2007 Bloggies: Best Weblog About Politics [view: normal]

A common exercise in any intro statistic class is to split the students into two groups, one group flips a coin 100 times and records the results, another just makes 100 entries up off the top of their heads. The teacher then comes back, looks at the two lists, and usually identifies which is which with hardly a glance. How? The trick is the teacher knows that on the real list, there will be sever...

There's no way this complex issue can be covered in one post, but thankfully there have been some really thoughtful pieces written by others that we can pull from. For example, my own comments led to this headline on the AtlanticWire: Politics Beats Science in Cancer Screening Debate, featuring a terrific piece by Kevin Sack in the NY Times (Screening Debate Reveals Culture Clash in Medicine), com...

Like a gift from God, Sarah Palin's Rouge-A-Palooza tour (w/special guest) descended on America this week.

Over the next few months, hundreds of millions of Palin's Facebook friends will visit book stores – many for the first time – to meet their idol.

And a sexy time will be had by all.

Meanwhile, the Jews will be flocking to Israel.

Tonight's Diary Rescue was brought to by the fine work of the following Rescue Rangers: shayera, jlms qkw, Yat Pundit, grog, sunspark says, and dadanation who also mimicked being the editor.

The Diaries, Rescued

• Librarian Dem tells the story of an encounter with some patrons in Library users against health care bill. (shayera)
• KibbutzAmiad shares a personal story in Just another murder-by-spread...

The South Carolina House Judiciary Committee is convening next week to hear arguments on whether whether Gov. Mark Sanford needs to take a permanent hike from the Governor's office:

State lawmakers have considered impeachment for months, but this announcement is the first formal consideration of such a move. It came two days after the State Ethics Commission said it had found probable cause to h...

This is what counts as a liberal these days?

Steve Benen pretty much nailed it with these observations:

Obama isn't "leading with his chin"; he's tackling the issues in front of him. That's what presidents do. Obama bowed to the Japanese emperor as a matter of protocol, and no one cares except the media establishment. Obama isn't "dithering" -- though it's good to know Chris Matthews is willi...

Earlier today, Landrieu talked about working with Schumer and Carper on yet another iteration of a public option compromise, along the lines of his state-based triggered co-ops.

Schumer's spokesman flatly denied this, sending this statement:

"Since Leader Reid announced the opt-out public option would be included in the Senate bill, Senator Schumer has not approached anyone about compromises. H...

With all of the Democrats, and Lieberman, having already agreed to vote in favor of tonight's vote to allow the healthcare reform legislation come to the floor for debate, the actual voting is pretty much a foregone conclusion, unless Olympia Snowe goes on a wild hare and decides to get all bipartisany on us.

Nonetheless, this is a rather historic event, since we haven't gotten this far on health...

What would a health care debate be without some good ol' fashioned race-baiting from the G.O.P.?

Transcript:

Dumping of 15 million low-income Americans into a medical ghetto called Medicaid that none of us or any of our families would ever want to be a part of for our health care...

..Moving 15 million Americans into this medical ghetto...

...Moving 15 million low-income America...

Government takeover! Destroying America! The end of the world as we know it!

Yes, we've heard it all before. But did you know how many times, and for how long?

The fact is that the Republican Party told teabaggers' grandmas (of "death panel" fame) that Social Security was going to be the end of America. And today you can't swing a euthanized cat without hitting a Republican at a microphone insis...

The Department of Defense told the watchdog Project on Government Oversight Thursday that it won't let the public see a congressionally mandated revolving-door database of Pentagon employees.

POGO wonders what the harm is in seeing a list of former government officials who are now working for defense contractors. We have campaign finance and lobbying disclosure – why not expose those circulating...

So Landrieu and Lincoln say they'll vote to allow debate to continue so that the Senate can eventually vote on whether they want to vote to reform the nation's healthcare system. Lest you get too excited by their radicalism, here's the cold water on our collective enthusiasm.

After announcing her intent to support a health care debate this afternoon, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) told reporters she ...

At least for continuing debate. Nelson, Lincoln, Landrieu, they're all in.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has secured the vital 60th vote he needs to advance healthcare reform legislation with the announcement by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) that she will vote with her party Saturday evening.

"I have concluded that it is more important to begin this debate rather than just simply d...

• James Fallows, in a post entitled Manufactured Failure, hits the Washington press hard on how purely awful its coverage was of President Obama's trip to Asia, how uniformly negative it was compared with the actual reporting in China.
• Matt Taibbi deconstructs Sarah Palin:

• Palin — and there’s just no way to deny this — is a supremely gifted politician. She has staked out, as her own personal poli...

Ah, Village math. David Broder says that bringing in more federal revenue by increasing tax would bust the budget.

While the CBO said that both the House-passed bill and the one Reid has drafted meet Obama's test by being budget-neutral, every expert I have talked to says [. . . t]hese bills, as they stand, are budget-busters. Here, for example, is what Robert Bixby, the executive director of th...

You know where to find the goods.

Joe Lieberman is accusing President Obama of executing a bait and switch when it comes to the public option:

"It’s classic politics of our time that if you look at the campaign last year, presidential, you can’t find a mention of public option," Lieberman said. "It was added after the election as a part of what we normally consider health insurance reform — insurance market reforms, cover people...

Update: Reports are, including a tweet from the DemWarRoom (Senate Dem caucus staff) that Landrieu will vote to proceed. As a reminder, this vote is just the vote that says that the Senate will be able to continue to debate, which will then eventually lead to vote on whether they will vote on the final bill. Gotta love the Senate.

Wow, Republicans love Medicare now. Why just yesterday, it seems t...

The righties are abuzz with a recent hack stealing thousands of emails from climate and other scientists over the last 15 years. Needless to say the usual suspects have combed through the material looking for anything that can be misconstrued. This is an example of about the best they've come up with via Realclimate:

No doubt, instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded "gotcha" phrases will be...

This recession has taught us that we can’t return to a situation where America’s economic growth is fueled by consumers who take on more and more debt. In order to keep growing, we need to spend less, save more, and get our federal deficit under control. We also need to place a greater emphasis on exports that we can build, produce, and sell to other nations – exports that can help create new j...

Saturday punditry as we eagerly wait for Thanksgiving. If I have to fly, I just hope Capt. Sully is my pilot. What are you thankful about?

NY Times:

The [stimulus] legislation, a variety of economists say, is helping an economy in free fall a year ago to grow again and shed fewer jobs than it otherwise would. Mr. Obama’s promise to "save or create" about 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010 is roughly on...

Robert S. Eshelman writes in The Nation:

The weekend beckons....

CA-Sen: Boxer Maintains Solid Edge, Even in Ras Poll
Given that the Rasmussen poll in question had some data that hinted at a GOP skew (the 55% job approval for President Obama, for example), the news on the Senate race has to be considered very good news for Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer. In the new Rasmussen poll, she leads both of her likely Republican challengers (C...

Via Grist, the caption reads "EACH DAY HUMBLE SUPPLIES ENOUGH ENERGY TO MELT 7 MILLION TONS OF GLACIER!"

Reportedly from a 1962 edition of Life Magazine -- no way to tell for sure without an original copy of that edition. Humble Oil merged with Standard Oil which underwent various name and organizational changes, to eventually become Exxon-Mobil, the world's largest energy company and the most pr...

Keith Olbermann rips News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch for denying that he had accused President Obama of making racist comments:

Unfortunately for Murdoch, he did accuse Pres. Obama of making racist comments, and Keith plays the video.

It’s bad enough that Rupert Murdoch would have ever back Glenn Beck’s absurd allegation that Barack Obama is a racist; the fact that he doesn’t have the intes...