The Secret Service is following up on recent comments by right wing radio host Pete Santilli, who claimed to want to shoot former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the vagina and see President Obama tried and shot for treason.

“We are aware of Mr. Santilli’s comments and will take the appropriate follow up action,” Edwin M. Donovan, a Secret Service spokesperson, told TPM on Monday. “He certainly has a right to free speech, but the Secret Service has a right and an obligation to determine what a person’s intent is when making comments like this.”

Exactly as it should be.

An 18-year-old science student has made an astonishing breakthrough that will enable mobile phones and other batteries to be charged within seconds rather than the hours it takes today’s devices to power back up.

Saratoga, Calif. resident Eesha Khare made the breakthrough by creating a small supercapacitor that can fit inside a cell phone battery and enable ultra-fast electricity transfer and storage, delivering a full charge in 20-30 seconds instead of several hours.

The nano-tech device Khare created can supposedly withstand up to 100,000 charges, a 100-fold increase over current technology, and it’s flexible enough to be used in clothing or displays on any non-flat surface.

It could also one day be used in car batteries and charging stations not unlike those used by the Tesla Model S, which includes “supercharger” technology that promises to charge vehicles in 30 minutes or less.

“I’m in a daze,” Khare told CBS San Francisco after being honored among the three finalists at the International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix over the weekend. “I can’t believe this happened.”

Over 1,600 finalists from around the world competed in the science fair for a $75,000 scholarship grand prize awarded by Intel. Runners-up received $50,000 scholarships.

This is why I believe we’ll have Star Trek-level technology sooner than predicted. Sometimes this biggest breakthroughs happen when we least expect them — and from unexpected sources.

“The handwringers and bed wetters in the D.C. punditocracy should know that Barack Obama will never be on their timeline. He does not value being first over being right. He will not spend his presidency chasing news cycles. He will not shake up his White House staff just because of some offhand advice offered to Politico by a longtime Washingtonian or a nameless Democrat who’s desperately trying to stay relevant. And if that means Dana Milbank thinks he’s too passive; if it means that Jim VandeHei will keep calling him arrogant and petulant; if it means that Chris Matthews will whine about him not enjoying the presidency, then so be it. He’ll live.” Former Obama speechwrite Jon Favreau

This is exactly why the press corp resents this administration. The president refuses to acquiesce to the usual Washington, DC script — the one they’ve carefully authored. Without it, they actually have to do their job and, you know, report the news.

As we observe the aftermath of the horrifying tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, I can’t help but to feel simultaneously crushed by the loss and brutally angry by the disease that likely produced it. For so many reasons, including personal experiences with similar tragedy, my heart goes out to the people of Oklahoma City as they struggle with the catastrophic, practically atomic destruction in their community.

Although it’s times like these when Americans invariably rise to the occasion and affirm our commitment to our national community. We always do. Americans, more often than not, stick together and help those who can’t help themselves, whether by the collective participation in government or by personal and immediate assistance. We’re good at it.

However, this is where I can’t help but to feel a powerful anger. I’m not supposed to write this yet but as I connect the scenes of horror in Oklahoma with so many other worsening weather-related disasters, I wonder if our American community will actually band together to cast aside ignorance and political intransigence to actually mitigate the disease, the climate crisis, instead of simply reacting to the aftermath of its symptoms.

Yes, dammit, when it comes to the increased frequency and severity of these kinds of storms we ought to be immediately asking serious questions of the people who, for decades, have not only resisted action on the climate crisis, but who’ve deliberately injected misinformation and conspiracy-mongering into the debate in order to finance their re-election campaigns, while pacifying our human self-indulgence and hubris. [continue reading here]

The Doors – “The End”
Live at the Hollywood Bowl, 1968

In other news, the Secret Service is reportedly investigating the Hate Radio host who said he wants to “shoot Hillary Clinton in the Vagina.”

This was the scene in Moore, Oklahoma today.

I’m cutting things a bit short today for obvious reasons. If you would like to donate to the Red Cross, you can do so here.

You can watch a live steam of local station KFOR here.

Early filings show that insurers in some states are planning to lower their premiums after President Obama’s healthcare law takes effect, Democrats noted on Monday.

Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee cited the initial rate filings to argue that the health law’s Republican critics have oversold the potential effect on premiums. [...]

Premiums the cheapest plan in Oregon are expected to fall by an average of 11 percent, and customers in Washington could see a price drop of 21 percent for the cheapest policy, according to the Democratic summary of state rate filings.

Why are insurers in some states planning to lower their premiums? Because they discovered that after they place their insurance plans on the exchange market, they would not be competitive without lowering the cost. And that’s the entire point of establishing a state exchange market. The point is to lower costs.

It’s the free market at work. Or as Republicans like to call it — big government socialism.

Included in a report on schools facing layoffs and even closure from Bryce Covert of ThinkProgress is this from the elementary school district of Harlem.

The Harlem Elementary School District didn’t rehire for some positions and asked 100 employees to cut $100 from their operational budgets to deal with a 47 percent cut to the budget this year. It also canceled Kindergarten for a day, but one five-year-old still came to school because he was hungry and needed his state-subsidized breakfast. Next year it will have to dip into reserves or hold fundraisers. After that it will have to cut staff, go over the state class size limit, and look at closing schools.

Small children going to school on a day that it’s closed because they have nothing to eat isn’t what I typically think of when I think of America, but maybe it should be. Maybe we aren’t appropriately cognizant of this.

Then again, how could we be? The Fourth Estate is more concerned about phantom blue dresses and witch hunts than the boy who had nothing to eat or a school to attend.

As far as the beltway press is concerned, the time of economic hardship is over and the return of scandal is proof of this. Never mind that most of them are quite wealthy themselves which means they have nothing to distract them from what really matters — their own careers.

Whether or not you agree with the actions of local IRS agents who applied extra scrutiny to Tea Party and progressive groups, it shouldn’t come as a shock. At least not to House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa who was informed of the investigation nearly a year ago.

IRS inspector general J. Russell George told Issa, in a letter dated July 11, 2012, that he was investigating the matter and offered to keep him updated on the progress. The same letter was sent to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) as well. An Issa aide told ABC News, “The Oversight Committee knew about the audit because it requested it.”

Why does it matter that Darrell Issa and the Republicans were already aware of the inspector general’s investigation of the IRS? Because the Republicans have hyped the idea that the Obama administration knew about the actions of the Cincinnati IRS agents before the 2012 election.

In reality, Darrell Issa himself was aware of their actions.

Meanwhile, this report from Brian Beutler on the Republicans’ advanced knowledge of the now-infamous White House Benghazi emails is quite daming

Sources with knowledge of key congressional briefings earlier this year on administration emails regarding the Sept 11, 2012 Benghazi attack tell TPM that those in attendance were provided clear information that the White House remained neutral in adjudicating a dispute between the State Department and the CIA over talking points at the center of a months-long controversy.

In walking members and their staffs through the internal emails, the administration provided extensive explanations of how the talking points evolved, sources in attendance tell TPM. The extent of the information provided in the classified briefings calls into further question how a summary of the emails that was leaked to ABC News overstated the White House’s role in crafting them.

That’s convenient, isn’t it? The fact that the briefings were classified. It gave them a pass not to mention it.

Congressional Republicans have known all along that there was no there there, and they’ve taken the press along for a ride with them down the witch hunt rabbit hole.