David Sirota on what it takes for the Beltway media to label someone a Serious Policy Thinker, using Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-CT) as a perfect example:
“In her 12 terms in Congress — the longest tenure in the state’s history — [she] has earned a reputation as a serious policy thinker on health care and social [...]

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Washington’s such a company town
And Dana is such a company clown.

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Will Bunch deserves one for this open letter to David Broder:
… The night I became angry came in March 2003, the night that your friends and colleagues in the White House press room took a dive at a nationally televised press conference, and refused to challenge the president’s specious grounds for war. I was furious [...]

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Bush just got asked what, exactly, his administration did before 9/11 to deal with al Qeada.
He didn’t answer. Wonder why?

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He’s done. (John Bolton.)

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Rep. Melissa Hart (R-4) is a Pennsylvania wingnut, and I just heard her argue on the floor of the house that we especially can’t allow minors to have abortions without parental notification in case of rape or incest “because then we end up hiding the crimes of rape and incest.”
I swear to God, I’m not [...]

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Actually, more of a steady hiss:
Home prices nationwide declined last month for the first time in more than a decade, raising new concerns about the real estate slump and the damage it might do to the rest of the economy.
The 1.7% decline in the median price of existing homes sold in August was the first [...]

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Look, when our children and grandchildren want to know why no one did anything about this, what are you going to tell them? Call your senators, you don’t have anything to do today that’s more important:
1-866-808-0065
Republican lawmakers and the White House agreed over the weekend to alter new legislation on military commissions to allow the [...]

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Shorter Condi Rice:
Did too!

I wonder why no one’s ever mentioned it before. Guess it took them that long to fabricate the records…

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Must have touched a nerve:
Trent Lott Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) is threatening to punish Democrats for using an Appropriations Committee room for an unofficial hearing on Iraq oversight if it happens again.
“They better stop this,” the Mississippi Republican said. “This will be the last one or there will be retribution.”
Lott suggested that Republicans [...]

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Health care is a major industry in Philadelphia. Can we afford to have such a sudden drop in heart-attack revenue?
DALLAS (Reuters) - A Colorado city ban on smoking at workplaces and in public buildings may have sparked a steep decline in heart attacks, researchers reported on Monday.
In the 18 months after a no-smoking ordinance took [...]

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Better late than never, I suppose:
Almost half of all Americans believe the November elections have more influence than market forces. For them, the plunge at the pump is about politics, not economics.
Retired farmer Jim Mohr of Lexington, Ill., rattled off a tankful of reasons why pump prices may be falling, including the end of [...]

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Did you watch Keith last night? [Click here for video.] From the transcript:
It is not important that the current President’s “portable public chorus” has described his predecessor’s tone as “crazed.”
Our tone should be crazed. The nation’s freedoms are under assault by an administration whose policies can do us as much damage as Al-Qaeda; the nation’s [...]

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Miss Molly, who’s fighting her third round with cancer (if you’re the praying kind, say one, and if you’re not, hold a good thought for her), on the torture bill:
I was interested to find that the Rev. Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition is so in favor of torture he told McCain that the [...]

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Tim Dickinson at Rolling Stone on the McCain “compromise” (I hear St. John agreed to use different cover sheets for his TPS reports, and now everyone’s happy):
A quick survey of it’s most transparently terrible provisions:
Geneva gives no enforceable rights:
(a) IN GENERAL.—No person may invoke the Geneva Conventions or any protocols thereto in any [...]

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“Do, or do not. There is no ‘try.’” - Jedi Master Yoda
Such classic Arlen Specter:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A leading Republican senator on Monday said he will fight to give detainees the right to challenge their imprisonment, creating a new potential obstacle for legislation President George W. Bush wants in order to try terrorism suspects.
Senate Judiciary [...]

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From the Justice Project on the attempt to suspend the writ of habeus corpus:
Regular order — which assures that both Chambers of Congress have a fair opportunity to consider the legislation — has been skirted; indeed, some of these provisions have never been examined by any Committee in any chamber of Congress, and all of [...]

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Hiring Americans? Who ever heard of such a thing?
AT&T announced a strategic move last week that might be a win-win for US workers and AT&T home broadband customers. The telecom giant announced that it will do away with its foreign call centers that have long been ridiculed by customers and will instead create 2,000 new [...]

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Kevin Drum has a good solution to the photo ID voting requirement - one Republicans won’t like.
And he nails the class distinctions pretty well, too.

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Eric Alterman:
There are too many problems with the mainstream media to say the sentence “The problem with the MSM is…” If you ask me what its biggest problem is, however, I would say it is its ahistoricism. Here we have three stories in which the CIA concludes that the invasion of Iraq has increased the [...]

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Call your senator toll-free at 1 866 808 0065. Tell him or her to protect the writ of habeus corpus and to say no to torture by voting no on the pending legislation:

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If you live in PA, call these legislators about attempts to undermine net neutrality via state legislation. The hearing is tomorrow.
They’re counting on getting it in under the radar, so don’t let them.

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More of that “running government like a crooked, sleazy business” we all like so much. Read this part first:
As a follow-up to the earlier post on Medicare’s donut holes, an e-mail from Jon Cohn reminds me of the recent New England Journal of Medicine study that found Medicare plans with caps on drug benefits actually [...]

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The PA Green candidate, backed by the GOP to draw votes away from Bob Casey and help Santorum, is off the ballot. Too many bogus signatures…

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Just watched an hour or so of the Democratic Senate minority hearings on Iraq war planning and man, it sure is one big clusterfuck, innit? The Republicans really do believe in neocon fairies - overthrow the regime and peace will come! Just clap your hands! Louder! Do you believe in democracy? Don’t let democracy die [...]

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I was at the Constitution Center today to hear Russ Feingold speak in Move On’s “Progressive Vision for America” series. (Al Gore’s remarkable speech at the Constitution Center in D.C. last winter was the first.)
Local bloggers - myself, Chris Bowers and Booman - got to meet briefly with the Senator before his speech.
I like Feingold; [...]

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I’m going to be celebrating my birthday this Saturday night (probably at Higher Grounds on N. 3rd St.), and thought some of you might like to join in the festivities. If you think you’ll be there, let me know in the comments so I can tell them how many to expect.

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I didn’t think there was anything Bill Scher (Liberal Oasis) could say in his new book that would make me feel any better, especially after the past week.
I was wrong.
“Wait! Don’t Move to Canada: A Stay-and-Fight Strategy to Win Back America” is a very, very, very good book. It’s filled with common sense, keen [...]

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Thanks to the work we’ve done in Afghanistan, the Taliban is stronger than ever and a good woman is dead:
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Two gunmen on a motorbike killed the provincial director of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs outside her home Monday in apparent retribution for her efforts to help educate women, officials said.
Safia Ahmed-jan [...]

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