Michael Steele. How in the world does this guy still have that job?! And there's nothing about Sarah Palin yet today (or did I miss it?). The Republican Dawg and pwny show is getting really embarrassing. I know, "getting", hah!

* Glenn Beck was outraged yesterday about Sotomayor receiving softball questions during her first day of hearings. Sotomayor wasn't asked any questions yesterday.

Exactly! It doesn't get any softer than that!

Hey, Steve, you didn't mention the most hilarious bit of trivia related to the guy refusing to deploy because he's a Birther -- his lawyer is none other than Orly Taitz.

If you all are not familiar with Mrs. Polly's ongoing series of posts on the inimitable Orly Taitz, at Rumproast, read this:

http://www.rumproast.com/index.php/site/comments/fainting_goats_for_freedom/

Then read the rest. The illustrations are brilliant.

My husband served in the USAF ( and before when it was the Army Air Corps). I believe that no one should follow illegal orders...that's why we had the trials after WW11 ....BUT if he doesn't want to follow orders than he should be court martialed...and if found guilty go to prison! And since this is whole thing is idiotic...he would go to prison...maybe he is bringing suit in hopes of avoiding a court martial!

Maybe I should have withheld the guilty verdict til after the trial! But as the Red Queen said...verdict first...and then we'll try him. Or something like that.

i'd just like to point out to hilzoy -- with a great deal of respect and admiration, appreciation and thanks -- that the short list above is indicative of the fact that this country is still loon-crazy, and we still need her wisdom desperately and on a regular basis.

Office holders should be able to travel free of having to "report in" to whatever media busybody appoints himself their keeper, so long as they are not neglecting their official duties. That was the problem with Gov. Sanford's disappearance--he is supposed to turn the reins of office over to the Lt. Gov. whenever he leaves the state. If Congress isn't in session, the Republic will survive if I don't know at every moment where my representative is. These people (and we sometimes forget that they ARE people) have a reasonable expectation of some privacy and personal time. Because they have placed themselves in the public eye and draw their paycheck from the public does diminish their right to privacy, but it does not totally abolish it.

Day-yam, where was Cook when we needed him back in the Viet Nam era? Young men of draft age would have paid him a fortune for that idea. "I can't deploy, Lyndon Johnson once referred to 'the glorious sovereign state of Texas*' which means he's a secessionist who has renounced his American citizenship and can't be a legal President. Therefore my orders are illegal." "Has anyone seen Richard Nixon's real, ORIGINAL birth certificate? Can he prove that both his parents were human? Extraterrestrials are not eligible for U.S. citizenship."

*Remark that any Texas politician must have said at some time or another

* Glenn Beck was outraged yesterday about Sotomayor receiving softball questions during her first day of hearings. Sotomayor wasn't asked any questions yesterday. -- Steve Benen

Beck is an idiot but... Some years ago, I watched Roberts' confirmation hearings. The actual questions part, not the introductory preening, like yesterday. And there was Biden, bless his heart... Yammer, yammer, yammer, clarify the question and each of its sub-clauses... see how clever and witty I am... You could see the grin on Roberts' face grow and grow and grow because, by the time Biden took a breath suggesting he was ready to actually hear an answer.. his time was up.

My point is this: If Beck had seen that part of Roberts' hearings, he might have been excused for thinking that running off at the mouth by a Senator constitutes "questioning".

what I saw during the confirmation hearings is this:

Republicans made it known that they are the whites are the superior, dominate race.

It is the whites that can make her or break her.

****It just really showed that this hearing is merely race-based.
This is just a pre-view to the new face of America. Everything will be based on your race, not just social status, but race.

****Seems when the GOP were making money, they had no complaints about Latinos. Now, here in Cali they are talking about reinstating Prop 187.

Gallop Trollop,

Michael Steele's days are numbered. We all know that with the GOP, if you can't meet their expectations/goals, you will be thrown under the bus.

The way the Sotomayor confirmation hearings are going, they are sure to lose the Latino Vote.

The website that is calling the Obama girls and family "ghetto thugs," and "when will the Obama girls get their first abortion..." surely they will lose the Afro Vote.

A Prediction:

global warming to resume in about 2020

And to resume at a rate of about 0.1C per decade.

Many interesting details in the comments, including links to dynamic and regression modeling.

Ah, nuts

global warming to resume in about 2020

and for redundancy:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/warminginterrupted-much-ado-about-natural-variability/

BTW, people from India are silently protesting the GOP.

see www.pastheroti.com/posts/139

this is about Indian guy arrested for assaulting police/deported - it all started over a fireworks gathering without a permit. The title is Asian-Indians Face Off With Police Allies.

The problem with confirmation hearings for the SC is that it's an unfair contest. There isn't a senator on either side of the aisle who can grill Judge Sotomayor on con law. It's a job for an experienced Federal Judge, a con law professor or a really expeienced member of the SC bar. This applies to previous nominees like Alito and Roberts as well. These are people who have spent the past 30 years honing their reasoning skills, debating skills and lawyering. I don't care where you went to law school 40 years ago, or what you did after, you are going up against a potential hall-of-famed at the height of her powers who has had six weeks to train. I don't care how smart you are, you're still an amateur going up against an in season professional, you don't have a prayer. If you really want to 'get' a SC nominee, hire a lawyer to do the questioning, it's your only shot.

I am reminded of the scene from the West Wing when when Leo tells the staff that the President has hired a lawyer to defend him. josh says 'why does he need an outside lawyer? I'm a lawyer, we're all lawyers' and Leo (I think) says 'no, we went to law school, he needs an actual lawyer'

Chris Mathews wheezing as he laughs...not once, not twice, but several times...like a giddy schoolkid...he's so full of manic like energy, and he's REALLY damn lucky he gets paid so well to let it out...Too bad his intellect doesn't match up.

Wouldn't Beck's response to having the fact presented to him have to be: "Seewhudameen?"

Steve, I just have to say that as I read through your daily mini-reports, I alternately want to laugh and cry. Lately more of the latter.

Is it just me or is the news just getting more and more absurd? Or maybe it's just the voracity of the absurdness, crashing with no mercy relentlessly upon our shores...

In any case, you are doing amazing work...thanks again and again for bringing the truth to light.

Vis today's inquisitions of Sotomayor by Sessions and Grassley... I'm hoping that the "achoo" bill, which the House has drafted today, has a provision in it; "A Republican Special Effort" (ARSE), it might, perhaps, be called. For a *really small* co-pay, every Republican politician (and pundick) would be eligible for a surgery -- a shortening of the tongue, so that they no longer step over it every time they open their mouths.

What, BTW, has happened to "Myke K" and his cruise report? I fear that he may have discovered his spouse (Kandy Kay K) stretching her hamstrings (both at once) on Sergei's, or someone else's, shoulders and expired from shock.

I was fortunate enough to attend a generally-unnoticed speech today by Obama in which he laid out his 'American Graduation Initiative'.

Pretty sad that throwing out a pitch at a baseball game gets more coverage than the announcement of a goal to get 5 million more people educated than otherwise would happen...

Messed up the linky in the above posting. Apologies.

I now sentence Sessions & Graham to 90-days of the darkess tanning spray, which includes wearing a dreadlock wig, sagging pants, and a baseball cap turned backwards. Furthermore, you will stay in a public housing division of your state.

Next, case.

The President just spent an inning of tonight's All-Star Game in the Fox TV booth, talking baseball with announcers of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver.

Never again can Obama hope to be treated with such deference by employees of Rupert Murdoch.

Your Honor,

It won't be possible to sentence Sessions & Graham.

Why not?

Well, seems one had a nervous breakdown, and the other is sent to the hospital of a possible heart-attack.

"The president met last night with leaders from the Jewish community, seeking to assuage their concerns about being 'too tough on Israel...'."

Babies. They need a dose of reality.

"An Army major who's been convinced that the president is not a natural-born citizen is refusing an order to deploy to Afghanistan. The Birther is also apparently a long-time member of the right-wing Free Republic website."

Kawinkydink ?

It's hard to convince me that the US genuinely cares about a few killed, injured and imprisoned in Iran when we still don't give a shit about 100s of thousands killed and injured directly, semi-directly or indirectly, and many more orphaned, displaced and made refugees in Iraq, not to mention thousands unjustly imprisoned and abused.

US sympathy comes pretty cheap.

Politicians with double standards? No monopoly there among the Republicans.

Bachmann was batshit crazy certifiable before she got voted in. How does that happen? Doesn't say much for the electorate or selection process.

Exlibra,

funny you mentioned that - last post, Myke K said Candy was missing after midnight. Apparently, she explained she was learning how to fold napkins!

Wow, I wonder if her real name is Candy, or, is she just his "eye candy."

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) of Iowa makes no effort to hide the fact that he's applying a double standard to Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

Part of the shtick of being a Republican is to win "points" with your supporters by brazenly saying something ridiculous with a straight face that everyone knows is ridiculous and/or untrue, just to show that you can do it. It's considered a sign of strength with that crowd.

That birther bitch is literally a hate radio cultivated dipshit. But my god, reading some of the comments posted after the article is really upsetting. "Thank God for patriots like...blah blah blah...".

Truly 25% of the population is suffering from a mental disease or willful ignorance. They want so badly to blame and hate somebody they are willing to accept lies and propaganda that give them a target and then act all self righteous in their hypocrisy. Watching a hater today talking on his cell about the horrors of Obamanism and said he just like to call him BO. One look at him showed he was just so filled with anger and hate. All this bullshit over a well debunked birth certificate scandal...how stupid can these birthers actually be to try to justify reacting to this nonsense. I understand not wanting to be deployed but his reasons are ridiculous.

Also Grassley is such a maggot...a guy I wouldn't want anywhere near my supper table...even he thinks Iowans are stupid for electing someone like him. Just pathetic

For clarification: he is a reservist who is refusing his callup to active duty (so he may deploy). That's why he could be a member of free republic (which would be a major faux pas for an active duty officer).

The hypocrisy in Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III's position on Sotomayor is that he attacks her for being an activist judge who makes law instead of merely applying it because she is not sufficiently deferential to the elected branches in setting policy -- yet, on the single ruling the Right Wing is using to make their case against the judge, the Ricci affirmative action case, Sotomayor is being pilloried by conservatives precisely because she and the other judges on her panel ruled in favor of elected representatives, the City of New Haven. That seems to be the issue no one is mentioning. Sotomayor was not "making policy" on behalf of minority firefighters, she was upholding a policy already made by the people's representatives. Conservatives might not like that, but their gripe is with democracy, not Sotomayor.

maybe he is bringing suit in hopes of avoiding a court martial!

To the contrary -- he is hoping for a trial in order to be able to bring up the phony Birther bullshit again, since it's been laughed our of every court in the land so far.

Did anyone notice that the ENTIRE article re: governors' whereabouts focused on GOP efforts to undermine Dem governors, complete with misleading articles/blog posts about how the Dems were "hiking the trail," when in fact they were on legit business or vacation?

Predictably, the Dems were ultra-nervous, following up on every request for info, while the Repubs, by and large, ignored the whole thing. As the article noted (somewhat out of context, but true), "In the end, the episode also served to further GOP interests."

Seems that a Republican governor's scandal really only hurts Dems. Great PR work, party.

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