Insanity

Here.

Atrios points out 10% of the population are Christians, but I am sure the gentleman from Texas would say some overused and lame cliche about making omelets...

Redistricting

According to Ed Kilgore, it appears that Georgia has been bitten by the redistricting fever that hit Texas and Colorado. In his post, he brought up a very interesting point on why this might backfire: there have been several states in which the Dems have consolidated their power in the state legislature, and hence have ammo to strike back.

Now, to be fair, I agree with Ed in that the whole redistrcting thing is craptastic and I would much rather see it stopped than to see a never-ending series of gerrymandering. However, it is noted that one of the states in which the Dems have recently consolidated their power and could potentially strike back in is Illinois. And what big representative is from Illinois?

Dennis Hastert.

Yeah, I have some principles on this one, but DAMN that would be delicious...

MoDo

Good one today... I love it when anyone points out the absurdities of the Bush-Putin relationship. One quibble though:

This White House seems to prefer softball questions from a self-advertised male escort with a fake name to hardball questions from journalists with real names

I didn't realize we had any of the latter left...

I don't know whether to laugh or cry...

On the 24th, we got this:

Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin will announce at their summit in Bratislava a US-Russian agreement to counter the threat of nuclear terrorism, The Washington Post said Thursday, quoting US officials familiar with the accord.

And then two days later:

Russia and Iran signed a nuclear fuel supply deal long opposed by Washington on
Sunday, paving the way for Iran to start up its first atomic reactor next year.

Oh, but Iran promises (pinky swear!) to give the spent fuel back to Russia without making weapons-grade plutonium... so we have that going for us... which is nice...

Ugh.

What's the Matter with Kansas?

More info on Rader (aka the BTK Killer):

According to the Wichita Eagle newspaper, Rader had worked as a compliance supervisor for Park City, Kansas, in charge of animal control, nuisances, inoperable vehicles and general code compliance since about 1990. He was a one-time president of a Lutheran church, according to KAKE, and a father of two.

Apparently one of his daughters got suspicious... that had to be tough. And I bet it makes for a hell of a story.

Your Gannon/Guckert Link of the Day

This is absolutely hilarious... a bit sacrilegious perhaps, but hilarious nonetheless...

Note to DHP's Mom: The "Mike Junkin" he refers to at the end of the post is Trey Junkin's brother (he of the bad field goal snap for the Giants against the 49ers in the 2002 playoffs)... both of them are from Belvidere.

The Social Security Debate has officially jumped the Shark

This is just getting so surreal and absurd...

I have to own this shirt...

Freakin' awesome...

Arnie displays tin ear

Not that Arnie is very good at the political game on most occasions, but this statement on steroid use shows an obscene lack of forethought:

"I have no regrets about it, because at that time, it was something new that came on the market, and we went to the doctor and did it under doctors' supervision."

Dude, despite the caveats (which I think are kinda lame anyway, more on that in a sec), you have to know that "I have no regrets" is what will be on all the headlines and shows. You don't want kids to do the same thing, but that's pretty much what they are going to hear. Plus, consider the timing with all the problems in baseball, the Olympics, and elsewhere. I mean, come on... BALCO is in your own state!

Now, about the caveats on it being legal at the time... don't you think that there are a few smokers out there with regrets for smoking even though nobody thought it was bad for you for quite some time? Would this sound good if it was from a racist? (Segregation was legal at the time, so I was big into enforcing it!). Social/legal acceptability is rarely a safehaven for generating sympathy even if it occasionally provides some explanation for your actions...

I sure hope to hell this is a mistake...

Really... this is kinda like a PR guy for FOX becoming the FCC Chair while continuing to work at FOX.

Must... get... to... bed... entering my 34th hour awake due to grant writing and it appears that the world is now spinning...

Friday Cat Blogging

OK, one more post and then I will go back to finishing my power analysis (stats suck in the best of times, but at 5:30 am they are positively awful)

A guest kitty today... Alisha, who is a new addition to DHP Big Sis's menagerie. She is very prissy, but very cuddly once she gets to know you (as this picture suggests).

We like to call her "Miss Hugs" because she looks a lot like my cat Mr. Hugs (not in the coloring so much as the face, which you really can't tell here I guess... definitely not in personality either as Mr. Hugs is far from prissy!) . She also has a set of fairly small ears... very cute!

Skeltor lies again

Here.

Jesse sums it up pretty well:

It's a given that Ann Coulter's a lying idiot. It is, however, utterly remarkable that she's able to marshall so much evidence to distort.

The Republic of Texas

A friend sent this to me... and as she said, go right the hell ahead. And don't forget to take your monkey and bugman with you when you leave...

5am Up-All-Night Blogging...

People love Flight-Suit Boy and all his tough talk, but when it comes down to it, Dubya is an utter coward... spineless... a total punacho...

Here is the latest example of his wussiness... via Kevin Drum, who got it from Ezra Klein, who probably got it from someone else, who originally got it from Kevin Bacon...

Light posting...

Hey Folks,

I am going to be going a little light on the posting for a few days... I have a grant to finish that is due in a few days (in fact, I am now embarking on what will probably be an all-nighter).

Not that the possibility of a few posts doesn't exist (when one can procrastinate a little...)

Oops! Voted for the wrong guy.

This is an interesting take on the first few weeks of "W: Part 2."

Seems odd when you put it all together like that. However, then you realize that this last election wasn't as much about ideas as it was about how to apply labels. There's an enormous amount of intellectual dishonesty out there.

(Cheers to Eschaton for this one.)

Dubya's Moral Clarity on display

See here

Dubya has several failures which via for the top spot, and this is one of them.

The biggest failure of the Clinton Administration was its refusal to act in Rwanda, so it's not like I have a selective memory here... considering the Bush aversion to all things Clinton, one would think that he would have acted on this already.

Down goes the dollar...

Atrios (a self-described "recovering economist") doesn't think this is quite as worrisome as Josh Marshall fears it might be. Essentially Asia would have to give the finger to the US and stop buying all its debt, but it would hurt itself in the process. That latter tidbit is what we are all banking on (no pun intended) as the Bushies continue to rack up debt.

But there are other factors that help prop up the dollar, so who is to say that Asia isn't going to see the Central Bank's diversification and want to sell off some of their dollars before they drop too far due to the Central Bank and other reasons? They might be hurt by selling off, but they would probably be hurt even more if they hold pat and the entire house of cards collapses. (Note to self: search Brad DeLong's archives for more information)

And even if this doesn't happen soon, do we really want to be in a position in which we are potentially beholden to Asia for our own economic security? This is no chicken-little crap... this kind of thing can happen to us. We are not invulnerable.

Bottomline: we are in a very tenuous economic position, more than the general public probably knows.

And Bush was huge in putting us there.

Great Moments at CNN

The headline on CNN.com when I opened it this morning was "Bush: US, Germany agree -- no nukes for Iran"

No shit?!? Well, I guess that mean the whole trans-Atlantic rift is all patched up then!

It only gets worse too...

Bush, on a three-country tour of Europe, insisted that the Islamic Republic "must not have a nuclear weapon," but said diplomatic means to achieve that goal had just begun.

No, no, no... CNN only obliquely mentions that Europe has been undergoing diplomatic processes with Iran for some time now, but Bush has scorned the effort... and he still apparently does:

Bush hedged when asked whether the United States would join Germany, France and Great Britain in negotiations with Iran.

Don't you think they would have anticipated that as an issue prior to going over to Europe, and that if they really wanted to make strides in mending our relationship with Europe that they would firmly join them in those efforts? Naw, this is all just a bunch of Kabuki theater for the press...

Pope: Gay Marriage is "Ideology of Evil"

I don't know if there was ever a smal chance left that I would attend a Catholic Church, but if there was, this just crushed it.

I also like how he compares abortion to the Holocaust... you know, people already born who were tortured, starved, and killing in unimaginable ways are the same as an inviable collection of cells and tissue. It's also ironic considering that Pope Pius XII (who was Pope at the time) has been criticized from many corners as being rather passive to the whole affair in order to appease Germany. (Of course, they are now trying to elevate him to sainthood... ugh)

Start your day with a joke

DHP's Big Sis sent this to me... pretty funny

Indifferent Design

Check out this post by Greg at the Talent Show on so-called "Intelligent Design"

Huh?

That's all I have to say... huh?

What?

Wait... I think I...

No, I guess not.

This is what I am talking about... via TPM.

Update: I think I have it... it's like some 5th grade kid who describes anything and everything they don't like as "gay." But then again, the comparison of these tools to 5th graders is probably rather insulting to little kids everywhere...

Update: Check out this TPM post about some of the folks behind all this...

The AARP gets its reward

(Via Atrios)

I have to admit to possessing some feelings of schedenfreude over this... time and time again, the Bush Administration has shown that if you work with them on any of their projects, it doesn't help you one damn bit down the road. Moderate Democrats from red states tried to work with Bush as best they could stomach while opposing some of his more outrageous initiatives, but they were the ones that the White House targeted in 2002 and 2004 (sometimes viciously, like in the case of Senator Max Cleland from Georgia) in order to increase their hold on the House and take over the Senate.

The AARP is getting nothing but what they deserve for their complete abdication of their responsibilities to their members in the medicare drug bill process.

Did Arnie pull a Bush-like fast one?

I have little respect for Gov. Arnie... the CA public apparently loves him, but that's only because the euphoria they are feeling is preventing them from realizing that he is actually stabbing them in the back. I have talked about this on previous posts and have mentioned his more egregious lies (particularly regarding his lavish borrowing), but apparently I didn't know quite how bad it was.

I had an old Arianna Huffington column sitting in my inbox that I didn't read until right now, and what really struck me was how incredibly similar he is compared to Dubya's first campaign. Both talked the game about how they were different kinds of conservatives, where going to do this and that, etc. etc. But neither offered any details, and when they got in office, they promptly rejected many of their own campaign promises and leapt to the right. Arnie still maintains a few vestigates of his campaign like his unwillingness to launch ant-gay rhetoric, but then again he hasn't exactly supported bids for gay rights.

It is amazing how people got suckered a second time... I will admit that I was a part of it. I am a NC citizen now so I didn't get to vote, and wouldn't have voted for Arnie anyways, but when he got elected I thought "Well, at least he seems independent and willing to buck the White House."

There is being wrong, and then there is "The Sun orbits the Earth" wrong...

I hope the voters wake up prior to the next electoral cycle, and that the Dems get someone better than that lightweight Cruz that they offered up last time (I like Angelides... he seems like he wants to sick it to Arnie at every turn and expose his dishonesty on the numbers)

Anyway, go read the column.

Our Lovely Media

Nice examples from Digby...

Another hurdle down...

The Israeli cabinet is going to support Sharon in pulling back some settlements.

Truly good news... the settlements were a big issue with the Palestinians, and there was really little question that they were illegal in a big way. However, cabinet support was in doubt, particularly because the settlers are some of the craziest, most fundy people you can imagine (regardless of religion).

One other thing caught me about this story though... Sharon's eyes in the picture CNN used in their story:

I didn't know he had a lazy eye... or is he just trying to do his best Peter Faulk impression?

Lose the accent or lose the kids...

This is quite nice...

I certainly do think that immigrants should put a lot of effort into learning English. Like it or not, our economy and society is highly biased to it and in doing so you give yourself (and your kids) a better chance. But threatening to take away kids and essentially telling them to stop having babies?

Parasitic Twin

I wonder what the anti-abortionists think about this... and I am not being flip. I really would like to know.

Moral Deficit Crusade

Brooks is somewhat palatable today as he speaks out against the budget-run-amok of the right. I really don't know who the crusader is going to be... he/she doesn't necessarily need to be some random megalomanical billionaire; in fact, I think it is a role some upstart Dem could easily assume and could finally lead to a flip of the label we have so unfairly bourne that we are poor in fiscal matters.

However, Brooks couldn't resist a few dips into the pool of hackery. The first was this:

"...offended by the horrendous burden seniors are placing on the young..."

This changes the framing of this conversation from the rich vs. the poor to the young vs. the elderly, but the former has much more basis in reality. Sure, social security is for seniors, but if you support privatization then you are really hitting up the young to pay the bill. Yeah, the prescription drug bill is out of hand, but that is a package that was written for PhRMA, not for the seniors who need the help. Yes, the AARP endorsed it, but that also led to a huge backlash from their members. And I wonder what the AARP would say about it now with the increasing costs and drug card fiascos.

Brooks also backs up his framing with some (unreferenced) numbers, but the percentage spending towards seniors wouldn't be so high if the bill wasn't such a corporate pay-out... remember, they won't even let Medicare negotiate for bulk prices on drugs! Also, Brooks doesn't show what the spending looks like farther down the road... yeah, spending will increase, but a lot of that is due to the Baby Boomers retiring, and not necessarily new programs.

The final, and worst, insult is here:

He's going to slam Democrats who loudly jeer at Republican deficits but whose own entitlement proposals would make the situation twice as bad.

Dude, pass the crack pipe. When was the last time the Dems were in charge of the House? 1994. Who has been making all the huge spending decisions over the past four years? The Republicans. When was the budget last balanced? Under Clinton. Who worked bipartisanly to reform welfare? Clinton. Who is asking for more huge loans to finance a privatization package that does nothing to help the finances of a program? Bush. He didn't even make any mention of the huge tax cuts that Bush has pushed every single year in office (that would have upset his whole young/old paradigm).

So Davy: please STFU already.

Your Daily Dose of Gannon/Guckert

Here... musing on possible Rove connections

Do as I say, not as I do...

Standard Dubya... get upset about stuff that you yourself are doing to an even greater extent.

I am certainly sympathetic to the notion that Europe should reduce its trade barriers in agriculture, but the US has long been a major offender in this area... pardon me for using a term that has such negative racial connotations, but to use historical parlance I have long considered farmers to be some of the biggest "welfare queens" out there. Unfortunately, such statements often connotate attacks against Mom and Pop farms (BTW, DHP's Mom and Pop were in fact farmers) but in reality those getting the vast majority of these subsidies are huge agribusiness (see a small local example here). In a sense then, you can lump this as a bullet under the heading of the biggest welfare wonders of them all: big business.

And of course its not limited to agribusiness for Little George... other industries get the same attention unless it becomes too politically hot. That's why we won't be cutting farm subsidies by any real amount under Dubya: this administration never fails to do the thing that maximizes their political gain rather than maximize the good of the country (and the two are rarely the same).

Greenspan at it again

OK, when the first news stories about Greenspan's recent testimony came out a couple days ago, I created a great post about his double-dealing on the subject.

Unfortunately for me, Blogger promptly ate it... complete with crunchy sounds of mastication.

Since then, several commentaries popped up, so I will sigh and link to them here rather than try to recreate my DHP-fuel post.

Krugman was one of the first to speak out against the Maestro, long before most others saw through his radiant aura gained from the 90's.

Kevin Drum refers to an archieved post of his from one of Greenspan's previous trips to this topic, and lays it out quite simply.

I'll also throw this in for good measure...

Sigh... look Alan, it seems to have come down to this: if you are really worried about the deficit as you say you are, then perhaps you should resign.

And nobody gasped...

This is a great little case-in-point of the lies of the right on Iraq and how many people have swallowed them.

But I am left wondering... why continue this charade at this point? The media and most of the country have already revised their thinking to believing this was all about democracy in the Middle East...

Treason

Dude, this is absolutely brilliant...

Your Daily Dose of Gannon/Guckert

Via TPM... Is Thune linked to Gannon?

It's Friday...time for a Cat Blog



Is this normal?

Every morning when I walk to the sink to shave and brush my teeth, Ella runs in the bathroom, plops herself right down in the sink, and just looks up at me. I finally brought in a camera to document.

From time to time I turn on the water just to let her know who's boss. But she keeps coming back for more.

[Feel free to peruse the items I keep on my bathroom sink.]


Bush nominates Negreponte for Intel Czar

I sure hope I don't have to say anything about how mind-blowingly awful this whole Bush saga has gotten, but if you are still wondering, look here for starters.

You know, I have been against President Numbnuts since, oh, pretty much day one without much doubt, but I have always retained at least a shred of opinion that maybe he just a nice guy doing wrong... someone who means well but is just overwhelmed by the position and the stronger personalities around him.

That shred has been waning over the years, but this has broken it. This administration doesn't give a damn about this country, and Bush himself is right there with the rest of them. I am so pissed off at them, all the whores who blindly shill for him in return for their bag of silver, and all the idiots in this country who voted for his worthless hide. Truth be told, I would love to go off on a Rude Pundit-like rant right now, but this is a PG blog and I think the 'rents would be a little disappointed in knowing that I possess rather indelicate vituperative skills.

Suffice to say I am numb with rage, and that's making it a little difficult to write the grant that I need to turn in tomorrow... a double whammy

Rich joins MoDo on Guckert

Go see...

"No-Duh" Moment of the Week

Kudos to DHP's Big Sis for alerting me to this startling statement she heard on the radio:

"Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists," CIA Director Porter J. Goss told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Yeah? Wow, we didn't see that one coming...

Quote of the Day

From Altercation:

“Covering" the story, and saying, ‘Well, if you look at a photograph of Diana, you can understand, but this one... Why? Why her?'"

--A very classy Brit Hume.

Guckert hitting the big time?

MoDo runs a surprisingly snark-free (for her, at least) column on Guckert...

Heresy!

Bush open to cap increase, but there is also some backpedaling:

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Bush will consider this option along with many others proposed. "Just because he said it was an option doesn't mean he embraced it," he added. Bush made the comments in the interview on Tuesday.

Missile Shield screws the pooch... again

Nice timing... seriously, give me half of the several billions of dollars we are spending on it and I will come up with a spit-wad based system that will have a better success rate...

Is 2008 the Booby prize?

Kevin Drum points out here and here that as bad as Bush has been with the budget, the costs of his new programs and tax cuts for the rich are seriously backloaded so they don't show up on "his" balance sheet (they also had to change from 10 year projection to 5 in order to keep this stuff under wraps)

In regards to the CA elections after Grey Davis was ousted that I thought it was the Booby prize... the state's finances are a mess, propositions hamper everything, and tax increases are inevitable. Now Arnie has managed to avoid problem, mainly by breaking campaign promises and loads of borrowing, but it will come due sooner or later (probably after the clod gets re-elected).

I think the same deal applies here to some extent... whoever wins in 2008 is going to have to deal with this crap, and it's not going to be pretty (although I think they will have more tools at their disposable than the CA governorship has).

Considering that Jeb will probably run in 2008, is that a very brotherly thing to do?

More on Gannon/Guckert

bpi said "Last post, I promise" but that doesn't stand for me... here is more on the case from Eric Boehlert in Salon... lots of goodies on his personal involvement with a gay escort service.

A word or two about the whining about double standards from the right... no, I don't really care about the man's sexuality. It's just not an issue for me, like the state of Clinton's penis wasn't much of an issue for me. And to be certain, the big thing here is how a guy who was essentially a RNC plant in the press corp there... but moreover, his sexuality does come into play, not because the left cares so much, but because the right cares so much. If you guys want to play by those rules, then you have to take the good with the bad:

Addressing the question of why Guckert's personal life matters, Aravosis wrote, "This is the Conservative Republican Bush White House we're talking about. It's looking increasingly like they made a decision to allow a hooker to ask the President of the United States questions. They made a decision to give a man with an alias and no journalistic experience access to the West Wing of the White House on a 'daily basis.'"

Revelations about Guckert's past certainly do not square with Talon's openly conservative approach. Talon has defended Bush on the issue of a gay-marriage ban and supported the notion of "ex-gays." In an article last year, Guckert, as Gannon, wrote that Democratic Sen. John Kerry "might someday be known as 'the first gay president.' The Massachusetts liberal has enjoyed a 100 percent rating from the homosexual advocacy group, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), since 1995 in recognition of his support for the pro-gay agenda."

Personally, I think it is kinda appropriate for a hooker to ask Dubya questions since he himself is such a whore for the rich...

Below the Radar

Bush drops 8 points in one week...

According to the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted from Feb. 7-10, Bush's approval rating stands at 49 percent, which is dismal for a just-reelected president. By comparison, during the first February of their second term, the most recently re-elected presidents all boasted approval ratings in the 60s'; Richard Nixon (67), Ronald Reagan (60), and Bill Clinton (60).

What's even more shocking is that just days earlier, riding the crest of supposedly good news surrounding the election in Iraq, Bush -- as measured by the very same CNN/USA Today/Gallup polling unit -- posted his best approval ratings in 13 months. For the survey conducted Feb. 4-6, his approval rating shot up to 57 percent; heights Bush hadn't reached since January 2004, and hadn't consistently hit, month-after-month, since the spring of 2003.

Yet the most recent results show Bush's approval ratings cratering eight points to 49 percent and his disapproval ratings spiking 8 points to 48 percent. That's a 16-point swing in less than one week.

Level with the Public

Right wing pundits (is that redundant nowadays?) love to talk about how "bold" Dubya's leadership is... if that is the case, then why doesn't he come clean about the details of his privatization scheme?

Holy Crap!

Illicit substances had to been involved here...

I'm going to say this very slowly...

Link

This is our fight... we did not invite Europe to the party in any meaningful way. Europe is not obligated to help us. Yes, a democratic Iraq is in everyone's best interest, but that doesn't mean that we are doing it in a manner that is worth the costs, or at the very least will lead to success. If you don't give them a real seat at the table, they won't jump in and provide resources and personnel that will be under our control.

Let's put it another way: if France started something that was in our best interest to see accomplished, but insisted that we pony up billions of dollars and thousands of troops without allowing us to really say how they were used in the venture, do you really think we would shrug our shoulder and say "Ok."?

Fine, let's tackle global poverty and have new arrangements. But maybe democracies should be contributing to Iraq now. That's called passing the credibility test.

Before anyone gets involved, the US has to first pass a credibility test that it is going to be guided by intelligent planning and policy, not by ideology, greed, and hubris... and we are far short of that right now. Furthermore, what credibility would we have even then if we continue to cozy up to Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and Saudia Arabia? Finally, perhaps we would have some credibility if we did in fact show interest in creating new global institutions and fighting world poverty, but its not going to happen with this administration.

Careful What You Post...

It could get you fired. Fortunately for DHP and I, we're still paying into the system. One of these days when we actually make a salary this might matter.

But for now...let the blogs roll and be free!

Wine Enema

Lots of funny stuff of late...

I have heard of people smoking through their trach rings, but this is ridiculous...

Tsunami Flashback

Remember when the hubbub about our paltry aid for the tsunami was going on? Kevin Drum has another item from a recent poll regarding the hoi polloi's absurdly inaccurate view of our foriegn spending. Go read.

Did an Iraqi contractor literally get paid with a sack of cash?!?

This would be hilarious if we were talking about it in jest... but otherwise it makes me absolutely insane with wonder at how this POS got re-elected.

Oh, and BTW... Custer Battles is apparently pretty well-connected with the GOP.

Huh... imagine that.

Think that missing $9 billion dollars could have done wonders for local cops (about $600 million hacked off the budget) and other necessary programs which got the chop?

Family Values

Alan Keyes (via Altercation)

I still can't believe that the UNC Student Congress gave some seven grand to help bring this schmuck to speak at UNC (for the Federalist Society after he carpetbagged to Illinois no less)

United Islamic Republic

Tom Clancy had a book (sorry, I forgot which one... they all run together) in which Saddam gets popped and the power vacuum leads to the Iraqis and Iranians melding into one single country called the United Islamic Republic.

Of course, the timeline and subsequent actions involved forced you to suspend disbelief, but does that necessarily mean it couldn't happen in some form?

The best part is this line:

Most of the neoconservative assumptions about what would happen have proven false.

No shit?!? My high opinion of them has been shattered! They were on such a roll...

Touching Vagina...

This headline had to be intentional... hilarious

"Little Kansas Nazis"

A friend of mine alerted me to this... it contains some of the scariest stuff I have seen in some time, and again does a pretty good job of making me question religious institutions.

Rinse and Repeat

Kevin Drum reviews another aspect of Republican budgetary flim-flam.

Belated Friday Cat-Blogging

Better late than never... yesterday was quite a busy and long day, but you knew I would get to it eventually.

Sammy has been more approachable of late, and even a little better with the dogs (i.e. not running from them as often). Part has to do with the relationship with him that I have carefully cultivated with him over the past few years, but the kitty Prozac hasn't hurt.

Anyway, here is a picture of Hugs and Sammy sharing a window seat... not only are they very cute, but before Sammy started to come around you would never see him during the light of day.

I spoke too soon...

As it turns out, I didn't read Kristof's article until after I got done posting about Bobo, but if I had read it first I might have forgotten the Brooks' piece entirely.

I am not going to go to the same lengths with Nicky's article that I did with Brooks, mainly because anyone with an ounce of intelligence will cringe when they read it for themselves, but I can't resist what I think may be the worst bit of all:

That biological analysis turns out - surprise! - to have been superficial. Instead, modern science is turning up a possible reason why the religious right is flourishing and secular liberals aren't: instinct. It turns out that our DNA may predispose humans toward religious faith.

Really Nicky? I guess our evolution goes through some pretty quick paces... like remember how the House was absolutely dominated by Democrats for decades on end prior to Gingrich's 1994 Contract with America? Or how the Democrats did pretty damn well in the White House from FDR through Johnson (remember, the difference between Eisenhower and the Democrats was essentially nil)? Or what about other cultures which don't put close to the same stock that we do into the religiousity of their politicians?

It's amazing what a little thought can do to someone's overblown crock of a theory. Nick: go back to writing on Darfur and Cambodia...

Social Security Framing

Paul Glastris of the Washington Monthly innocently wonders about something that I think is actually pretty important to look at a little further:

Just a thought... Maybe a lot of people have made this point and I just missed it. Or maybe it's so obvious it doesn't need to be made. But...

In 2018, Social Security will begin paying out more money than it takes in. This is what Dennis Hastert calls the "crisis point." But the entire federal government is paying out more money than it takes in right now.

Yes Paul, this point has been made several times... but not quite like this.

The different is subtle but important. A lot of Democratic talking point you see mention the idea of the absurdity of caring about a managable deficit in Social Security some 40 to 50 years out while ignoring the more important one right in front of our faces. However, those points have not had a nice little catchy ring to them... something to stick in your mind.

In using Hastert's own words against him, this feat is accomplished; the same idea is being used, but it is a lot more consumable. Not only does the media tend to love using the words of any politician against them (i.e. "Gotacha" quotes), but it also makes it seem to the lay person that this is not just some technical definition ginned up by the left since it is borrowing Hastert's own definition for use.

IMO, all of this underscores the importance of framing the debate, and is something that I hope Democrats don't forget the farther out from the 2004 elections that we get.

What the Hell is Wrong with... David Brooks?

It has been a long time since I have had a "What the Hell is Wrong with...?" installment (I think Nick Kristof was the last), but I figure now is as good a time as any given what Bobo has defecated onto his column real estate and served up to us today.

I certainly realize that most anything that Brooks writes is worthy of a WtHiWw...? post, but this one just keeps on making me more and more ticked off... a sort of time-release DHP.

My anger resides on two levels: first, the very fact that he is complaining at all. Brooks tries to make you forget about this by joking about it in plain daylight:

Since I wasn't among those who were taken care of, I find that statement morally offensive.

But this is just a cover... you can be damn certain that had he ended up sitting next to Newt or Karl in the luminary section, he wouldn't have said a peep. And I have little doubt that Brooks, poor little insignificant journalist that he is (we should feel sorry for him!), often gets "taken car of" at various other establishments... perhaps not at the 5 star restaurants, but maybe at some 4 stars that he frequents or other such joints.

The second level is that he is completely dishonest in at whom he decides to focus his frustration (if you can really describe it as "focus"): a bipartisan selection of DC insiders and politicians. However, Brooks (no insider he!) doesn't even bother to gloss over the issue of who has their hands firmly on the reins of this oligarchy, preferring to instead completely ignore that the Republicans with who he identifies are the major drivers in promoting this culture and increasing the divide between "us" and "them." Sure, there are more than a few Dems in various positions who get perks, but the right is in the business of lavishing favors to the powerful and receiving in kind. Furthermore, there are more than a few examples of how they are not only trying to keep the lay person from the goody bag, but also powerful Democrats (example: DeLay's crack down on lobbyists working for left-leaning firms and organizations).

No, Brooks just seems to feel content in stomping on any intellectual honesty and credibility he might have left in order to try to establish his Bobo bona-fides as an average Joe who has nothing to do with this unjust DC culture.

What a rube.

Under the radar

The jobs report... only 146k in January. Treading water yet again (remember: we need about that number just to keep up with growth of the labor pool)

Last post on this topic...I promise

The mainstream media bites!

Finally! Just google "Jeff Gannon" on Google News. It's not quite front page stuff, but it is damaging. Also, today on one of the cable news shows they were panning a group of protestors in Raleigh outside of Bush's Town Hall meeting. One of them was holding a big sign that said, "Who is Jeff Gannon?" Even though this is just one guy, you gotta wonder how widespread this sort of thing is with the Bush White House.

You know which media outlet you probably won't see this on? FoxNews.

Retraction: You'll see it on FoxNews, but he will be defended and given the benefit of the doubt...probably even heralded somehow.

Update: Well...I predicted it yesterday, and last night FoxNews did not disappoint. On Brit Hume's "Special Report" (I'm not sure what's special about it) they devoted about ten minutes of "commentary" to this issue. They compared this guy to Mark Twain at one point. How sad...

Franken to stay at Air America

Al Franken just said at the end of his show that he will not be running for Senate in 2006... he is still open to running for 2008 against Norm Coleman.

Al spoke about the need to honor his commitment to Air America, and while I buy that in part, I really think he wants a piece of Coleman, who is currently befouling the seat of the late and Al Franken hero Paul Wellstone.

On a more humorous note, Al was talking about the minimum wage in reference to some stupid statements Rush made, and said:

Rush gets his statistics from his butt; we get them from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Not as funny in print I perhaps, but my point is that Al running or staying is win win.

A Purge

Ahem...

Oh Mr. Felton? DRIVE THE FRIGGIN' LANE!!!

What the hell are you waiting for? A written invitation by Coach K? Your man takes himself entirely out fo position by overplaying the pass to McCants leaving the lane wide open... you essentially have a 3 on 2 with about 4 seconds left.

And what do you do?

You pick up the dribble.

12 year old point guards know better than that.

At that point, you were pretty much screwed, but to pore a little salt in the wound you give it up to David Noel (even though May was open in the high post). David Noel... he of the second worst hands on the team next to Byron Saunders. Behind the line, in a crowd, and squeezed against the sideline.

Brilliant... You better find a pair, and soon.

P.S. I will also dole out 5% of the blame to McCants: he didn't read how his man was playing the screen... he could have curled over the screen or slipped under it. Either way he would have had the ball in the lane to shoot a little jumper or drive. 5% also goes to Roy Williams for the mere fact that he had David Noel on the court for a last second offensive set. I mean, you are pretty much telling the defender to cheat on screens and clog the lanes. Not a good move there either.

Caveat: I get to do anything I damn well please

What makes the Republicans think this is a good idea? It's too big to slip under the radar, and all it will do is create a shitstorm akin to their attempts to be able to peek at anyone's tax records.

Talon's tangled mess

Looks like all the attention paid to this guy finally had an effect. From his website:

Jeff Gannon
A Voice of the New Media
The voice goes silent.

Because of the attention being paid to me I find it is no longer possible to effectively be a reporter for Talon News. In consideration of the welfare of me and my family I have decided to return to private life.

Thank you to all those who supported me.

Media Matters did a really good job investigating him. Definitely take a look at what they had to say.

Update: Oh, man. This thing is blowing up all over the place. Now if only the friggin' mainstream media would take notice!

Update 2: Finally! Just google "Jeff Gannon" on Google News. It's not quite front page stuff, but it is damaging. Also, today on one of the cable news shows they were panning a group of protestors in Raleigh outside of Bush's Town Hall meeting. One of them was holding a big sign that said, "Who is Jeff Gannon?" Even though this is just one guy, you gotta wonder how widespread this sort of thing is with the Bush White House.

Budget Sleeze

Read these two posts (here and here) and then go take a shower...

The key line to me is:

...the cuts that will be implemented mostly strike the working poor and their children — and don't really have much impact on the deficit anyway

Absolutely... things like dropping our support of local law enforment from a paltry $600 million to $60 million and taking away the home heating subsidies for the elderly are going to hit communities very hard, but it does virtually nothing to the deficit.

Update: The LA Times is both right and wrong when they proclaim that the era of big government is back. Yes, it is, but if all goes as planned for the Republican Norquist acolytes it will only be temporary. Once the ship runs aground, the cargo that will get thrown overboard will be the big guns: social security, medicare, medicaid, etc. I was very surprised to see real discussion of the "stave the beast" strategy that has been openly talked about in many right-wing circles...

I see Paris, I see France...

... I am giving you a $50 fine for being able to see your underpants!

OK, look... I think the baggy-pants-under-the-asscheek look for male teens is pretty retarded, and the hip-hugger jeans that expose a bit of a girl's thong are definitely not going to be found on my non-existant daughter... although I certainly don't mind one bit if they are on some other schmuck's daughter, particularly if she is hot.

Bygones.

My point here is that while I think it is stupid, it is not really indecent per se, and is also probably not enforcable to any meaningful extent. Not only do you have the issue with the vague terms of "lewd and indecent" but what about various other scenerios? What about those sear tops through which you can clearly see a bra? What if some girl is going commando and wearing hip-huggers? You can't see her underwear since she's not wearing any! Hell, let's take this even further... the plumbers would be getting fined all the friggin' time! (Not that I would necessarily have a problem with that... bring an end to plumber's crack!)

Here's another problem... you will get a fine if you expose it, but apparently it is not much of an issue if some dude goes through great lengths to snap pics of your Victoria Secrets for his spank bank.

Finally, it's an absurd waste of legislative time... Virginia has a university that is essentially trying to got private and divorce itself from legislative funding because they have so badly jerked their funding around, yet what they are worried about is what a bunch of crotchity old guys are bitching about in some random barbershop.

Starving the Beast & Jabbing the Spear

I'm not really smart enough to comment on the whole Social Security debacle. So this will probably be my first and last post about it.

But Paul Krugman really puts it together nicely here:

President Bush isn’t trying to reform Social Security. He isn’t even trying to “partially privatize” it. His plan is, in essence, to dismantle the program, replacing it with a system that may be social but doesn’t provide security. And the goal, as with his tax cuts, is to undermine the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt.

Why do I say that the Bush plan would dismantle Social Security? Because for Americans who entered the work force after the plan went into effect and who chose to open private accounts, guaranteed benefits - income you receive after retirement even if everything else goes wrong - would be nearly eliminated ... The attempt to “jab a spear” through Social Security complements the strategy of “starve the beast,” long advocated by right-wing intellectuals: cut taxes, then use the resulting deficits as an excuse for cuts in social spending. The spearing doesn’t seem to be going too well at the moment, but the starving was on full display in the budget released yesterday.

Thanks to the Al Franken Show blog for pointing that out. But I'm sure DHP already had a 1,000 word essay ready to go based on Krugman's article...

Dubya kicks Vets in the groin

Hmmm... is this that compassionate conservativism I heard about?

Super Bowl

Ah yes... delicious... any time Terrel Owens comes out on the losing end, I am put into a good mood.

Too bad for McNabb though...

And you can't pay for your heating either? Awesome!

What a goober...

Inserting a story, example CXVII

Go read. That's the way the machine works.

Another brush with fame

I am on a pretty good run of late... I got to meet Joe Mauer while I was in South Dakota, and then when I got back we had Dr. Michael Debakey as the Landes Lecturer for Student Research Day (not that I would ever put the two on the same scale).

For those of you who don't know who DeBakey is, let's just say that he is the father of modern cardiothoracic surgery (ya know, nothing big). His CV reads as a list of firsts, including being the first to perform a bypass, the first to use a Dacron graft, first to link artherosclerosis with CMV, and, with his mentor, the first to link smoking to carcinoma. He holds the rank of Colonel and was instrumental in the development of MASH units and the VA hospital system. He created the roller pump (while in medical school!) and the ventricular assist device. He has served as an advisor for each president over the past 50 years, has won the Lasker Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction, and was once featured on the cover of TIME magazine. He has some 1600 publications! There is a lot more, but you get the picture.

And speaking of pictures, here I am with him:

He's 96 years old, walks without a crane, and is sharp as a tack. He could probably do a quadruple bypass with one hand and sign autographs with the other, all while whistling Dixie.

Oh, and he's a really really nice guy... he's not full of himself and his accomplishments, is quick to credit others and "luck," and is a charming storyteller. I consider myself very lucky to have met him.

A little help from my friends

I generally get up late on Saturday (really late... usually not much before noon if I can help it), and so I got to read Nicky's column relatively late in the day. The resulting stomach-churning DHP anger was about to prompt me to write a post, but I am going to just let Kevin Drum do the writing for me.

Or at least most of it... I still have a few things to add:

Figures tossed about these days - such as the system's having to slash benefits in 2042 - are wild guesses that depend in part on longevity.

Wild guesses? The SSA's estimates are based on very conservative estimates of economic growth... if you want to talk about wild estimates, look at the grow that the administration assumes in order to make their privatization scheme work (a rate which, BTW, would mean SS would essentially need no fix).

The Social Security Administration estimates that U.S. life expectancy will increase by only six years by 2075. But life spans grew by 30 years in the 20th century, and if you believe (as I do) that biotechnology will greatly raise life expectancy, then we'll face a huge problem paying for long-lived retirees (touch wood, like me).

One word Nicky: antibiotics. Just like with the stock market, past trends don't neceessarily indicate future gains for a variety of reasons. And as far as biotechnology goes, estimates on such gains have been far too generous time and time again.

Singapore helped pioneer private investment accounts (a good rule of thumb in economic policy is to do what Singapore does), and its system has raised home ownership and alleviated poverty.

Yeah, I am sure our economies match up really well. And you know the right will be all for their 33% payroll taxes which support their system (the rate is so high that retirees end up with nice assets but no cash).

Ugh. Nicky has been doing his Sudan and Cambodia columns for the past several weeks, but when he does this type of thing he is seriously out of his element.

Other animals of the blogosphere

I swear, these two cats must be the most buddy-buddy I have seen in some time. Atrios always has a bunch of pictures like this.

Winning hearts and minds

Via Doonesbury's site:

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

-- Lt. Gen. James Mattis

Health Care Costs Cripple Consumers

Here are a couple articles worth reading that are on an important issue that is currently outside the limelight.

The lovely high-deductible accounts that the right favors seem like they would further compound the problems that are currently being seen... without the touted flexibility either (and I haven't even begun to pick at it from a public health standpoint in terms of the value of preventive care)

And check this out:

The average bankrupt person surveyed had spent $13,460 on co-payments, deductibles and uncovered services if they had private insurance. People with no insurance spent an average of $10,893 for such out-of-pocket expenses.

How the hell did that happen?

Friday Dog Blogging

I decided to switch to dogs this week and post a flashback picture of Dizzy... as you probably know, corgis have a fox-like appearence with their longish snouts and radar ears. However, with some corgis it can be a little difficult to get said ears to stand on their own. Ella's stood just fine, but Dizzy's needed a little help... enter the magic of duct tape and a couple weeks of patience:

Is anyone surprised...

...by this?

As always, remember: there is no nonpartisan policy wing. There is only a political wing.

The Rehnquist Trio

Jack Mercer (some random guy who apparently stumbled across my blog) writes in the comments section of this post:

Hey Herm, put your money where your mouth is--here's a challenge. Name ONE incorrect decision made by Scalia, Thomas or Rehnquist. And PLEASE don't give me that kook conspiracy crap from the 2000 election.

Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains. - Winston Churchill

Well, if I had a very large readership (like, say, that of Atrios or Kevin Drum’s blog) I would just let the trolls be trolls. But I don’t, and so engage I will!

(Note: I wrote most of this post while I was in South Dakota, and I had meant to fine-tune it a bit prior to posting, but due to time crunches I thought I would just get it out in its current form, so sorry about the length.)

Obviously the question here revolves around the definition of the word “wrong.” By what standards do we determine that a judicial vote is “wrong?” There are several options we could choose from, such as:

1) A decision resulting in an outcome that was/is/would be obviously to the country’s detriment.

2) A decision that flies in the face of the particular justice’s constitutional theories and previous voting record or established precedent.

3) A decision that is an obvious misinterpretation of the constitution, SC decisions, etc.

Even with the “obvious” caveats, these standards are still open to interpretation and individuals’ perceptions and beliefs about what is and should be in this country and how the Supreme Court should arrive at their decisions. However, it is what I will try to limit myself to (if I went with my own political beliefs and vision, we could be here all day).

For Rehnquist, I will note in general that his judicial record has revolved around two themes: the limitation of federal powers, and the limitation of civil liberties and rights. The former is one that I personally disagree with in general, but not in any strict sense; it depends on the issue in question. The latter is something that is fairly abhorrent to me as well as a large chunk of Americans.

For Scalia, I will note that, with some exceptions (one very distinct in the Bush v. Gore case), his voting record has been pretty consistent; he appears to stick to his philosophy. I respect that he does so, but I don’t agree with his philosophy, which revolves around federalism, conservative notions of sex and morality, and murky notions of original intent.

For Thomas… what is there really to say? Similar to Dubya and the office of the president, there probably hasn’t been a SC justice who was more unqualified to hold the position. And he certainly hasn’t made any strides in proving anyone wrong on this point. Alarmingly, he accepted the claim of inherent authority in the Hamdi v. Bush case (fortunately, he was the only one). Hell, he often falls asleep during arguments and almost never comments or makes any questions, and his written opinions are pithy at best and lack much in the way of achievement. While a guy like Scalia might be a bright (if misguided) person, Clarence is simply a waste of space.

Anyway, in terms of specific decisions, I will go ahead and list a few without much distinction between the three justices since they pretty much vote as one unit (exceptions are usually from periods when they were not all on the bench together):

1) The Rehnquist Trio voted in the majority to affirm California’s right to the “Three Strikes Law.” If I remember correctly, this law was created as the result of a brutal rape and murder of a child at the hands of a multiple felon out on parole, and the resulting outcry led to its creation (by proposition, which is another retarded component of CA law that I could spend a lot of time on).

However, the law was created with brushstrokes that were far too broad, and as a result there were what would reasonably be called quite unintended consequences. For instance, would you lock up a guy convicted three times of petty non-violent theft? Such was the case in Lochyer v. Andrade; Andrade was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for at least 50 years for his third strike of stealing $153 worth of videotapes (petty theft can be elevated to a felony in the California penal code).

The Three Strikes Law, when applied in this manner, violates the constitution in not one but two ways: it is most certainly cruel and inhumane punishment, and is also a form of double jeopardy (since upon the third strike the defendant is effectively being sentenced a second time for the previous two strikes). Using the standards delineated above, this violates #1 and #3.

2) The Rehnquist Trio has been staunch supporters of capital punishment, particularly Rehnquist. I have all manner of bad things to say about the death penalty ranging from moral to systematic to pragmatic, but all that aside, it is difficult to think of any form of sentencing outside of outright torture which better conforms to the definition of cruel and inhumane punishment. Rehnquist has gone so far as to write an opinion essentially stating that the constitution is not violated when a state executes an innocent man (Collins v. Herrera). Their actions in the case of Robert Alton Harris are particularly alarming (and wrong based on the law). The fact that we stand only with Japan as the only industrialized western nations with that form of punishment is embarrassing. And it doesn’t work anyway. Violates #1, #2 (in some cases), and #3.

3) The Rehnquist Trio weakened the Free Exercise clause that requires an exacting scrutiny if a particular law happens to inhibit religious exercise (Oregon Employment Division v. Smith). Ironically, they did it in a way that could negative impact many Judeo-Christian religions as well as religions that are more obscure in this country. Essentially, the SC refused to apply the proper test to a Free Exercise case (which probably would have sufficiently settled things) and invented their own test. This drastic change lead to Congress passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but that was also struck down (City of Boerne v. Florida); the SC felt that religious discrimination was not widespread enough to allow Congress the latitude to protect religious freedom in this fashion despite prior SC conclusions (Katzenbach v. Morgan) that empowers Congress to do so as long as rights are being expanded and not contracted.

The purpose of these federal acts was to safeguard freedom of religious exercise in this country (note that this is not a case of “separation of church and state,” but is something even more basic and fundamental to our country). Furthermore, this vote also violated established precedent (by applying a radically new test), and weakened other important acts of Congress such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Voting Rights Act due to the weakening of the prior Katzenbach decision. Violates #1, #2, and #3.

4) The Rehnquist Trio voted in the majority regarding the Florida election case (Bush v. Gore) in 2000. Now Jack referred to opposition of this decision as “conspiracy crap;” however, regardless of what politics you hold, the decision made in this case was wrong by ideologically neutral constitutional standards.

Simply put, the SC decision was a flat violation of states’ rights. The states decide how they send their electoral votes to Congress. Period. All they have to do by federal standards is get them there in time for the electoral vote count, and if they failed to do so, there were multiple mechanisms in place to ensure that the election would be decided. Pundits during this event often referred to this as a “constitutional crisis,” which is really sad since the remarkable beauty of the situation was that the framers of the constitution had already anticipated possible problems like this and thus installed rules for how to proceed.

Anyway, this was one period resulted in the highest and lowest points of my respect for the SC. I was certainly wary of many of the justices’ ability to keep their political ideology in check, and when they arrived at the (proper) decision to kick the matter back to the state, I was overjoyed and was given hope regarding the wisdom and neutrality of the SC. However, as the situation continued, they lose their nerve and broke with their former decision (and in the case of the Rehnquist Trio, their constitutional philosophy and previous voting records) in the second case, deciding against letting Florida handle the matter itself. Regardless of who legitimately won the recounts (Gore would have won if a statewide count had been made, Bush won in other more county-specific scenarios), it should have been Florida, not the SC, that decided which electors to send to Congress. It is one of the most clear-cut cases of a violation of states’ rights, obviously and egregiously violates standards #2 and #3, and subjectively violates #1.

5) The Rehnquist Trio often shows disdain for the First Amendment. In one case, a porn shop owner was found guilty of having seven items that violated obscenity laws (Alexander v. United States). He was served with a stiff fine and jail sentence, but under the guise of the RICO acts, the feds destroyed the contents of all his stores, the total worth of which was between $9 million (federal estimate) and $25 million (storeowner estimate). This appears to be an obvious case of prior restraint since not only the 7 items were destroyed, but also his entire inventory (Prior Restraint is an attempt to prevent publication or broadcast of a statement and is a violation of the first amendment with a few exceptions). Rehnquist marginalized the first amendment by stating that prior restraint only applies when there are administrative or judicial orders applied prior to the time that the communications are to occur.

One can imagine countless scenarios where one might thus be restricted in their speech without legal recourse (if the restraint was not prior to the communication and/or was not a result of an injunction or restraining order). Kennedy lit into his colleagues in the majority by reading his dissenting opinion from the bench and signing it with “I dissent” rather than “I respectfully dissent.” (An aside: Ginsberg also took this route of signing her dissent in Bush v. Gore). His opinion noted that an innocuous publication or bookstore could thus have its entire inventories destroyed for a prior speech offense, and further explains that the threat of federal intervention of this kind inhibits free expression as much as the intervention itself. However, the SC found in favor of the feds… violates #2 and #3, and subjectively #1.

I am getting a little tired at this point, and the post is already quite long, so I am going to make three more quick notes before I conclude:

6) The Rehnquist Trio has gutted the 4th amendment in ruling in favor of programs like randomized drug testing and profiling (Von Rahb v. National Treasury Employee’s Union). Violates #3 and subjectively #1.

7) The Rehnquist Trio has gone against SC precedent and striped the fundamental right of visitation and custody of many parents (particularly unmarried fathers; Michael H. v. Gerald D.). Violates #1 and #2.

8) The Rehnquist Trio has gone against acts ending discrimination such as repealing anti-sodomy laws, desegregation, and affirmative action. Violates #1 and #2.

I could go on with more esoteric cases (there is a passel which violate #2 but would take a long time to explain), and as I said before I could certainly continue with more on their voting record using a more loose set of standards (such as what I find personally abhorrent, examples being their acts against the Brady Bill, anti-sodomy laws, and affirmative action, the latter which also violates #2 in some ways). The court as a whole has also run yellow of late as they have weakly punted on the California Pledge of Allegiance case and Cheney’s secret Energy Task Force.

But as bad as these decisions are, I agree with those who say that the real impact of the Rehnquist Court will not be felt until the next court is assembled. Who will take Rehnquist’s place (both on the bench and as Chief Justice)? Scalia’s? Kennedy’s? Stevens’? O’Conner’s? So many of these decisions were 5-4, and if the court is able to conclude such actions with that composition then even a little shift farther to the right will send us tumbling… Roe v. Wade might end up being a minor concern in such a case.(*)

Anyway… Mr. Mercer: Challenge met.

P.S. I am always amused when folks invoke the age/political ideology quote from Churchill in the manner that Mercer used. As Robert Rubin once observed, all three of the major parties in Great Britain (Liberal, Labor, Tory) have several tenants that fit within the Democratic Party in the United States. In other words, the notions of “liberal” and “conservative” are very different on the other side of the Atlantic. Churchill himself employed a modern version of “one nation” conservatism in which he worked with liberals on social capital items like health care and other issues. Liberal conservatives (often termed “New Conservatives) like Dwight Eisenhower and conservative liberals like Arthur Schlesinger Jr. come from similar molds and traditions begun by Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. As such, I certainly don’t take this as a repudiation of my political ideology. Besides, I am not 30 years old anyways (yet… it’s getting damn close).

Update: Here’s a little item on Rehnquist… and another. They have nothing to do about his judicial decisions, but I thought I would include it nonetheless.

Update: And more, this time on his role as a clerk on Plessy v. Ferguson (a little summary of his civil rights record can be found here)

Update: Just prior to posting this, I found a nice little bit on Thomas and Scalia from the Center for American Progress. I haven’t researched all their arguments yet, but I thought I would include it.

*Note that I while I haven’t provided links in my arguments, they are based on my own knowledge, the writings of Erwin Chemerinsky (author of The Wife’s constitutional law text and legal counsel of Andrade in the Lockyer case), LA Times court observer David Savage, Mark Tushnet of Georgetown Law, various law school and general law information websites, and small bits from random AP articles. They were tempered in the fires of opposing viewpoints provided via examination of opinions of such organizations as the Federalist Society (which Rehnquist co-founded).

Social Security Blacklist

Campaign rallies at which you are forced to sign an oath of fealty is bad enough, but now it seems that there are blacklists of people that are to be excluded from Dubya's social security tour. That is, as they say, bullshit.

Here is the original article... go to TPM and check out the rest (he has had several posts on the issue, many via Clean Cut Kid)

Suck it!

Sometimes the Rude Pundit is simply brilliant... (via Atrios)

Sports Schadenfreude

I love seeing the Lakers struggle if only because I hate Kobe so much (he is probably at least one full "T.O." on my hate scale).

This tops it off:

"Rudy Tomjanovich resigned as head coach of the Lakers on Wednesday, citing health reasons. As it turns out, he was sick of Kobe."

Delicious...