She [Sotomayor] has, in other words, already said more than Justice Clarence Thomas has uttered in years.

Thomas doesn't need to talk. He just votes the way Scalia tells him to. Anything more is beyond his comprehension or capability.

A new Gallup poll shows support for health care reform improving, thanks to diminished opposition.

Could it be that outrage fatigue can also occur on the right?

Seems to me that the Obama administration is on the wrong side of the court case over animal abuse videos. It's abhorrent, but it also seems to me like a clear case of free speech that cannot be prohibited without grave danger to the first amendment. Other opinions?

Dick Gephardt forever sealed his reputation the day he stood next to GW Bush in the White House rose garden and endorsed unleashing war on the Iraqi people. Why anyone is surprised at his subsequent acts of political depravity is beyond me.

She has, in other words, already said more than Justice Clarence Thomas has uttered in years.

Oh noes! Now George Will may call her a narcissist!

Thomas has gone three years straight without posing a question during oral arguments.

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
--Abraham Lincoln

Through his silence, Clarence Thomas could teach Sonia Sotomayor a lot about dignity.

Wish I was surprised at Gephardt. As noted above, he was always a sellout guy, talking one line and voting another. In his 2005 book Fooled Again, Mark Crispin Miller outed the Gephardt and Kerry campaigns as the ones behind the mysterious ad during the 2004 Iowa caucuses that showed Howard Dean and Osama Bin Laden on a split screen. That, along with Al Sharpton's knife-in-the-back at the last debate, finished off our chances for a winning candidate that year and real reform afterwards, not the Clinton redux we're seeing now.

What Benen won't inform you guys about is that his gallup approval rating is down to 50%. He's in danger of becoming the third president to fall below 50% before November at an equivalent time in his term (Clinton and Ford were the two others). It may happen tomorrow or sometime later this month.

Just for your information, Rasmussen actually shows Obama higher than Gallup with an approval rating at 51%, which is where Obama sits according to RCP and pollster.com.

I feel the need to inform you about polling for Obama considering that Benen won't do it.

as the suffering increases, gradually the sociopath political characters typical of american society -- especially the more progressive ones -- will begin to relent and join that strange oddball dude sheldon whitehouse in wanting to do something for the american people left destitute because of the hollowed out economy left by BushCo and the upperclass...

...on the other hand, if we all rose up and insisted...ah, but what's on the teevee tonight?

Beck keeps losing advertisers . . .

Why is it that every time I see sentences like this, I think we're talking about the musician? Does this say something about my psychological state?

But anyway, "Soy un perdidor. I'm a loser baby . . ."

* Attorney General Eric Holder commented publicly on the Najibullah Zazi case today, calling the threat "very serious" and one which "could have resulted in the loss of American lives."

Sounds just like Bushes' claims. A lot of things result in loss of American lives. Like no insurance.

Like not being able to look away from the scene of a car crash, I had to go read that Richard Cohen column. Right up there with his "Only-a-fool--or-possibly-a-Frenchman" could doubt the need to go to war with Iraq. Don't the people who run the Washington Post have any ability to feel embarrassment?

I've been watching Gephardt's statements and actions since he was a freshman Representative from Misssouri in 1977.

He hasn't changed a bit.
Has no principles now; never had any.
Not a liberal.

Responsible corporate advertisers walk away from the likes of Glenn Beck for his outrageous views and from the American Chamber of Commerce for its denial of man-made climate change.

More exhibitions of corporate responsibility may relieve some of my skepticism for our corporate over lords.

At least one conservative commentator, maybe more, are getting into the idea that Swine Flu is a government/business plot. Check http://www.personalliberty.com/conservative-politics/the-great-swine-flu-boondoggle/
"Bob Livingston is an ultra-conservative American who has been writing a newsletter for 39 years." Wow, in his own words.
He writes:

The so-called great Swine flu pandemic is nothing more than a One World Government power grab, an effort at population control and a boondoggle designed to enrich big Pharma and its supporters.

While the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology are predicting millions of infections and tens of thousands of deaths to come, actual figures early in the season are proving to be quite different.

Amidst all the ballyhoo, big Pharma has ramped up production of vaccines and governments are threatening to mandate—and in the case of the New York and New Jersey actually mandating—forced immunizations.

Well, I give him credit for picking on Big Pharma, and it's true that SF hasn't produces as many cases as I thought they predicted. I don't see the population control angle, but I am suspicious of people who want population to grow (and expand development, labor supply v. demand, etc.) BL is exaggerating and the CDC is not oriented to OWG, but does this make some valid smaller points? OTOH, if people avoid vaccination from seeing this it could cause trouble and more deaths.

N.Wells, on the animal abuse videos: I don't think we should put people in jail just for showing videos, unless there's a direct enablement for extremes like child pornography. We should still fine them and be able to seize/cease etc. Note that it isn't just "speech" on its own, if you have a record of something that actually happened. In the latter, you are usually supporting the activity, you are an indirect "accessory" and that should be actionable. Most people don't see such connections during ethical reasoning, tunnel vision and purism distorts how they frame issues.

tyrannogenius

Re Andrea Mitchell, married to Randian bubble-engineer Greenspan (some observers are sure he manipulated markets to help Bush):
NBC News reported this evening, that the lab coats were handed out by a doctor's group and not WH staff. Well give the MSM credit for pricking that bubble, at least.

Isn't it funny how right-wing blogs get so incenses about little odds and ends, but massive fraud, misconduct, and incompetence went "right" over their heads for eight years?

"Attorney General Eric Holder commented publicly on the Najibullah Zazi case today, calling the threat "very serious" and one which "could have resulted in the loss of American lives."

I am somewhat surprised to see the Obama administration continue the propaganda. I had hoped for a less Neocon-friendly attitude towards terrorism and foreign policy (especially after Hillary lost the primary) but... what are you gonna do?

Like pimping the latest *Osama bin Laden* proclamations to come out of intelligence workshops (immediately, and inexplicably, certified as authentic), I think the power of these tools is just too great to pass up, apparently.

Yes, honest politicians would be nice. In lieu of that, a critical press would be a benefit. But don't ever expect the Washington Post to do anything other than pass right along the anti-Muslim, anti-Arab propaganda.

Sotomayor for an hour, YES!
Olbermann for an hour, NO!

RE:Gephardt:

Take a trip down memory lane to the presidential primary of 1988.
Michael Dukakis, Jesse Jackson, Al Gore, Dick Gephardt, Paul Simon, Gary Hart, Bruce Babbitt, and Joe Biden were the candidates.
Of course we remember Dukakis won.

What did we think then? What do we know now?

I suppose characterizing Gephardt's lobbying career as a "a genuine shame" is close,
but I prefer "pathetic and craven sell out".

If this story is true (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/world/asia/07prexy.html?hp) then I am truly scared about this President.

Do we have a President incapable of making a decision, without any convictions at all?

Obama needs to get some balls, or we are all in major trouble.

Obama's head:

Public option? Yes! No!

Don't ask don't tell? Repeal! No, wait!

Gitmo? Close! No, not yet!

Afghanistan? Yikes, I can't decide, help!

I wonder what Axelrod and Ailes talked about.

The secret for the Axelrod side is to mass all of their forces and take out Russia in the first turn or two with a pincer assault from German Sudentenland and Japanese Manchuria. The Ailes will take out most of the Imperial Fleet and capture the Pacific half of the Coprosperity Sphere in the first two rounds, sure, but Vichy France should be able to hold against any early-round assaults from Britain even with the mass of the Warmacht steamrolling the Ukrain. Then with the industrial base in the Urals the Axelrod powers can wear the Ailes down. Otherwise the Axelrod players can't compete with the American/Russian industrial base of the Ailes team.

The one thing I'm wondering about wrt healthcare reform is how the public will respond to a mandate to buy insurance (or face a fine or worse jail time). Or, if you don't have a mandate there is the question of how the insurance pool would be increased and if people would just wait to get sick before buying.

It's a puzzle I think.

* Holder added that closing Gitmo would be a lot easier were it not for the politics in Congress.

Duh. Everything would be a lot easier were it not for politics in Congress.

I would also like to disassociate myself with the above comment that Justice Thomas is incapable of doing his job because he doesn't speak during oral arguments, and the comment that Justice Sotomayor needs a lesson in dignity.

All I have to say is we as senior citizens with heath care and dental care need to get out teeth fixed or pulled. We do not have dental insurance and someone need to think about senior being able to take care of their mouth. We are unable to eat healthy because we have this plastic in our mouth and most of the time it hurts us to eat. I know because I with dental insurance and I do not have the money to buy me any teeth because I do not get enough money to buy them. I look ugly without teeth in my mouth and I look older than what I really am because of no teeth. The teeth that I have now is too short to be able to bite an apple and then eat it. What are you all complaining about. Its these people that need the help like me..Mary Paul
Dallas, Texas 75241

Just a comment on impinging events outside Washington: if the US attacks Iran, I think it would be time to talk about impeachment.

And something else: I read that the Israelis have a tape of Abbas, Ehud Barak, and Tzipi Livni together discussing the idea from Abbas that the Israeli bombing be continued to try to knock out Hamas, with Livni in agreement and Barak not so comfortable with the idea, and that this video was used to shut Abbas up. Does anyone know about this ?

Steve: "MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell occasionally finds odd trivia important."

I stopped listening to Mrs. Alan Greenspan years because - it's just, well, you know.

Sotomayor for an hour, YES!
Olbermann for an hour, NO!

I have to admit I'd consider watching the Yankees win the series before I'd watch an hour-long special comment from Olbermann. Progressive or not, that guy is insufferable for more than five minutes at a time.

I think I'll just read the transcript, and yes, I know there are few enough progressives on the air, so yes, I'm very happy he's out there saying these things, and yes, I know not everyone wants to put screwdrivers in their ears when he starts the mocking voices and the smirking and the missed opportunities to ask knowledgeable people questions because he's too busy interviewing himself.