Update [2007-5-29 15:28:41 by Big Tent Democrat]: As Scott Lemieux points out, here is a chance for the Dem Congress to redeem itself somewhat. Overrule the Court's statutory interpretation please.

Via AdamB, another reason why Justice Alito is a disastrous addition to the Court (surely O'Connor would not have voted with the majority in this case.) Today in a 5-4 decision, Ledbetter v. Goodyear, Alito writng for the Court, wrote:

Ledbetter’s arguments here—that the paychecks that she received during the charging period and the 1998 raise denial each violated Title VII and triggered a new EEOC charging period—cannot be reconciled with Evans, Ricks, Lorance, and Morgan. . . . ©urrent effects alone cannot breathe life into prior, uncharged discrimination; as we held in Evans, such effects in themselves have “no present legal consequences.” 431 U. S., at 558. Ledbetter should have filed an EEOC charge within 180 days after each allegedly discriminatory pay decision was made and communicated to her. She did not do so, and the paychecks that were issued to her during the 180 days prior to the filing of her EEOC charge do not provide a basis for overcoming that prior failure.

Sounds reasonable? Not really, but if you think so you should not after reading Justice Ginsberg's dissent:

Via TPM, The Politico has been picked on a lot by the left blogs and today there can be no wonder why after this:

But, like Dwight Eisenhower's in 1952, Giuliani's national security stature after the Sept. 11 attacks more likely explains his continued popularity within the religious right, whose voters have long held hawkish positions on the issue.

Like five star General Supreme Allied Commander during the Good War/Greatest Generation Dwight David Eisenhower?

As Sargent puts it:

In the real world, of course, Rudy doesn't have national security stature at all. He was a mob-busting U.S. Attorney, ran New York as mayor for two terms, walked through the smoke and dust on 9/11, then did a bit of globe-trotting as part of his post-mayoralty moneymaking efforts. Rudy has no national security experience of any kind -- let alone "stature" in this field.

But Rudy gives good press conferences right Politico. Honestly, how stupid can you be?

Josh Marshall writes:

We're so far deep into this mess that sometimes I believe we're past the point of argument. You look at the evidence and you either see it or you don't.

Well, let's face it. It is not about seeing anymore. It is about admitting your grievous mistakes. And this applies not only to President Bush, Republicans and Iraq war supporters. It applies to pundits, the Media, bloggers, well everyone.

Because once the mistakes are admitted, the recriminations will REALLY start to fly on all levels. Think Vietnam.

So a Creationism "Museum" is opening:

[T]his museum created by the Answers in Genesis ministry . . . combines displays of extraordinary nautilus shell fossils and biblical tableaus, celebrations of natural wonders and allusions to human sin. Evolution gets its continual comeuppance, while biblical revelations are treated as gospel. Outside the museum scientists may assert that the universe is billions of years old, that fossils are the remains of animals living hundreds of millions of years ago, and that life’s diversity is the result of evolution by natural selection. But inside the museum the Earth is barely 6,000 years old, dinosaurs were created on the sixth day . . .

Everyone is entitled to their beliefs, but beliefs can not dictate to science. thus, you can believe this if you want:

Fossils, the museum teaches, are no older than Noah’s flood; in fact dinosaurs were on the ark.

But you don't get to teach it at public schools. The First Amendment doncha you know. Separation of Church and State.

We spend a lot of time decrying hack journalism, but let me highlight some of the good work being done. Here is Peter Canellos of the Globe truthsquadding the GOP Presidential candidates:

-- In defending the Iraq war, leading Republican presidential contenders are increasingly echoing words and phrases used by President Bush in the run-up to the war that reinforce the misleading impression that Iraq was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

. . . Senator John McCain . . . suggested that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden would "follow us home" from Iraq -- a comment some viewers may have taken to mean that bin Laden was in Iraq, which he is not.

Former New York mayor Rudolph Guiliani asserted, in response to a question about Iraq, that "these people want to follow us here and they have followed us here. Fort Dix happened a week ago. " However, none of the six people arrested for allegedly plotting to attack soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey were from Iraq.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney . . . said [terroristgroups] have "come together" to try to bring down the United States, though specialists say few of the groups Romney cited have worked together and only some have threatened the United States.

Venezuala's President Hugo Chavez has closed his country's one private television station because it continually was too critical for him.

This led to protests in Caracas:

Venezuelan police fired tear gas and plastic bullets Monday into a crowd of thousands protesting a decision by President Hugo Chavez that forced a television station critical of his leftist government off the air.

Police fired toward the crowd of up to 5,000 protesters from a raised highway, and protesters fled amid clouds of tear gas. They later regrouped in Caracas' Plaza Brion chanting "freedom!" Some tossed rocks and bottles at police, prompting authorities to scatter demonstrators by firing more gas.

In an amazingly obtuse Richard Cohen column, filled with a number of howlers, this one stuck out for me:

[I]it is with Iraq that real and long-term damage [to "liberalism"!] has been done. For years to come, his war will be cited to smother any liberal impulse in American foreign policy -- to further discredit John F. Kennedy's vow to "pay any price, bear any burden . . . to assure the survival and the success of liberty." We shall revert to this thing called "realism," which is heartless and cynical, no matter what its other virtues. The debacle of Iraq has cost us -- and others -- plenty in lives. But in the end, it will cost us our soul as well.

This is just about the stupidest thing I have seen written, and boy is that saying something, in a long time.

Forget the pure fantasy that the Iraq Debacle was a "war of liberal impulse," what about the idea that a liberal foreign policy means war first? Are you kidding me? In short, this is madness. War is a horrible, horrible, horrible thing, always to be undertaken only as a last resort after all other FOREIGN POLICY recourses have been attempted. There simply is no first resort liberal war. The idea is moronic, as well as an oxymoron.

When Alberto Gonzales was nominated for Attorney General, some hispanic groups swallowed their doubts about his political history and supported him because he was a Latino.

Some of those groups are now expressing buyer's remorse.

"I have to say we were in error when we supported him to begin with," said Brent Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. Gonzales, Wilkes said, has not aggressively pursued hate crimes and cases of police profiling of Hispanics. "We hoped for better. Instead it looks like he's done the bidding of the White House."

Janet Murguia, president and chief executive of the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic rights group, called Gonzales "a follower, not a leader."

Count me among those who never understood their support for Gonzales in the first place.

More...

All good things come to an end. Cindy Sheehan has tendered her resignation letter.

While I appreciate her service, I have thought for a while she needs to get her life back. As the mother of a son who would be of draft age if there was a draft, I can't imagine the devastation that she and the other mothers of the 3,500 soldiers killed in Iraq endure on a daily basis.

Cindy channeled her grief into a public cause to end the war that a majority of Americans now believe we should exit from. She deserves a lot of credit.

But she also deserves a life. I'm sure her son would want her to have one. The war is not going to end by demonstrations near Bush's ranch at Crawford, Texas, nor by Cindy continuing to be arrested at peace marches. Those days are over.

More...

Huffington Post gets a blog-lift (y.i.c.t.p., as Skippy would say). And it's a good one.

And to organize it all we've created five new sections: Media, Business, Entertainment, a culture and lifestyle section called Living Now, and a Politics section that will feature our political editor Tom Edsall and a shared-content partnership with Josh Marshall and Talking Points Memo. Plus, we've improved the design, navigation, and search function to help you find what you want more easily.

The front page will continue to feature our signature group blog and breaking news stories, but it was clearly no longer big enough to contain all the great stories, blog posts, and features we wanted to share with you. So each new section will have its own "front page" with fresh editorial talent and a constantly growing list of bloggers.

I think it's a great progression, and I would have expected nothing less from Arianna and her crew. And yes, when I have something to say, I'll still be a guest poster there.

We have the early winner for the most ironic column of the year, the "estimable" David Brooks delivers:

. . . Al Gore’s “The Assault on Reason” is well worth reading. It reminds us that whatever the effects of our homogenizing mass culture, it is still possible for exceedingly strange individuals to rise to the top.

You remind us of this with every column Mr. Brooks. I have not read Gore's book, and Gore may indeed be a strange egg. But having read David Brooks for too many years, and having dedicated a good deal of time proving (yes, I proved it) that he is a mendacious, insecure, unethical, STRANGE man, it ill behooves him to call anyone else strange. We have many unkind words for Friedman, Broder, Klein and others. But nothing compares to the bizarre mind that David Brooks possesses. Married to his utter lack of fealty to the truth, to honest argument and to decency, it takes some nerve for Brooks to write what he does about Gore. But the success of David Brooks can only be attributed to gall, talent and intelligence surely can not explain it. They are nonexistent in him.

My all time favorite blogger is Digby. So it saddens me greatly to see these words come from Digby:

Glenn Greenwald's post from Saturday critiquing Jonathan Alter's piece in the latest Newsweek about the Iraq war vote. Glenn is correct that this false dichotomy of "support the troops" vs "support your constituents" is a GOP talking point that has become conventional wisdom largely because the Democrats conceded it. I can't answer for why they tend to do this, but it's one of the biggest problems we have --- and it isn't just the Democrats who do it, it's the netroots too. Every time we reinforce GOP memes about Democratic "cowardice" we help them make their case. Language is important and it's a big failure among the left that we fail to understand how our own words work against us. I'm guilty of it too.