Internal Monologue

Atrios : As I've written before, Democrats will regret embracing the expansion of executive power because a President Obama will find his administration undone by an "abuse of power" scandal. All of those powers which were necessary to prevent the instant destruction of the country will instantly become impeachable offenses. If you can't imagine how such a pivot can take place then you haven't been paying attention. Hunter on DailyKos : This petty, stinking issue of granting retroactive immunity to companies that violated the law, such that they need not even say how they violated the law, or when they violated the law, or how often, or against who, and the whole thing started before 9/11 so it is clear that terrorism wasn't even a prime factor for doing it -- that whole mess is now absolved, no lawsuits, no discovery, no evidence allowed to be presented? No, that one is indefensible. It is indefensible because it requires not just passive acceptance of

Pretty cool . The lander has found little chunks of ice. They can tell it's ice because it sublimated (went from solid to gas) away over the course of a few days.

I wouldn't mind if "Jumping the Shark" got replaced by " Nuking the Fridge ": Nuking the Fridge is a colloquialism used by U.S. Cinema critics and fans and has a meaning similar to jumping the shark . It is used to denote the point in a movie or movie series at which the characters or plot veer into a ridiculous, out-of-the-ordinary storyline. Films that have "nuked the fridge" are typically deemed to have passed their peak, since they have undergone too many changes to retain their initial appeal, and after this point critical fans often sense a noticeable decline in their quality. It is considered as the movie equivalent of what Jumping the shark means for television. The term

Yo Democrats, it's stuff like this that lends credence to the "Democrats aren't worth fighting for" meme. Knock it off. Greenwald : CQ reports (sub. req.) that "a final deal has been reached" on FISA and telecom amnesty and "the House is likely to take up the legislation Friday." I've now just read a copy of the final "compromise" bill. It's even worse than expected. When you read it, it's actually hard to believe that the Congress is about to make this into our law. Then again, this is the same Congress that abolished habeas corpus with the Military Commissions Act, and legalized George Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program with the "Protect America Act," so it shouldn't be hard to believe at all. This isn't an issue I've been actively blogging on. But I am paying attention. And I don't like how this is going. Why is the Democratic Congress giving an incredibly unpopular president authority

It annoys me whenever political pundits say things like "McCain needs to improve his appeal to women" or "Obama needs to do better among working class white people in Appalachia." No, they don't. A vote is a vote is a vote is a vote. It doesn't matter where they come from. Yes, any candidate would do better if more of a certain demographic voted for them. But that doesn't mean they should automatically target that demographic. Maybe they'd be better off increasing turnout among demographics they're already strong in. Or targeting demographics where the voters are most persuadable. Or targeting demographics that can be appealed to with messages that don't jeopardize the candidates standing with other groups. Yglesias says something similar here: ...[T]he accompanying analysis says "Barack Obama's appeal to younger voters and John McCain's support among older voters may have created a situation where the outcome will turn on the

Apparently, "Renegade" is Barack Obama's secret service codename, and "Phoenix" is McCain. Michelle Obama is "Renaissance". No word on Cindy McCain, it probably starts with "P" as well. I guess it's a secret service tradition that husbands and wives have codenames that start with the same letter. (This info is from Ambinder .) I think it's cool that you get to pick your own codename. I remember there was a West Wing episode in which various staff members found out their secret service codenames, and CJ was annoyed that hers was "Flamingo". Maybe that episode prompted the secret service shift their policy and allow people to pick their own. Here's the thing, though: if everyone knows the codename (and now that it's on Internal Monologue , the whole world will know!), what's the point of having a codename at all? Why don't they just call people by their names? Maybe there's a secret service codename for p

If Obama is competitive in Alaska , ahead in Florida , Pennsylvania , and Ohio , and pulling away from McCain in Wisconsin , McCain is in big trouble. Yes, the election is a long ways away. There's going to be a lot of attacks coming Obama's way. But so far he's shown he can take it and hit back. This is one of the benefits of a long, hard-fought primary. I think it toughened up the Obama campaign, brought out the Reverend Wright stuff early, and showed he could defeat a powerful opponent. (I still think the Revered Wright stuff was probably overblown: criticizing America in biblical language is a stable of preachers both black and white, left and right. The only difference is what they say Americans have done to piss off The Almighty. I am glad that since Obama had to disown Wright, there was more scrutiny of the folks like Hagee who were in McCain's camp. Maybe in the future, politicians will be more wary of theological entanglements.)