Off the Grid --- UPDATED

Will be off the grid for a while. Sporadic Posting is in the forcast.

UPDATE: Looking to return in Mid to Late August.

Conan O'Brien is very, very MEAN

"Some people now are saying, this is true, that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin wants to host her own TV show. ... The show is going to be called 'Am I More Coherent Than a Fifth Grader? ~ Conan O'Brien

This is really unfair. Funny, but unfair, because Sarah most likely will do a Jerry Springer style talk show rather than a quiz show.

In honor of our Soldiers, how about he lay off Sarah Palin.

No it is Not Significant….Stupid Maybe but not Significant

With today’s Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Sonia Sotomayor, we see familiar patterns starting to emerge with a party line vote. This time is from the party with the declining demographic base. Nevertheless victory has been declared from familiar quarters:

"It was a historic vote just now in the Senate Judiciary Committee; almost all Republicans voted against appointing Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court….

[…]

For the first time in their long experience on the Committee, Senators Hatch and Grassley opposed the choice of a president for the Supreme Court. They, like many Republicans, have historically been far more deferential to Democratic presidents when it came to Court picks than Democrats have been to Republicans.
This one-sided deference, epitomized by then-Senator Barack Obama's votes against Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito merely because they practiced judicial restraint, followed by now-President Obama's nomination of a liberal judicial activist, cannot continue. Not when a runaway Supreme Court continues to march to the left, inventing law that is nowhere to be found in the Constitution (increasingly looking to foreign and international law to do so) and failing to uphold the guarantees that are explicit in the Constitution, such as the right to keep and bear arms, the right to keep private property unless needed for a true public use, and the right to equal protection and treatment under our laws regardless of race or ethnicity." [emphasis mine]

This whining about a liberal court has all the victimization vibe that a Sarah Palin speech has. And this nonsense about the historic event stand Republicans are taking in voting against a Democratic nominee for the first time is also bogus. This is all fantasy.

I understand that only 2 of the last 14 justices to sit on the Court have been nominated by a Democratic President. I repeat only 2 justices going back over the last 40 years have sat on the court have been appointed by a Democrat. Sotomayor will be the 3rd such justice to sit on the court in the last 40 years.

In other words you could put it this way, a full one-third of the judges nominated by a democratic President to sit (or soon to sit) on the Court have been subject to party line opposition by the GOP.

Startling.

And as far as Orrin Hatch is concerned (Grassley does not hold himself out as a legal expert and is therefore exempt) and his voting against a nominee for the first time, well maybe that is because he picked Bill Clinton’s two nominees! Here is how Orrin politely describes the process.

So I don’t think there is anything historic about this GOP opposition. It is just more of the same partisan B.S. wrapped in the flag of a narrow ideology that will piss off a growing portion of the electorate.

That is all.

Another thing I don’t understand is the whining about a “runaway Supreme Court” that is “march(ing) to the Left” that is “inventing law that is nowhere to be found in the Constitution.”

I listened to some of the Roberts hearings and he came across as component albeit a loyal party man. It was obvious he was conservative. His confirmation was a slam dunk. Sotomayor’s should be too in the same vein.

I was too broken up over the rampant elitism and sexism that sabotaged Harriet Miers’ nomination to the Court to pay any attention to the Alito nomination. As such, I don’t have much to add on the democratic opposition to Justice Alito. But man, there was more just a whiff of elitism and sexism coming from Harriet’s detractors. Sick. Makes me wonder if the same motivation is present today in regards to the Sotomayor nomination…..

Anyway from what I understand, Roberts and Alito are performing as expected and siding with movement conservative faction on the court. This Court has been dominated by conservatives for almost a generation making it laughable to say it is a runaway liberal court. If this is a runaway liberal court then logic dictates that Roberts and Alito must be part of the effing problem, right?

No, this is just more whiny and wimpy victim talk we are starting to see all too often out of this cast of characters.

That is all.

The Magnetic Refrigerator Poetry of Sarah Palin!

Oil, of coal, is a fungible commodity and they don’t flag, ya know, the molecules where, where it’s going to where it’s not but and in the, in the sense of the Congress today they know our very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first. So I believe that what Congress is going to do also is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it’s Americans who get stuck holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here, it’s gotta flow into our domestic markets first.

~ Sarah Palin

I don’t have a clue what she is talking about here. She may not either for that matter, but apparently she is supposed to be discussing Energy Policy.

John McCain and Newt Gingrich have called Sarah Palin the most knowledgeable conservative in America on energy issues. If this is true, and she is as good as the GOP can offer on the issue of Energy use in the 21st Century, we are in serious trouble here folks because it is more than obvious that she is incapable of managing a Walmart in Wasilla let alone determining our Nation's Energy Policy.

(h/t: CP)

The Media is still being MEAN to Sarah Palin

This time it is that Conan O'Brien character:

"Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin resigned yesterday, and during her speech, she was heckled. ... Apparently, it was just someone in Russia yelling, 'Keep it down over there!'"

I does not look like they are going to stop.

Limbaugh Castigates Fellow Bush Voters?

Let’s check the Tape:

"And there are people in this country, who are Americans, and have the same view of totalitarianism that all the worst regimes in the world have had. They just are a minority -- or have been a minority. And they have to be stealth to get anywhere, because who's gonna vote for torture, who's gonna vote for tyranny, who's gonna vote for dictatorship? But we did. We did, and you see it slowly encroaching. And if they could move faster on this, they would."

But wait a minute. As I recall, it was George Bush who tried to legalize torture as well as impose the unitary theory of executive power which holds that during war time if the President authorizes an action which is prohibited by law, then by definition such action becomes legal on the President’s say so.

Bush authorized torture and Limbaugh supported Bush to the max, then this leads to the conclusion that Limbaugh is part of this dangerous minority of which he warns. Is Limbaugh outing himself as part of the torture-tyranny faction within the country?

Bizarre Statement of the Day:

By Fmr Gov Sarah Palin scolding the media while officially abandoning her post:

"That is why our troops are willing to die for you. So, how about, in honor of the American soldier, ya' quit makin' things up?"

Though the attack on the media was greeted with applause, left unsaid was an explanation of what she was referring to. Maybe it was the "I can see Russia from my house" line that was jokingly attributed to her.

To bad there is not a transcript yet because I bet there were a lot more crazy quotes to mock in her speech.

Questions of the Day - What's wrong with Orrin Hatch and......

.........where the Hell are those Justice Sunday Rapscallions?

I seem to remember that this Justice Sunday crowd was quite vocal in the days of yore about defending judicial nominees from scurrilous charges and from bigotry whether it be real or imagined (usually imagined).

I only say this because I’ve learned that the esteemed Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has now come out publicly opposed to Judge Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, though he is unable to tell us why.

With this being said, I demand a public discussion of whether or not Anti-Catholic Bigotry has anything to do with opposition to the good judge.

I am not saying that Orrin has a problem here. I am only saying, just as Orrin has said in the past when defending judges nominated to the high court, that we should carefully consider the motivation of those opposing a nominee to see if bigotry is at play. Orrin has been pretty firm on this standard so it seems reasonable to follow his example.

So Orrin, how about you provide us an example from one the Judge's decisions that backs up your claim that she is unfit. If he can't do it........ maybe bigotry is at play. Just saying that he should live up to the standard he has set in the past.

Editors Note: This post is offered with satire in mind since it has actually been Orrin Hatch has who has been the one who played the religious bigotry card against democrats for opposing various Bush nominated judges.

Actually, we love Orrin Hatch, who verges on predictable hilarity as he takes to the airwaves to read the various talking points that the comintern from the NRO cook up. The dude is a Senator and he gets his talking points from right wing bloggers. How lame is that?

Quote of the Day III:

"President Bush has hit a home run by selecting Sam Alito. Anyone would be hard-pressed to name another nominee with such a sterling and distinguished record."

~ Sen. Orrin Hatch

How about Judge Sonia Sotomayor? Her record in terms of experience is at least comparable if not more distinguished than Judge Alito's.

What happend Orrin? Why did you go back on your word?

Quote of the Day II:

The duty of confirmation entrusted to all Senators requires we determine whether Judge Sotomayor has the legal experience and, more importantly, the judicial philosophy that properly equips her for service on the Supreme Court. I have done my best to leave politics aside and stay true to this standard during all twelve Supreme Court confirmations I have participated in. It saddens me to realize that after reviewing her record, I have reluctantly concluded that I cannot vote in favor of her confirmation.

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), explaining in a most weaselish manner why he will vote against Judge Sotomayor.

Riiiiiight Orrin. It is a matter of conscience according to Hatch. I have a bridge for sale too.

Quote of the Day: --- UPDATED

Way Back Then:

"When you have a man who has the decency, the legal ability and the capacities that Judge Alito has treated this way, I think it's despicable."

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, condemning the "very bitter partisanship" of the Democrats over Judge Sam Alito's nomination to the High Court.

Orrin has posited that he’s voted against two or three judges in his 27 years. What will he do on the Sotomayor nomination?

UPDATE: Apparently this is the first Justice Orrin will vote against. Orrin voted for Judge Thomas and was a big fan of Harriet Miers. Orrin won't vote for Sotomayor. Orrin has his reasons. Maybe Orrin will tell what those reasons are someday.

Low Blow Man, Low Blow

Quote of the Day:

On Sunday, Sarah Palin is "leaving office, and she will officially hand over her sash and her crown to her successor." ~David Letterman

Man, Letterman sure is mean to Sarah Palin. If he doesn't cut it out, she'll quit something again and maybe disappear from public life. Surely, he doesn't want that to happen.

It is a home run, Baby, a Home Run

Looks like Judge Sotomayor will get confirmed as the opposition failed to land a glove on her during the confirmation hearings last week. But that does not mean her critics are folding like Sarah Palin in stiff breeze, some are still swinging:

Judge Sotomayor deserves an A+ for brazen doublespeak. She emphatically rejected the lawless “empathy” standard for judging that President Obama used to select her, but she denied the plain import of her many statements contesting the possibility and desirability of judicial impartiality. She hid behind a ridiculously simplistic caricature of judging that embarrassed and disgusted her most vociferous backers, but she never recognized any meaningful bounds on the role of a Supreme Court justice. She gave a series of confused statements about the use of foreign law that are inconsistent with each other and that contradict a speech that she gave just three months ago.

~ Ed Whelan, NRO.

In other words she just talked as if Judging was like an umpire calling balls and strikes. If you thought CJ Roberts hit a home run during his confirmation hearing with all his baseball talk, this was a grand slam for Sonia, baby.

Everyone knows judges need to be like computers. Input the data, hit the enter key and bam, a decision appears on the screen. Everyone knows that all there is to judging is to apply the law to the facts. Or at least I’ve read this at the NRO, so it is undoubtedly TRUE!

To that end, Judge Sotomayor passes with flying colors.

US Chamber of Commerce abandons Greater Wingnuttia!

The Chamber has endorsed the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court:

The United States Chamber of Commerce today endorsed Sonia Sotomayor to be confirmed as a Supreme Court Associate Justice.

“Consistent with her recent testimony, we expect Judge Sotomayor to engage in fair and evenhanded application of the laws affecting American businesses,” said Thomas J. Donohue, U.S. Chamber President and CEO. “Through several years of experience as a law firm partner representing business interests, Judge Sotomayor has spent time considering the litigation environment from our point of view. With her unique experience as both a trial and appellate judge, Judge Sotomayor has seen firsthand the tremendous burdens that our legal system places on businesses.”

Man more bad news.

Earlier, word went out that Alberto Gonzales, Ken Starr and Ted Olson defected. Then it was ol’ Lindsey Grahamnesty (as he is affectionately referred in wingnuttia). Now this.

It just won’t stop.

Snake Oil for the Masses!!!

Here is K-Lo passing along wisdom this morning

President Obama and the Democrats have given Washington Republicans the perfect opportunity to illustrate for the public what it means to stand for fiscal responsibility, economic growth, individual liberty, and free markets, and how that combination can also point the way to creative and constructive policy solutions.

Let’s see just what this means.

• Fiscal Responsibility. But practicing Republican style fiscal responsibility created the national debt and crashed the economy.
• Economic Growth. For Wall Street, but certainly not for Main Street.
• Individual Liberty. But with legalized Torture.
• Free Markets. But without rules to protect people from being robbed blind.
• Constructive Solutions. Like the Constructive Policy Solutions that led to the Iraq War, to FEMA’s response to Hurricane Katrina, and to the near collapse of the World’s Financial System.

Truly inspiring. I think young folks, in particular, will flock to the GOP in large numbers after hearing this message. Shout it out Sister!

Mission Accomplished.......finally?

When reflecting back on the Bush Administration it is exceedingly difficult to figure out just what will be the greatest accomplishment of the Bush Administration.

I have an idea, maybe George Bush's greatest accomplishment will be that he convinces the American public that he should be last President from the Grasshopper Generation:

In 1969, baby boomers took podiums at college graduations around the country and pledged to redefine the world in their image.

Forty years later, they have, and now they are apologizing for it. Their collective advice for the class of 2009: Don't be like us.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, 60 years old, told the graduating class of Butler University last month that boomers have been "self-absorbed, self-indulgent and all too often just plain selfish."

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, 55, told Grinnell College graduates in Iowa that his was "the grasshopper generation, eating through just about everything like hungry locusts."

And Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, at 44 barely a boomer himself, told seniors at Colorado College that the national creed of one generation standing on the shoulders of the next was at risk "because our generation has not been faithful enough to our grandparents' example."

[…]

In his address at Colorado College, Sen. Bennet, a Democrat, used three figures to make his point about boomers' failures. Since the beginning of the decade, annual median family income in the U.S. declined by $300; health-care costs climbed by 80%; and the cost of higher education jumped 60%.

"We have limited the potential of future generations by burdening them with our poor choices and our unwillingness to make tough ones," Mr. Bennet said.

That theme echoed around the country. At Texas Tech University, CBS "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley, 51, told graduates: "I know you're looking up here at my generation and you're thinking, 'Great, thanks, just when it was our turn, you broke it." Speaking at the Boston College commencement last month, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns compared the divisiveness of this era with the Civil War period. In an interview, he said the boomers' tragedy was to "squander the legacy handed to them by the generation from World War II."

If George’s example can lead the nation to turn away from the wasteful ways of the past, I have to say Mission Accomplished George. Heckuva Job.

This is not a joke apparently

The NRO is starting a Healthcare Blog.

Healthcare reform is a complicated enough subject as it is without more propaganda being thrown into the mix. But if you want to make yourself stupid(er), go checkout the NRO Healthcare Disinformation Blog.

It is staffed by such healthcare experts as K-Lo and John Boehner. This one is sure to be a winner!

A Call for Creationists to be appointed to the High Court?

Now this is an interesting development, but not unpredictable. Pat Buchanan, who in veritably when looking at a man sees his tribe before his character, is calling for more diversity on the Supreme Court.

As it stands, Buchanan states, the 9 member Supreme Court will consist of 6 Catholic members 2 Jewish members and 1 Protestant member. Absent from this count are, according to Buchanan, Protestant Fundamentalists (and Atheists, Mormons, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc., but discussion of whether a member of one of these groups will ever participate on the High Court seems to have slipped Pat’s mind). Pat goes on:

(T)he most underrepresented group of Americans — nay, the most unrepresented minority, the largest group of our fellow citizens never to have had one of its own sit on the U.S. Supreme Court in the modern era is — Evangelical Christians.

They are more numerous than Catholics, who at 24 percent of the population have 67 percent of the seats on the court. And, for Republicans, they are a far more reliable voting bloc than Catholics — not to mention Hispanics, Jews and African-Americans, all of whom voted somewhere between two to one and 20 to one for Obama.

Bush II tried to close the Evangelical gap with Harriet Miers, but conservatives opposed her as unqualified.

Republicans should now be searching for highly qualified Evangelical Christian judges and constitutional scholars, women as well as men — and, when falsely accused of being “anti-Hispanic” or “anti-woman,” ought to reply: “What do you liberals have against white Christians, man or woman, not to have named one in 45 years?”

Everybody can play the diversity game.

First of all I don’t know what percentage of the population qualifies as Christian Fundamentalist. Pat say’s it exceeds 24%. I’ll cede the point because it does not really matter.

Let’s back track a little bit and review the facts. Of the 110 Supreme Court justices (soon to be 111), over 90 were or are identified as Protestant. Of these 90 plus, it’s hard to say how many were Creationists and/or Fundamentalists but odds are that a reasonable portion of the 90 would clear this hurdle.

As far as his call concerns ethnicity, of the 90 plus Protestants all but 1 were White! With this being said, I’d say the record shows a fair amount of representation on the Bench, meeting and far exceeding Pat’s quota call.

I knew this was going to happen eventually. I just thought it was going to be an Affirmative Action call for Wingnuts instead of Fundamentalists. Since the two groups overlap, I’ll take credit.

She’s got’em shaking in their shoes!

Did you ever wonder why some of the zanier characters on the web were deathly afraid of Judge Sotomayor? Afterall, she talked about baseball and calling balls and strikes all while hinting that all their was to judging cases is to simply apply to law to the facts and nothing more. Wingnuts love this kind of rhetoric.

So she comes across as a judge in the mainstream and hardly one to fear. But this is not so, we were told. And here is why:

At least three Sonia Sotomayors were portrayed before the Senate Judiciary Committee at its four-day confirmation hearing last week.

One was the shackled Sonia Sotomayor, a virtual slave to precedent who, as an appeals court judge, has no leeway to advance a personal agenda, even if she had one.

Then there was the activist Sonia Sotomayor painted by Republicans: the speechifying, empathy-exuding Latina with radical roots reaching back before she donned the judicial robe 17 years ago.

Finally, and for Republicans the scariest of all, was the soon-to-be-unleashed Sonia Sotomayor who will reveal her long-hidden liberal stripes once she joins a Supreme Court that can do absolutely anything it wants.

That’s it! Anything she wants to do. Get ready for a dose Judicial Activism Bitches! Or maybe not.

Mittmentum ! ! !

Willard Romney jumps out to a lead!

Number of the Day – 33%

(A) majority of Republicans now saying that they do not believe that Palin would be an effective president.

Only 33 percent of Republicans questioned in a CBS News survey released Monday night say that Palin would have the ability to serve effectively as president. Last fall, 71 percent of registered Republicans felt that way. ~ Link.

Low polling numbers among Republicans, may be one of the reasons why Mike Huckabee recently raised the possibility of the Sarah quitting the Republican Party, too. While she seems to quit most things starts, I don’t think she’ll abandon the GOP. I think she’s in it until she's run out of it.

This explains it

That is it may explain why Dick Cheney has been in such a foul mood lately. Haliburton has been shut out of Afghanistan:

One of the Defense Department's largest contractors has failed in its bid for a pair of lucrative task orders for logistical support work in Afghanistan that could be worth up to $15 billion.

[...]

The former Halliburton subsidiary is the largest contractor in Iraq but has been repeatedly criticized by lawmakers for poor contract performance and questionable bookkeeping.

KBR's checkered record in Iraq could be at the heart of the Army's decision this week, according to Sen. Byron Dorgan. The North Dakota Democrat said Pentagon officials told his office on Tuesday that "past performance and cost" criteria drove their decision to bypass KBR.

The thing about Haliburton was that it did have a decent reputation at one time. But alas, thatwas before it got mixed up with the likes of Dick Cheney and George Bush.

Cleanup on Aisle's 1 through 872 please

One of my favorite bloggers on the wingnut-O-sphere has to be Victor Davis Hanson. Apparently VDH is quite a movie fan!

Over the last eight years we saw Fahrenheit 911, Syriana, Redacted, Rendition, Stop Loss, Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah, and a host of other movies released about the U.S. war on terror and the Iraqi conflict. The general theme was that George Bush lied and so destroyed the Constitution and put us into Iraq, where we are waging an amoral war, among other unmentionables.

Now, I have not seen any of these movies, but one does not need to watch movies to know that Bush was a total screw-up. It was perfectly obvious without the cinema. But if VDH has broaden his horizons some, hats off to him.

But this really isn’t his point. His main whine centers around the fact that Obama has not cleaned up all of Bush’s mess instantaneously and Hollywood (according to VDH) is not outraged. Guantanamo still exists. The Iraq is still broken. This is correct. But the clean up has begun. Rendition theoretically exists albeit in a more limited fashion. Torture is once again outlawed. Tribunals for terror suspects are to proceed albeit not in defiance of habeaus rights and the Supreme Court.

All these disasters were inherited from the previous administration occurring mainly within the first 6 years of the Bush Presidency. I think the public gets it this disaster did not happen overnight but rather was many years in the making. Thus it will be many years to clean it up.

Quote of the Day:

President Obama is growing government outrageously, and it's immoral and it's uneconomic, his plan that he tries to sell America. His plan to "put America on the right track" economically, incurring the debt that our nation is incurring, trillions of dollars that we're passing on to our kids, expecting them to pay off for us, is immoral and doesn't even make economic sense. So his growth of government agenda needs to be ratcheted back, and it's going to take good people who have the guts to stand up to him, stand up to him and debate policy, not personalities, not partisan politics, but policy to effect the change that we need there. And allow free enterprise and the industrious Americans who run our small businesses and want to raise a family, allowing our families to grow and prosper and thrive, Americans who still believe in those ideals to get in there and effect change.

~ Sarah Palin, lowering the white flag of retreat and surrender for the moment and going on the offensive.

Uneconomic?

Sarah Palin got a D in economics at one of the many colleges she attended and it does not appear that anything she has done or said has demonstrated an improvement in her understanding of economics since then.

If Sarah does not like Government Debt, she really must hate supply-side economics. Because before the supply-siders implemented their plan, the Debt was about 1 trillion or less and we had fought and won two world wars, and put a man on the moon. Today, just 28 years later the debt is over 10 Trillion. If Sarah believes that debt is immoral, she must really hate George Bush and the supply-siders he ran with.

Deregulate to Stimulate makes a comeback?

Back in olden times while the economy was tanking, credit markets frozen and risk of another depression a possibility, I recall a bizarre plan to fix the economy (hat would be February of 2009 that I’m referring to). Some very wise men from the NRO suggested that the way to address this grave economic situation (aka The Great Bush Bust) would lay in the hands of greater deregulation.

I phrased their grand plan as “Deregulate to Stimulate.” As more deregulation was enacted the great Bush Bust would turn into a Bush Boom. Starting with getting the government off the backs of those creative folks on Wall Street, presumably would be a start. Oh the good ole days!

Well the same fine folks are back at it with more Deregulate to Stimulate talk while wondering just why people are not jumping on this band wagon. Seriously, the economy is in its biggest contraction since 1945 and folks at the NRO are wondering why the public is not clamoring for implementing more of the same policies that led us into this giant mess.

The next post I read could be a lamentation wondering why people are not pining for George Bush, too.

And a Sleaze Ball to Lead Them

Ralph Reed, a Republican from its Theocratic Wing has a new gig in Mind.

"One of the most controversial and successful figures of late 20th century politics wants to expand his brand to the 21st. Ralph Reed believes conservative voters of faith need a Christian Coalition 2.0. And the man once dubbed the “right hand of God” by Time magazine is returning to the arena where he had his greatest success to try and make it so.

This is not going to be your daddy's Christian Coalition. It has to be younger, hipper, less strident, more inclusive and it has to harness the 21st century that will enable us to win in the future... It's the political analog to the iPod and the iPhone. It would be cool. It would be transformative. It would transform our politics and bring younger people to our ranks. All of those are critical imperatives."

I think I heard this already from Michael Steele. Maybe they should just combine forces…..oh wait I think they already did (example see Palin, Sarah).

Anyway of Righteous Ralph many dastardly deeds, I think the best one has to be pocketing $4M in Gambling proceeds from one casino interest to turn out the faithful against another casino interest. You see it is only a sin when the other guy is pocketing the cash. That one was Wickedly Righteous! Hats off to Ralph.

But while Righteous Ralph has been successful in the past, I’m not sure that he can keep fooling the same people over and over again. There has to be a limit.

Sotomayor hearing start today

Quote of the day II:

"I think philosophically her statements indicate an approach to judging that is outside the mainstream." Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III (R-AL).

Sessions, if you may remember from the 90s, was himself nominated to be a federal judge. His confirmation was denied by a Republican controlled Senate. Suppression of African American voting rights in the formerly confederate south was at issue, I believe at the time.

Now Jeff Sessions, claims innocence with regard to such a scurrilous claim and further he avers that such falsity denied his confirmation to the bench. While being a victim, such as Sessions says he was, he’s learned from this experience. More so, Jefferson claims that being a victim of nefarious innuendo, such as he may well have been, has given him the ability to conduct the hearings in a more fair manner. I don’t know if the allegation were true and let’s suppose that they were not true but rather false in all material regards.

Just because Jefferson grew up and rose to prominence in the deep south where African Americans were kept from the polls by violence, intimidation and other such means does not necessarily mean that Jefferson himself participated in this shameful activity. It is not fair to stigmatize Jefferson with the dishonorable conduct of men from the past just because of his heritage alone. Quite unfair.

I think Jefferson has a point. As a victim of such an attack and with the richness of this experience, Jefferson is now in a position to appreciate the need for fair hearing free of innuendo and falsity more so than someone who does not have this experience. That is his point anyway. I think it make sense.

Let’s see if an enlightened Jefferson Beauregard Session III with the richness of his experience can live up the Session’s Empathy Standard this week.

Quote of the Day:

"It's a wrong and shameful criminalizing political differences," Mr. King said during an interview with The Washington Times. "I would find it very hard to work with the administration on bipartisan issues if the attorney general and the administration start going after patriotic Americans who have dedicated their lives to protecting us."

Congressman Peter King (R-NY) ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, calling for a "scorched-earth policy" against the administration if it pursues such an investigation of Dick Cheney and others who authorized torture. He labels this an effort to appease Europeans and U.S. intellectuals.

It is always the same with these guys. It is fear and us versus them.

Another one for crazy house

“(W)e’re about where Germany was before World War II where they became a social democracy. You still had votes but the votes were just power grabs like you see in Iran, and other places in South America, like Chavez is running down in Venezuela.”

~ Congressman Jim DeMint (R-SC)

What is wrong with these people? It must be hell to go through life impulsively comparing everyday events to the rise of Nazi Germany. This should be a treatable condition.

More Crazy Quotes Here.

The Disaster that was the Bush Administration - Chapter 238 Favoring Fundamentalism over Fact.

Continuing with our 37,551 part series documenting that tragic reign of error that is known as the Bush Administration we introduce a new chapter today. Apparently Scientists now favor the Democratic Party to the Republican Party by a 9 to 1 ratio. Or so says a new poll:

Politics may play some role in the positive way the scientists surveyed judge the times.

More than half of the scientists surveyed (55%) say they are Democrats, compared with 35% of the public. Fully 52% of the scientists call themselves liberals; among the public, just 20% describe themselves as liberals. Many of the scientists surveyed mentioned in their open-ended comments that they were optimistic about the Obama administration’s likely impact on science.
For its part, the public does not perceive scientists as a particularly liberal group. When asked whether they think of scientists as liberal, conservative or neither in particular, nearly two-thirds (64%) choose the latter option. Just 20% say they think of scientists as politically liberal. However, a majority of scientists (56%) do see members of their profession as liberal.

Most scientists had heard at least a little about claims that government scientists were not allowed to report research findings that conflicted with the Bush administration’s point of view.

Now I don’t know what the percentages of GOP to Dem were before the Bush Administration but it couldn’t have been this lop sided. But Bush’s steely determination to suppress facts in favor of ideology has to have something to do with it. With that being said, I’m adding Favoring Fundamentalism over Facts to the colossal list of failures that occurred during the Disastrous Reign of Error known as the Bush Administration.

Does this prove that Global Warming is a Hoax? No doubt some would say yes.

Heckuva Job Junior.

Now it gets worse

It has to be tough to be a wingnut these day if your mission is to derail the nomination of Judge Sotomayor.

First we heard Ken Starr and Ted Olson were backing her. The esteemed Abu Gonzales jumped on board. Then it was GHW Bush and the American Bar Association.

Now it is 1100 Law Professors that are publically supporting her.

With each and every day you get a legion of new enemies uniting against Grand The Cause. Pretty soon its going to seem like the anti-Sotomayor forces are not unlike the remnant of Japanese soldiers holding out on a remote island long after WWII ended.

Like I said, it must be tough to be a wingnut these days.

Alberto Gonzales Nails New Job…….Finally

News on the streets has it that after 2 years of searching, that AbuGonz has reeled in big post at Texas Tech University. And no he’s not working at the book store or anything like that, he’ll be teaching and doing education related things.

Gonzo won’t be teaching contracts, torts, property, or an advanced symposium on jurisdiction. Rather, he’ll be working in the university’s political science department, teaching a “special topics” course on contemporary issues in the executive branch.

The law related classes should be definitely off limits I’d say. Presumably the course on the executive branch will be centered on “What Not To Do When in Office.”

All I can say is that Texas Tech must’ve landed some stimulus funding or maybe some funds from an updated version of Operation Bootstrap. Failing these explanations, one should suspect that someone at Texas Tech owed George Bush a favor and Bush wanted Alberto out of his hair.

Quote of the Day:

"It's an emotional day. A lot of us are still mourning the loss of one of America's most entertaining figures, who left us all too soon. But don't worry, folks, Sarah Palin will be back. ... Comedians everywhere are praying." ~ Conan O'Brien

This is going to leave a mark

Looks like the ABA has given Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor its highest rating. While this is unsurprising (I think only Bork and Thomas graded poorly for obvious reasons), it is sure to cause consternation for some on the Right.

Let’s recap some of the arguments against Sotomayor. So far we heard everyone from “She is a Racist” to “she uses too many words” as a critique of the Judge.

I don’t want to go too far out on a limb, but I don’t think a bogus racism charge along with criticism of her writing style is going to cut it. It looks to me like it is time to pull a Sarah Palin and run the old White Flag up the pole and retreat in a different direction. Just my two cents.

Headline of the Day:

Study: US Dead Last in Voter Registration

The United States is one of a few democratic nations that place the entire burden of registering to vote on individual citizens. Today, one-quarter to one-third of all eligible Americans remain unregistered — and thus are unable to cast ballots that will count. Even Americans who are registered risk being blocked from casting a ballot because of problems with our voter registration system — unprocessed registrations, inaccurate purges of names from the voter rolls, and other administrative and human errors. The registration system is as much a problem for the dedicated civil servants who administer our elections as it is for voters. It is costly, inefficient, and insufficiently accurate….

Looks like we need to get more Cash to ACORN and pronto!

Think how bad this problem would be without ACORN and other groups that help register people to participate in our democracy. It looks like some people owe an appology to ACORN.

Quote of the Day:

"I know that I know that I know that this is the right thing for Alaska."

~ Sarah Palin on her decision to abandon her post.

Yellow Liberal Rag Alert Number 2

Our advice after the election last year was that Mrs. Palin spend two years out of the limelight, tending to her Alaskan duties and studying national issues. Last year's campaign showed she didn't understand economics any better than Mr. McCain -- a very low bar -- and her responses on too many issues sounded like half-baked spin rather than sincere judgments that she herself had reached or understood. No doubt Mr. McCain's backbiting campaign team didn't help her -- we hope the next nominee bars them all -- but every candidate is ultimately responsible for her own performance.

Ronald Reagan changed the national debate, and for three decades Republicans have been able to utter bromides about "liberals" and "big government" and get away with it. After the financial meltdown and long recession, those days are over. The GOP nominee in 2012 will need an explanation for how we got into this mess that goes beyond mimicking Democrats about "Wall Street greed," as well as an agenda for how to restore U.S. prosperity. President Obama will take credit for any recovery, however sluggish, and Republicans will need more than a critical riff about spending and budget deficits.

On the evidence so far, Mrs. Palin isn't yet up to that task. Whether she will be in two years, or six or 10, will depend on whether she's willing to do the hard policy work that can add substance to her natural political talents.

So many Enemies so little time. This time it is the notorious leftist operation known as the Wall Street Journal’s Op Ed page.

Now that she has abandoned her post, and will need to do "hard policy work" to earn credibility, I'm predicting that Sarah will take an easier path. Maybe a TV gig... something like a version of a Jerry Springer show would be the ticket.