The ability and willingness of so many to engage in pointless discussion of Rush Limbaugh and other silly people gives me the impression that the seriousness of our dire economic situation has not really sunk in to the Media and others. One example is this passage from E.J. Dionne's column today:

Paradoxically, perhaps, [Obama would] rather have citizens thinking about taxes and collapsing banks than about abortion.

They already are of course. But many are mostly thinking about jobs and paying the bills (not "taxes" which is more of a Beltway obsession). It is fascinating to watch the Media stop and cover every detail of this silly Limbaugh stuff. None of this matters politically. What matters politically is if the economy turns around. If it does, Obama and Democrats will dominate. If it does not, Republicans will make a comeback. If it is politics that interest you, then you should be thinking about one thing - will the economy turn around?

Speaking for me only

It always bothers me that people pretend not to understand interest group politics. The Left will call the anti-choice movement reactionaries and the Right will call civil liberties activists the "loony Left." It simply makes no sense. I actually admire anyone who fights hard for what they believe in. And if I agree with them, I hope I stand on the barricades with them.

The normally mild mannered Kevin Drum decides to potshot Cuban Americans who support the embargo (I vehemently disagree with the embargo as I have for my entire adult life). Kevin asks:

House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers announced today that the committee has reached an agreement with Karl Rove and Harriet Miers regarding subpoenas in the U.S. Attorney firing investigation. Conyers' press release is here.

According to The Hill, the Obama Administration played a big role in bringing about the agreement.

The Obama White House confirmed that “lawyers from the White House counsel’s office played an active role in moving the parties toward the accommodation,” while Bush’s office said it had reached the deal “at the urging of the Obama administration.”

[More...]

Last week, Palestinean refugee and Black September terrorist Khalid Al-Jawary, 63, finished serving 15 years of his 30 year sentence for placing three bombs in New York City in 1973 and left Supermax in Florence, Colorado for Kartoum, Sudan.

Al-Jawary ended up in Sudan after Algeria initially agreed to accept him but then reversed course, setting off an intense scramble to find a country that would take him. It's unclear why Algeria ultimately decided against taking Al-Jawary.

Al-Jawary wanted to be deported to Jordan, where his family lives, but the country apparently would not allow him. Federal officials said he had dual citizenship with Jordan and Iraq.

More...

The Orange County Register yesterday interviewed John Yoo. Of all the questions I might have for him, what's on his iPhone would not be one. Nor do I care that he's been getting in shape by going to the same gym as Kobe Bryant.

As for whether he has any regrets about the torture memos he authored, he mentions one: that they were published. Not because of their content, but he would have "polished them differently." He adds, " I don't think I would have made the basic decisions differently."

This interview is a joke.

Sen. Patrick Leahy and the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing today on the creation of a Truth Commission to investigate the Bush Adminisration's policies on surveillance, detention, etc.

Marcy at Empty Wheel is live-blogging. Meteor Blades at Daily Kos has a good roundup. Think Progress discusses the idea of blanket immunity to Bush officials. An AP report is here.

The New York Times asks, Who's Running Immigration? saying President Obama and Janet Napolitano should put an end to the reign of terror Sheriff Joe Arpaio has instilled in Maricopa County (Phoenix), AZ.

[Arpaio] has terrorized Latino neighborhoods with relentless sweeps and has paraded shackled immigrants through the streets.

When she was the Arizona governor, Ms. Napolitano was an outspoken supporter of delegating neglected federal immigration duties to local authorities. Sheriff Arpaio is an example of that concept run amok.

The Times also asks, how did a workplace raid in Bellingham, WA take place without Obama or Napolitano knowing about it? [More...]

The ACLU has a newly updated chart (pdf) of the "Bush-Era OLC Memoranda Relating to Interrogation, Detention, Rendition and/or Surveillance."

The chart also includes new entries for still-secret OLC memos the existence of which were unknown until they were referenced in the memos released this week. The chart also contains notations indicating the memos that have been repudiated.

ACLU background is here.

The GAO report is out on the program that deputizes state and local cops to work with feds to find and deport undocumented residents.

The report, prepared by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, says the government has failed to determine how many of the thousands of people deported under the program were the kind of violent felons it was devised to root out.

Some law enforcement agencies had used the program to deport immigrants “who have committed minor crimes, such as carrying an open container of alcohol,” the report said, and at least four agencies referred minor traffic offenders for deportation.

The program received $54 million from Congress last year. Among the findings[More...]

I was wrong when I predicted that "the Roberts Court will disagree with the Vermont Supreme Court on the deference due the Bush FDA's pronouncements on conflict preemption and declare that, adhering to Chevron, it will reverse the Vermont Supreme Court in Levine. It's the Legal Realist in me." Today, the Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, ruled that FDA's labelling regulations do not preempt (PDF) state law tort claims:

Your turn.

This is an Open Thread.

You remember those 14 Senators who agreed:

Future Nominations. Signatories will exercise their responsibilities under the Advice and Consent Clause of the United States Constitution in good faith. Nominees should be filibustered only under extraordinary circumstances, and each signatory must use his or her own discretion and judgment in determining whether such circumstances exist.

(Emphasis supplied.) Among the Senators who agreed to this were John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. The other day, these 4 Republican Senators reneged on this agreement. They signed this letter to President Obama: