Midday Open Thread
by mcjoan
Wed Jan 16, 2008 at 11:45:47 AM PDT
- Today is Day One of a five-day series by the staff at the ACLU on the "greatest unsung hits of the FISA debate," wherein they will highlight some of the best and most-overlooked news articles on FISA and warrantless wiretapping.
- After last night's debate moderating performance, I can only wholeheartedly agree with Yglesias:
Actually, the balls Russert favors may be hard, but the pitches he throws aren't curveballs, which go someplace useful. They're sillyballs, which go somewhere pointless. Russert has created a strike zone of his own where toughness meets irrelevance.
- Anyone paying any attention already knew this, but it's good to have empirical evidence:
Democratic presidential candidates are more in step than their Republican counterparts on what Americans want in a health care system overhaul, said authors of a new voter survey. The survey, put together by the Commonwealth Fund — a nonprofit group that promotes better public access to health care — shows that more than 80 percent of those surveyed, regardless of their political party, supported the idea that all employers should be required to provide health care to their workers or pay into a government-run fund to provide the care.
- Time for another blogger ethics panel. There are so many levels to this little story. First,
a Newsday columnist and Fox News contributoris now officially a senior adviser for Huckabee. Will he disclose that on every column and in every Fox appearance? [Update: Think Progress has updated their post--Pinkerton has resigned from Fox and has "given up" his column.] Right. Then there's his name, Pinkerton, which is just far too ironic, when you read this:PINKERTON: You asked me what I would do about American Muslims. Answer is I’d put a cop in front of every mosque until I was completely satisfied nothing was going on there.
- Did Bill O'Reilly really volunteer Fox News services in housing homeless veterans?
- In a decision that doesn't bode well for the voting rights case being considered by the SCOTUS, they decided to uphold New York's corrupt selection process for judicial candidates. Justice Scalia speaks out in favor of smoke-filled rooms and one-party rule:
"Party conventions, with their attendant 'smoke-filled rooms' and domination by party leaders, have long been an accepted manner of selecting party candidates," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, in a decision that provided ample reminders that judges are politicians as well as somber, black-robed jurists.... "The reason one-party rule is entrenched may be (and usually is) that voters approve of the positions and candidates that the party regularly puts forward," Justice Scalia wrote.
Adam B has more on this case.
- Congress won't stand in the way of a $123 million arms sale to Saudi Arabia that includes sophisticated precision bombs. Why do I have a weird feeling that as a result of this,
the Saudis may have a change of heart when it comes to producing more oil? Will we ever learn? [Scout Finch]
- In the bad mental image department, we have:
Bush said his 32 percent approval rating — the "worst approval rating of his career" — won’t stop him from ignoring the public will:
Q: But is George W. Bush still relevant? ... He hasn’t had majority support in three years. He laughed off my question about that.
BUSH: So what am I supposed to do? Go in the fetal position because of your polls?
[Plutonium Page]
- Robert Gates says that NATO forces don't know how to fight in Afghanistan:
In an unusual public criticism, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said he believes NATO forces currently deployed in southern Afghanistan do not know how to combat a guerrilla insurgency, a deficiency that could be contributing to the rising violence in the fight against the Taliban.
"I'm worried we're deploying [military advisors] that are not properly trained and I'm worried we have some military forces that don't know how to do counterinsurgency operations," Gates said in an interview.
[Plutonium Page]
- Remember to give to Mark Pera's primary challenge to Bush Dog Dan Lipinski! PeteB2 has extended his challenge by a day: If we can get to 3,333 total ActBlue contributions for Mark Pera by midnight tonight, PeteB2 will contribute an extra $333.33. We're over 3,125 now - we can do this thing. [MissLaura]
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