That’s It?

10:01 pm EST January 31st, 2006 | Politics | 16 Comments

Even though its usually evil stuff, Bush usually pulls out a hail mary for these kind of events (privatizing social security, going to war with Iraq) — but this speech seems like a big nothing.

The Death Of Social Security Privatization

9:01 pm EST January 31st, 2006 | Politics | 11 Comments

A year ago, he had capital to spend. This year, it’s a footnote in his speech:

Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security, yet the rising cost of entitlements is a problem that is not going away and with every year we fail to act, the situation gets worse. So tonight, I ask you to join me in creating a commission to examine the full impact of Baby Boom retirements on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. This commission should include Members of Congress of both parties, and offer bipartisan answers.

A “commision” to study it? What is the sound of a dream dying?

What about going to Mars. C’mon, Mars, bitches!

UPDATE: George Bush has the amazing ability to prompt “I know he didn’t just…” moments. I had one of those where he says in effect, “Yeah I spied on Americans without a warrant and I’ll do it again… because, well, just because”.

Oh no he didn’t.

UPDATE 2: We’re going to cut the deficit in half by 2009? You know it was zero before you got into office, right George?

Factoid Of The Day

2:01 pm EST January 31st, 2006 | News | 19 Comments

I remain unconvinced of the value of a filibuster – though I certainly don’t believe the hype about its negative consequences (What, Republicans may finally start saying mean things about Democrats?). But this factoid shows how spineless the Dems have become:

Had everyone who opposed Alito backed a filibuster, he wouldn’t be a Supreme Court Justice today.

It instead they voted for him before they voted against him.

Topic: Supreme Court

Why Black Conservatives Are Ridiculous

2:01 pm EST January 31st, 2006 | Politics | 38 Comments

Project 21, December 2001

[Martin Luther] King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, appears to have made a profession at being a widow in mourning, and used that stature to milk as much money as possible for herself and her family from an unsuspecting public.

Project 21, Today

Members of the black leadership network Project 21 are mourning the passing of Coretta Scott King. Project 21 members praise her legacy of exhibiting strong family unity in the face of great personal tragedy and for maintaining her husband’s dream of equal rights for all.

Phony would be one way to describe these bunch of hucksters, but that would be way too nice.

One Alito Upside

12:01 am EST January 31st, 2006 | Politics | 19 Comments

Every dark cloud has occasional silver lining. NARAL’s boy Lincoln Chaffee voted for cloture but will vote against Alito and that has made the cons angry. Steve Laffey is the right wing loon being pushed by the big pockets at the right-wing Club for Growth, and even though the RNC realizes the only way to keep hold of the Rhode Island senate seat is to have someone relatively moderate like Chaffee in there- to the point where they’ve run ads bashing Laffey, the GOP base may just push Laffey over the top.

This is good for Democrats. Because it then makes one of the slightly competitive senate seats into a very competitive one, with Democrats Matt Brown or Sheldon Whitehouse offering themselves up as candidates more in line with Rhode Island’s temperament (RI went 60-39 for Kerry).

So, go Steve Laffey!

Chris Matthews is Off His Meds

11:01 pm EST January 30th, 2006 | News | 13 Comments

He has accused Senator Kennedy of.. “molesting” Mrs. Alito.

What the hell is wrong with that guy? And why does NBC/Universal employ someone who would say something so insane?

Topic: Liberal Media

Alito & The Blogs

9:01 pm EST January 30th, 2006 | News | 20 Comments

Kevin Drum is asking what the confirmation of Alito means for the emerging liberal blogosphere.

Certainly I think it speaks volumes that Washington – that is the elected Democrats and the insular consultants who feed on their failure – still sees blogs as an ATM and not yet a part of their message machine. I think it’s clear that blogs are the liberal version of talk radio (you get more mileage out of getting something on Atrios, Dailykos, etc. than you would on Air America right now, for instance) and if Democratic politicians were remotely interested in doing something more than add some bling bling to their campaign coffers, they’d really work the blogosphere (John Kerry, this means you, who all of a sudden “discovered” blogging last week).

But I think the failure to even present a remotely coherent case against Samuel Alito falls squarely on the head of the legal eagles on the progressive side. The primary reason for groups like People for the American Way, Alliance for Justice, etc. to exist is to be the front line of defense for Supreme Court nominations. These guys were around a long time before anyone had a freaking clue what blogging or the internet were.

It speaks volumes when you fail at your organization’s primary mission. Not that their mission was to stop Alito – I don’t know that that was ever possible simply because we didn’t have the numbers – but that Roberts and Alito both sailed through the process unassailed. The Republicans had Progress for America and the Committee for Justice (among others) on their roster – and the left just got rolled.

Why? For the same reason the national Democrats have been getting rolled – they’re fat and dumb and playing the game by the rules of the ancient. An election is a contest of each party’s ability to get the faithful energized and the swing vote convinced. Something like a supreme court nomination, the intracacies of which bore the heck out of Joe America (for good reason) are supposed to be the kind of thing that a political movement can rally around.

Somehow I don’t think the progressive legal infrastructure has been girding up all these years in order to produce the Phil A. Buster cartoon.

It’s amazing how broken the whole thing is. Time to take a match and burn the danged thing down.

Topic: Supreme Court

Can’t Help Themselves

3:01 pm EST January 30th, 2006 | Politics | 57 Comments

~~We know they seem to be predisposed towards this sort of thing, but does the Republican party think its a good idea to hold a party where they’ll be hanging and beating a black politician in effigy?~~

UPDATE: Looks like it may be a hoax.