious right continues to scream about the addition of sexual orientation to federal hate crimes law.  I've wondered whether they deliberately misrepresent what the law does or if they are just ignorant about it and don't want to hear the truth.

It looks like Pat Robertson lands squarely in the ignorant camp.  Check out these clips from his television network.

Robertson: You know, there’s a law – what about a law that says it’s a federal crime to attack somebody because of his religious beliefs? Not a chance!

Um, Pat, the very same hate crimes law that now protects gays has always protected people based on their chosen religious belief.  In fact, religion is the only protected group that is a choice. Plus the hate crimes law does not trump the First Amendment. Your preachers are free to spout bigotry from the pulpit all they want.

(h/t Crooks and Liars)

America should listen to this Cassandra

Dan Radmacher

Radmacher is editorial page editor of The Roanoke Times.

The problem with prophets is it's so difficult to tell who the genuine ones are until after the fact. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., for instance, turned out to be a genuine prophet in an article he wrote back in 1994. The problem was that no one realized it until the global financial system teetered on the brink of collapse 14 years later.

In that 1994 article in Washington Monthly, Dorgan warned that the trading of new, complex financial instruments called derivatives could lead to a "real financial conflagration -- one that would make us nostalgic for the days of the $500 billion savings-and-loan collapse."

Read more.

We can't afford to fail on health care reform

Tom Joyce

Joyce, of Hardy, is a retired information technology office director for the federal government.

We must reform health care and health insurance in America to increase the length of life and improve the quality of life in America and to prevent the collapse of our economy that will surely happen if we fail to act. The clock is ticking.

The current health care system in the United States for the uninsured is unworthy of this great nation. In the U.S., the world's richest country, many sick people who can't pay stay sick or die.

Read more.

Tuesday, Old Dominion University's Regional Studies Institute issued its 10th annual State of the Region report for Hampton Roads. We're working on an editorial to run later on one of the issues addressed, the impact of global warming and climate change on the coastal metropolitan area. While the study's authors acknowledge the continuing dispute over the causes of global warming, they leave little room for doubt that it is occurring and causing sea levels to rise, to potentially devastating effect. The report urges a regional reduction in carbon emissions and a statewide increase in fuel taxes, to curb vehicle emissions, and it recommends Hampton Roads start planning "a system of dikes and levees unless we intend to forfeit huge portions of our land to the sea." That's a warning state and national policymakers should heed.

So, the GOP launched its much-anticipated new Web site today. Aside from a few hiccups, such as a page listing the GOP's future leaders that was completely blank (who knows, maybe that wasn't a glitch; maybe it was truth in advertising), the launch seemed to go OK. But, once more, the GOP is really struggling in its hackneyed outreach to African-Americans. For example, the site lists Jackie Robinson as a GOP hero, even though Jackson was a registered independent, who became disillusioned with the race-baiting turn the party took after 1964. But the worst has got to be the blog by Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele title, I kid you not: "What up." I wonder if there's a little pop-up of Rep. Michelle Bachman telling Steele, "You be da man"?

There was a lot of talk during the confirmation of new Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor about concerns that she would be unable to put aside her identity as a "wise Latina" to rule objectively and fairly on the law.

Yet it was another justice, Antonin Scalia, who seemed unable during recent oral arguments about a cross on public land to set aside his identity as a Christian and Roman Catholic to understand why a war memorial in the form of a cross might appear to some to honor only Christian soldiers.

In Slate, Dahlia Withlick notes the following exchange between Scalia and ACLU attorney Peter Eliasberg:

"The cross doesn't honor non-Christians who fought in the war?" Scalia asks, stunned.

"A cross is the predominant symbol of Christianity, and it signifies that Jesus is the son of God and died to redeem mankind for our sins," replies Eliasberg, whose father and grandfather are both Jewish war veterans.

"It's erected as a war memorial!" replies Scalia. "I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead. The cross is the most common symbol of … of … of the resting place of the dead."

Eliasberg dares to correct him: "The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of Christians. I have been in Jewish cemeteries. There is never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew."

"I don't think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead the cross honors are the Christian war dead," thunders Scalia. "I think that's an outrageous conclusion!"

As Withlick observes, Scalia doesn't appear to realize his own outrageous conclusion that "that religious symbols are not religious."