Just for sh*ts and giggles:

Some called a Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton pairing the "Dream Ticket" in 2008. [That was me, BTD.] It didn't happen. But what about 2012?

"It's on the table," veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward told CNN's John King in an interview Tuesday on John King, USA. "Some of Hillary Clinton's advisers see it as a real possibility in 2012."

That would stink for Hillary imo. She has the 2016 nomination if she wants it no matter what. Not being Obama's VP gives her some distance in case things go way south with his Administration. For Obama, I think it is a marginal plus, but what about Biden? Anyway, it will never happen.

Speaking for me only

For all the sturm und drang over the "incivility" of Markos Moulitsas' book American Taliban, it is quite ironic how willing the Beltway Bloggers are to call Dems who don't agree with them delusional. Here's Jon Chait (who has a long history of this sort of thing):

Every time a Democratic leader tells the base to stop whining and wake up to the fact that this is the most successful period of liberal governance in more than four decades, liberals just get more petulant. But, seriously, look at results like this, per Greg Sargent:

A new poll from Pew and National Journal contains a really striking finding: Only one third of Democrats think this Congress has achieved more than other recent Congresses. Meanwhile, 60 percent of Dems think it has accomplished the same or less.

This is just nuts. This is, objectively, a very productive Congress.

Yes. VERY "objective." It's the old "I'm objective and you're not" routine. What a bunch of clowns.

Speaking for me only

Ok, maybe not breaking, but damned funny the way it was confirmed today by Tom Daschle. Glenn Greenwald was called a lunatic by the dishonest Jon Chait of The New Republic because Glenn pointed out what, Matt Yglesias now tells us, "many people have long suspected."

So apparently, the need for precision and accuracy is situational for the Beltway Bloggers.

Speaking for me only

That's the title of the panel now up at something called "America's Fiscal Choices: Strengthening The Economy And Building For the Future." The moderator is The American Prospect's Robert "American Taliban" Kuttner. The panelists are Karen Davis of the Commonwealth Fund, Maggie Mahar a TCF Fellow and Bill Hoagland of CIGNA. Of the 3, I'm betting Hoagland will have the most influence on "The Next Steps For Healthcare Reform."

You can watch the panel here.

Matt Yglesias after the passage of the health bill in March:

For the past 65-70 years—and especially for the past 30 years since the end of the civil rights argument—American politics has been dominated by controversy over the size and scope of the welfare state. Today, that argument is largely over with liberals having largely won. [. . .] Due to the bill’s almost comically delayed implementation, for several years we’re still going to have a lot of political tussling over it. And even once it’s in place, the system will continue to be debated and tweaked for years to come. But over time, I think American politics will come to look quite different and we’ll look back on this day as a turning point.

(Emphasis supplied.) Kevin Drum today:

We Muslims don't abide by human-made laws, because they are always corrupt. And I had a firsthand experience when on the second day of my arrest I asked for the Miranda. And the FBI denied it to me for two weeks, effecting harm to my kids and family, and I was forced to sign those Mirandas.

***

Faisal Shahzad, who unsuccessfully attempted to set off a bomb in Times Square, was sentenced to six life terms today in federal court.

A defiant Shahzad said "Allahu Akbar" -- Arabic for "God is great" -- after the judge sentenced him to the mandatory life imprisonment.

[More......]

Open Thread.

You don't see this too often: A senior federal judge in the Northern District of Georgia (formerly the Chief Judge until taking senior status) has been arrested and charged with illegal drug and gun crimes:

Senior U.S. District Judge Jack T. Camp Jr. was arrested late Friday night near Sandy Springs. Camp, 67, is accused of purchasing cocaine and marijuana, along with prescription painkillers that which he shared with an exotic dancer he met last spring at the Goldrush Showbar in Atlanta, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit for his arrest.

In some cases he bought drugs from the dancer, while in others the pair purchased them from other parties, according to the affidavit. Camp sometimes took loaded guns to the deals. Camp’s arrest came after a buy from an undercover agent, authorities said.

The dancer was cooperating with the feds and they wired her up to record his conversations without knowing. The Affidavit supporting the complaint is here. [More..]

There is no race I care about more than Russ Feingold's in Wisconsin (now that Boxer looks pretty good - hell of an ad wasn't it?), but, unlike Jon Cohn, I think this ad could be a mistake, if it leads to campaigning in the fashion Cohn is advocating for:

Cohn argues that President Obama is touting the health bill too. I don't really see Feingold making much of an explicit argument for the health bill, more of a "protecting your health care" pitch unconnected to the health bill (sort of a Medicare pitch really.) In any event, I bet Obama wouldn't be "touting" the health bill if he were up for reelection this year. That's politics 101. I think Feingold may be setting up a Social Security/Medicare hit on Johnson. Cohn, a big health bill proponent, is probably misreading what this ad is trying to do and what it is leading to. Or maybe this is Feingold's pitch to the New Establishment bloggers to see if they might engage in his campaign. A little sugar so to speak.

Speaking for me only

The feds busted a bunch of legislators, lobbyists and powerful businessmen in Alabama today:

The indictment alleges a sprawling conspiracy to buy votes in the legislature that would benefit the owners of casinos. Four state senators are charged with agreeing to accept — or in some cases, demanding — bribes in the form of campaign contributions or campaign appearances by country music stars. Two casino operators, Ronald Gilley and Milton McGregor, are charged with overseeing the conspiracy, and three lobbyists with carrying it out. An employee of Mr. Gilley’s and an employee of the state legislature were also charged.

Electronic bingo machines were the issue. Some legislators reportedly wore wires to rat out their associates.

A Dem winning an election is better than the Republican winning almost every time. But among Dems, who is it more important to see win? The fighting progressive or the craven Blue Dog? This is a theme regular readers will have read before from me, but, via Digby, Howie Klein seems to make a similar argument, but gets it a little wrong in my view. Howie writes:

With very few exceptions, the Democrats in the most vulnerable positions are conservatives who have voted most consistently with Boehner and the untrusted GOP minority, Blue Dogs like Bobby Bright (AL), Glenn Nye (VA), Chris Carney (PA), Travis Childers (MS) and Frank Kratovil (MD) and inherently reactionary political cowards with no moral compasses like Tom Perriello (VA), Suzanne Kosmas (FL) and Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ). If Democrats can manage to hang onto the few progressives who refused to play the Republican lite game who are in jeopardy in swing districts-- Carol Shea-Porter (NH), Alan Grayson (FL), Mary Jo Kilroy (OH), Phil Hare (IL)-- and at the same time, manage to shed some of the dead weight, the House Democratic caucus will be far better off, far more focused on helping ordinary American families and far less susceptible to blackmail from corporate conservatives in its own midst.

The problem is not the dead weight imo. The problem is CATERING to the dead weight. (I wrote about that a few years ago.) That said, for progressives, the fight should be for the one who fought for you. That ain't the Blue Dogs.

Speaking for me only

Glenn Greenwald cites to this Scott Horton post on the question of Presidential assassinations. Glenn describes Horton's post thusly:

Harper's Scott Horton, who says he originally thought the objections of civil libertarians in the Awlaki case were overblown, but has now concluded -- in light of the Obama DOJ's brief -- that the Obama program is the embodiment of "tyranny"[.]

Horton's post is quite muddled in my view (and rightly so - this is a very tough issue.) For Horton also writes:

I don’t for a second question the principle established in Quirin, and I believe that the president can in some circumstances target and remove figures in a command-and-control position over hostile forces even if they are removed from a conventional battlefield. But I am deeply suspicious of the need to add to the president’s theoretical powers by killing a U.S. citizen in Yemen who could certainly be captured, brought back to the United States and put on trial.

(Emphasis supplied.) What if the President concludes that Al-Alwaki was "in a command-and-control position over hostile forces removed from a conventional battlefield?" I have great respect for Greenwald and Horton. I think they raise important problems with this policy. I think the legality of the policy is not one of those problems.

Speaking for me only