About a week ago, Theda Skopcol wrote:

In such marked contrast to the timid triangulation of Clinton, Obama offers a strong, positive statement of the role of U.S. government in national development, past and for the future. Government does not "substitute" for business or individual action, but it is an essential "catalyst."

Today, David Brooks writes:

Senate Republicans last night stalled the passage of the Omnibus Appropriations Act.

Senate Republicans, demanding the right to try to change a huge spending bill, forced Democrats on Thursday night to put off a final vote on the measure until next week. The surprise development will force Congress to pass a stopgap funding bill to avoid a partial shutdown of the government.

...Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., canceled the vote, saying he was one vote short of the 60 needed to close debate and free the bill for President Barack Obama's signature.

The Republicans insisted on voting on their amendments, all of which were expected to fail. Thanks to the Senate's Twitter page, you can view the votes. And here at GovTrack, you can click through to the Amendments. [More...]

Former C.U. Professor Ward Churchill and current University of Illinois (Chicago) Professor William Ayers teamed up Thursday night in Boulder to speak to students at the University of Colorado. The topic: Academic Freedom. The title of their presentation: "Forbidden Education and the Rise of NeoMcCarthyism."

Ayers talked about Obama's presidency (nothing unusual from what the article reports) and the danger if teachers are not allowed to challenge their students due to fear about raising certain topics or asking certain questions.

"We should always be developing a curriculum of questioning," Ayers told the students. "As a teacher, your responsibility is to challenge dogma and orthodoxy, not to just accept it."

[More...]

Thank Goodness Tatiana didn't make the final 13 on American Idol. I wouldn't have watched the rest of the season. Listening to her shrieking is like the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard. For once, the outcome was suspenseful.

My other thought for the day: On small items, buy retail and buy local. Otherwise your favorite mom and pop and other non-conglomerate stores are going to disappear.

What's on your minds? This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

President Obama's choice for Surgeon General, Dr. withdrew his name from consideration today.

CNN cited his desire to continue working instead as a neurosurgeon and CNN medical analyst. His wife is pregnant with their third child.

Chuck Todd said on Nightly News tonight it may have been a financial decision: it would be too big a pay cut.

Memorandum

To: Evan Bayh

From: American People

Re: Repealing Bush Tax Cuts

Do you support or oppose raising taxes on households earning over $250,000 a year and, at the same time, lowering taxes for most other households?

Support 66
Oppose 33

Speaking for me only

Update: Robin Williams' publicist says he will need open heart surgery for an aortic valve replacement.

Comedian and Actor Robin Williams is reportedly in ICU in a South Florida hospital, due to heart problems. Other papers are reporting the same thing. He's been on tour and canceled his latest appearances.

Our good thoughts for a speedy recovery go out to him.

The California Supreme Court is holding oral arguments on Prop 8 and gay marriage today.

You can watch the hearings live on the web here.

The court will hear three hours of arguments and have 90 days to issue an opinion. If it overturns the ban, gay couples would again be permitted to marry in California.

It may be too little too late, but Facebook is in the process of making big adjustments to become more like Twitter.

These are the changes:

1. Facebook changed its home page to allow streaming of posts from Facebook friends in realtime. (Twitter updates immediately as people post.)

2. Facebook enabled filtering for those realtime updates, letting users filter those status updates by friends, applications and other groupers. (You can filter a bit on Twitter but have better options in Twitter filtering applications like twalala.)

[More...]

Roger Cohen plays the "French Card" regarding our economic crisis:

I love France, but I don’t want there to be two of them, least of all if one is in the United States. . . . There is a touch of France in its “étatisme” — the state as all-embracing solution rather than problem . . . I’d thought of Obama as less Robespierre than Talleyrand. I still think he’s more bridge-building centrist than revolutionary. He needs to be. Money has never been more fungible than today. Punish capital and it will punish you by saying, “Hasta la vista!” The former French President François Mitterrand learned that a little over a quarter-century ago when, after an initial wave of nationalizations, he reversed course. . . Americans, at least in their imaginations, have always lived at the new frontier; French frontiers have not shifted much in centuries. . . Obama, in his restorative counter-revolution, must be careful to steer clear of his French temptation.

[More...]

Your turn.

This is an Open Thread.

Bob Somerby has been documenting how we on the Democratic side have come to applaud that we once claimed to despise - unthinking stupidity in the Media. While my feeling on what Keith Olbermann has become (in essence an O'Reilly for the Left), Somerby discussed a few days ago one of the most outrageous pieces of offensive nonsense seen in some time from persons not named Rush or Bill O: