Better Late

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...than never, I suppose.

Finally.

Howell Raines joins the likes of Niemoller and Joseph Welch.
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Fili-bluster

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Senator Bunning's mean-spirited, contentious, and highly damaging little stunt filibuster...which he should be forced to actually stand and do till he wets his tighty-whities...reached a new low today...but tomorrow still awaits.

After all, he's too-obviously being point man for the entire Republican side of the aisle. Why else would they not join with the Democrats to break his filibuster? Senator Kyl was quick to defend the cause, attacking struggling jobless Americans in the process.

There's a whole lotta tighty-whitey in Washington these days. You see it on Faux News where they try to link reconciliation with the "nucular option." Where that quaint old concept of democracy, simple majority, up-or-down vote is under siege by the very people who for eight years jumped up and down like Rumpelstiltskin demanding their right to majority—not super majority—rule.

Among all the arguments about filibuster these days, it takes a small state legislator who is the only announced candidate thus far against the presumed-for-now Republican shoo-in to replace Senator Dorgan to hit on the simple truth.

North Dakota state Senator Tracy Potter said the filibuster has made senators “too important” compared to the House and the federal executive and judicial branches.

“I have sometimes chastised my colleagues (in the North Dakota Senate) that they are overreaching,” Potter said. “We have to have limitations on our power, and recognize our appropriate roles in the system.”

Appropriate roles. What a concept.

And maybe what a condemnation. All those tighty-whiteys have been overreaching ever since, oh, Inauguration Day 2009. The spike in use—abuse—of the filibuster. The endless, mind-numbing screeching of dissonant lies out of rightwing radio and Fox "News." The Tea Party fringe element. The increasingly violence-prodding screeding out of Fox "opinion."

But maybe pointing that out is uppity. I don't know. What do you think, Cokie? Because it's out there....
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crossposted at firedoglake's Seminal

punked...and pimped

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What digby said ... about what Eric Boehlert [Media Matters] said ... about the phonying up of the O'Keefe assault on ACORN. And what it says about where we're at....

'spose ol' Howie Kurtz will give this one a big play next Sunday under the category of yet another thing the media let the Republicans get away with? Or will he still be slavering over the media sex scandal industry coverage of the Tigerpenis?
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crossposted at firedoglake's Seminal

Shame on Savannah (Guthrie)

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Proving she can steno with the worst of 'em, NBC's Savannah Guthrie blithely regurgitates the talking points of Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin on NBC's Sunday Nightly News broadcast with zero regard for oh, what's that antiquated obsolete Cronkitian word I'm looking for?

Oh, yeah. Facts.

Fact: The so called "death panel" Palin propagandizes about, the euthanasia Newt fearmongers about...that's a simple proposal that when someone wants to have a conversation with their doctor about end-of-life care, they can do so. If they want to create a living will, they can do so.

Fact: Senator Johnny Isaakson of Georgia put that on the table. So has Senator Susan Collins. Last time I looked, both were Republicans.

Savannah Guthrie, as Atrios would say...Super Wanker of the Day. Takes more than a pretty face to make a real journalist.

And as Newt-the-toot would say, somewhere in America there are people who believe that incompetent journalists who shallow report from Republican talking points should be, you know, fired.

Oh, and the mute "moderate" Republicans who go along with this claptrap? Gutless cowards. And that's a fact, too.

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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal