As you probably already heard from this post, Lady Blaga and I have a little wager going on concerning how many votes Elena Kagan’s nomination manages to wrangle in the Senate. Based on some pretty terrible and Friday-night-related maths, I predicted she’d be confirmed, and that it would be by the slimmest of margins: 60 votes. No more, no less. Of course, I didn’t quite expect Lindsey Graham to pull a…Lindsey Graham and not be a hypocrite. So, I’m changing my prediction to 63-64 (Lady Blaga predicts 65), but I do hold to my word and will...
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Lindsey Graham's Mavericky Vote for Kagan
Today the Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Elena Kagan’s nomination, approving it in a 13-6 vote. Predictably, the vote went along party lines, with one notable exception. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham not only voted for Kagan, he explained at length why he did so, espousing his view of how the confirmation process ought to work: No one spent more time trying to beat President Obama than I did…But I understood we lost. President Obama won and I’ve got a lot of opportunity to disagree with him. But the Constitution in my view puts a requirement on me...
Continue reading...Super racist New Hampshire State House candidate Ryan Murdough is super racist
Here’s a special specimen. In a letter to the Concord Monitor, Republican (probably in name only, since “they sold white people out”) Ryan Murdough writes: For far too long white Americans have been told that diversity is something beneficial to their existence. Statistics prove that the opposite is true. New Hampshire residents must seek to preserve their racial identity if we want future generations to have to possibility to live in such a great state. Affirmative action, illegal and legal non-white immigration, anti-white public school systems, and an anti-white media have done much damage to the United...
Continue reading...Alaska candidate for Senate Joe Miller thinks unemployment benefits are not "constitutionally authorized"
Joe Miller, a tea party-backed candidate running in the Republican primary against Lisa Murkowski is has some interesting things to say about Constitutional law. Not only does he not support extending unemployment benefits for those still unemployed after their benefits run out, he doesn’t think doing so is constitutional: Tea Party-backed Senate candidate Joe Miller today added his voice to those who are critical of Democrats’ efforts to expand unemployment insurance, and went even further than most candidates in saying that federally backed compensation to the unemployed isn’t “constitutionally authorized.” “The unemployment compensation benefits have gotten —...
Continue reading...High Risk Insurance Pools, or Yet Another Way to Screw Over Women
Oh, what’s that you say? You say health care reform might actually still allow some women who need it to access a legal medical procedure AND have it covered in their health insurance? Lordy, no, we Democrats won’t stand for THAT. So we come to another battle over abortion in health care, only this time, the Obama administration caved even before anti-choicers brought out the pitchforks. Here’s the background: the federally-funded Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plans (or PCIPs) were set up to provide coverage for people whose pre-existing conditions prevent them from obtaining insurance through private carriers. This...
Continue reading...Lead-up to Kagan's Confirmation Vote
Within the next few weeks, if things go as scheduled, Elena Kagan’s SC nomination will be up for a vote in the full Senate. Who cares, right? Her whole confirmation process has been a snoozefest, and it’s basically a given that she’ll be confirmed. So how to make it more interesting? Put money on it, clearly. Poplicola and I were chatting the other day, and he opined quite forcefully that while Kagan will indeed be confirmed, it will be with exactly 60 votes, predicting all the Dems and only a single Republican will vote for her. I...
Continue reading...How long until we're employed again?
The economy seems to be leveling out, but how long will it take to get employment back to where it was before the Great Recession? Brookings has this frightening chart with some explanation: In recent months, on this blog, we described the job gap — the number of jobs it would take to return to employment levels from before the Great Recession, while also accounting for the 125,000 people who enter the labor force in a typical month. After today’s employment numbers, the job gap stands at almost 11.3 million jobs. How long will it take to...
Continue reading...Candidate for Congress Ed Martin thinks Barack Obama wants to stop you from being saved
Via TPM, we learn that Ed Martin, who seems to get his energy from the tea party movement, is afraid that the president wants to take away your freedom to worship. His logic? Well: One thing I like to say is: America is great, not because of our genetics. We’re great because we created a place and space where people can be free. And they can choose Christ, they can choose to be faithful. They can worship, and they find their way to the Lord. And — or some of them don’t. We sure want them all...
Continue reading...Good News from Nebraska
Well, that was quick. Today the US District Judge in the Nebraska biased counseling case I mentioned yesterday issued an order– just a day after hearing oral arguments. She agreed that the clinic filing the suit has a likelihood of prevailing on its claims, and agreed to block the state from enforcing any of the bad provisions of the statute until the case is resolved. Victory! Judge Smith Camp noted that the NE legislature explained its motivation for the law as concern that the existing preabortion screening and counseling procedures were not accurate– and then pointed out...
Continue reading...Biased Counseling
I’ve talked before about my frustration at the skillful ability of the right-wing to harness language. This comes out all the time in regard to abortion, and sometimes, the issue is that the other side does a really good job of making something sound rational when it really isn’t. An example is the wave of so-called “informed consent” laws, which sound not only innocuous but also inarguable. Who could oppose making sure women have given their informed consent before undergoing an abortion? Not me, nor, I’m sure, any other pro-choicer, including anyone who provides abortions. And in...
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