Go read skippy now.

Republicans to give Lott committee chairmanship.

Good for them.

BATF to round up illegal firearms.

Freepers unhappy. Haven't yet come up with link to Clinton.

Senate Report Clears Rubin of Illegality

Duh.

Another horrible segregationist club, Lone Whacko.

An entertaining look at the good old days of the National Review.

Cabbage Hammer advocates nuclear proliferation.


Just the logical implication of 'more guns, less crime.'

Volokh says some interesting things here, but I have a big quibble with this one:


Yes, occasionally the Left does try to get such people fired; it generally fails, because the First Amendment does indeed protect professors who offend blacks as well as those who offend whites.

I'm pretty sure the protection that professors have from being fired is simply something called 'tenure,' combined with employment contracts which give wide latitude to expression under the umbrella of 'academic freedom.'

If Eugene worked for the law firm of Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe, he could be fired for almost any reason, including one of the partners taking offense to something written in his weblog.

Interview with liberal radio host Randi Rhodes.

RHODES: Oh, I am so glad you asked. I am a ratings and revenue queen. Number 1 or 2 in the ratings usually. So what are the "mainstream" talking about? Well, they say Liberals don't make money because no one wants to hear them. Okay, let's think.

...
BUZZFLASH: Explain the allegations that Rush Limbaugh has stated, that if Clear Channel syndicated your show, he would take his program to another company. Could there be a Democratic or Progressive Rush Limbaugh type personality on the airwaves?

RHODES: Not at Clear Channel.

First, let me tell you where the story came from. I had two meetings with middle managers who both liked me and what I had done for our 'pod'. (At Clear Channel the territories are split up into 'pods'.) In two separate meetings I was told "The Rush story." Additionally, I should never expect to be syndicated by Clear Channel because Rush had said he'd just do what advertisers do. He'd go somewhere else. I was an unknown, he was a known.

You can listen to Randi here.

Religious Right mad at O'Reilly. ha ha ha.

UggaBugga has a fun game for us to play!

Heads roll at CNN

While Utley said it was his decision to leave CNN, five of his peers were axed in recent days. Washington senior correspondent Brooks Jackson, San Francisco-based anchor James Hattori, CNNfn anchor Bruce Francis, CNN financial news senior correspondent Allan Dodds Frank and Miami-based reporter Mark Potter were told their contracts won't be renewed.

"I got the word on Monday that my position is being eliminated," Jackson said.

Prominent CNN national correspondent Bruce Morton, an ex-CBS veteran, is expected to leave when his contract expires this month, CNN sources said.

The Dr. Laura memo.

I've discovered another horrible example of a segregationist club.


This one's for you, Lonewhacko.

Bush Announces Operation Infinite Purity

Outlaws Onanism. Legalizes Clitoridectomies.

Someone should tell the Virgin Ben. Quick.

Eric Boehlert demolishes Time and some poll myths.

Krugman draws a questionable moral equivalence between Kim Jong Il and Bart Simpson.

Well, not really. But it's a good column.

Haha. This is actually funny.



As is its source.

Readers hate Boondocks.

Apparently it makes it hard for some of them to be "tolerant."


(some like it, too. via Charles Kuffner.)

Sara sez:

Well, I was at the Memorial -- it was advertised, by the way, as a Memorial Rally not a Memorial Service. I did not boo -- but when Lott showed up I did a small thumbs down. (got my wish it turns out)!!!

Everyone is missing the essence of who Paul was, and how he became successful at Electoral Politics. It all began when he was in Grad School and adopted as one mentor Myles Horton, founder of Highlander Folkschool (Great 2 hour PBS interview by Bill Moyers with Horton is available). Horton's roots went back to Jane Addams and John Dewey and he applied those ideas to creating in the South an adult education school focused on Labor Organizing, then in the 40's Civil Rights, and come the late 60's the environment. Paul modeled his own college teaching career on Horton's example -- for 20 years there was not a progressive movement or event in Minnesota where Paul and his students were not engaged. That created one hell of a network, especially since as each little movement came to fruition, Paul invited them into the DFL. It was on that base that he ran for Senate in 1990. We had no money, and the elite in the party never thought we could win -- but guess what? Networked Progressive Movements can offset big bucks in some circumstances.

When Paul, Sheila, Marcia and the traveling staff died in that plane crash it was the demise of a life work and not just a candidacy -- and the 20 thousand people who stood in line to get into Williams Arena that day were not looking for spiritual uplift. They wanted to remember all the times, and they wanted to shout at the heavens about their pain.

Minnesotans know that it was Hubert Humphrey who forced the Democratic Party to reverse its stand on States' Rights and take up the call of Human Rights -- and he did it most publicly at the National Democratic Convention in Philadelphia in 1948. That act was the cause of Strom Thurmond's leading the States' Rights party in the 48 election -- and while Hubert had to talk for 16 years before most of the Civil Rights he stood for became law -- he did it. Paul Wellstone was his heir. Of course people in the Arena knew Lott was CCC and KKK and all the rest. When he walked in, that was the undercurrent of discussion all around me. "How dare he come here" was the comment. You need to know that we also had been offered VP Cheney for the event, and we had uninvited him because we were unwilling to put up metal detectors and wand everyone, and let the Secret Service run the Memorial. Locally the press reported some of these matters -- but the whole story of how the Republicans tried to upset the Memorial has hardly been told. For instance, in one parking area some of Coleman's little boys went round slapping Coleman bumper stickers on cars in camera range. We got the cops to paste plain paper over them. Everything was edgy -- and Lott was simply too much to take.

Rick Kahn has had to take a huge amount of responsibility for well intentioned bad judgment. He was one of Paul's students in the late 80's who took on the thankless job of being Campaign Treasurer at a time when that was a thin checkbook, and the Wellstone office was a rented broom closet in a center where we kept the phone, the answering machine, and the Apple Computer on which we formatted the early campaign literature. Two nights a week we were entitled, given our mini rent, to haul out the campaign into an office where we could do phone organizing. I organized a Congressional District for Paul -- and I did it from my dining room table, because the office was too small. Kahn simply is a young man who invested more than 14 years of his life in Wellstone -- never got called on a Campaign Finance Error, and who was beyond devastated. I wish some folk would comprehend him.

Those of us who worked over the years to keep Wellstone out there as a National Figure know we can't replace Paul. What we have to work on now is rebuilding in many states the kind of progressive network that made it possible for Paul Wellstone and Sheila to serve. Part of that is being real and human and shouting at the heavens when things crash.

I say, as I have always said, anyone who pissed on a man's grave and trashed his family and closest friends in the middle of their grieving is beneath contempt. Disgusting, hideous, insults to human decency.