via TPM Cafe

by Nathan Newman
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It makes me nauseous hearing various Democratic leaders lauding Sandra Day O'Connor as a great heroine of moderation.� Yes, she made a few token bows on social issues, but her time on the Bench has been one of unmitigated hostility to working people.

While she may have saved some shards of affirmative action for the college-bound, it's worth remembering that O'Connor authored the decision in Adarand�which largely gutted the ability of the federal government to engage in affirmative action in subcontracting, just as she authored the decision in Croson�that outlawed the City of Richmond's affirmative action programs.� As Justice Marshall in dissent wrote of Sandra Day O'Connor's opinion:

today's decision marks a deliberate and giant step backward in this Court's affirmative-action jurisprudence. Cynical of one municipality's attempt to redress the effects of past racial discrimination in a particular industry, the majority launches a grapeshot attack on race-conscious remedies in general.

As for her attitude towards labor unions, O'Connor never missed a chance to cripple workers' union rights through her votes on the Court. Read on...

Yankee Doodle Judy       Hullabaloo

Gene Lyons has Croson�that outlawed the City of Richmond's affirmative action programs.� As Justice Marshall in dissent wrote of Sandra Day O'Connor's opinion:

today's decision marks a deliberate and giant step backward in this Court's affirmative-action jurisprudence. Cynical of one municipality's attempt to redress the effects of past racial discrimination in a particular industry, the majority launches a grapeshot attack on race-conscious remedies in general.

As for her attitude towards labor unions, O'Connor never missed a chance to cripple workers' union rights through her votes on the Court. Read on...

Bring It On: Most corporations, including the vast majority of foreign companies doing business in the United States, pay no income taxes, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday.

Drexel Dems: Meet John McCain's policy director. We already know about his idiotic, neocon foreign policy advisor. At least one rightie blogger is concerned that the McCain campaign is antagonizing their own supporters.

Lost in Tarnation: A position of strength? Actually, the POTUS is just a lowly spectator.

The Debatable Land: Did you know Putin is really another Hitler?

Alas, a blog: We don't need no stinking environmentalists...Jesus already saved the planet!

Our Future: Confronting rising drug prices

The Shock Doctrine move by Conservative goons is on the move.  They re using the fear of rising gas prices to push the ridiculous notion that all will be saved if we drill in ANWR. If it didn't pass with the White House controlled by a conservative and Congress controlled by conservatives, how will it ever pass? I think the real reason they didn't get it pushed through before the 2006 election is because drilling for oil is very expensive and Cheney's blood brothers in the oil field really didn't want to spend the cash. Why bother with record profits lining their pockets...

Campaign for Our Future's Rick Perlstein (and author of the soon-to-be* published Nixonland) went head to talking head with Bush speechwriter and neo-con David Frum for the latest edition of BloggingheadsTV. The entire discussion is about 45 minutes in length, but this excerpt is instructive to the whole. Frum authoritatively starts asserting his opinions as facts about how Lyndon Johnson could have saved the Democratic party in the late 1960s "if there had been a police response that sent the message, 'this is not going to be tolerated, no more riots..."

But Frum's mistake is assuming that Perlstein doesn't have the actual facts on hand. How many stammers and concessions do you hear Frum make?

* corrected. Nixonland will be available on May 13th.

Here’s your wakeup call (h/t commenter ysbaddaden). Thought you might need that. Know I did. Brad Jacobson of MediaBloodhound here, the guy who won't be invited to ABC News’ Christmas party. But that’s OK. Let somebody else get stuck at the punchbowl with George Will. And now, on to the links:

Regret the Error's best of the worst of 2007 media mistakes and corrections.

Happy Valley News: “CIA Admits It Destroyed Entire Third Season of Saved by the Bell.”

Scholars & Rogues presents a journalist’s story: “Back then, news people ran newspapers. Today, they decidedly do not. Corporations do.”

Mr. Rogers is mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore. Plus, the Freeway Blogger deals with the long (crooked) arm of the law.

Entering the file marked “If Life Were Only Like This on a Regular Basis,” Shaheen is forced to step down as Clinton co-chair after his Obama remarks.

Actor212 of Simply Left Behind may not be Alan Greenspan, but he knows stagflation when he sees it.

Crooked Timber thinks Ed Balls has quite a pair for suggesting a common sense approach to teaching foreign languages.

That’s all, truth-seekers. Send those post suggestions to mediabloodhound (at) yahoo (dot) com.

...please take a sweet draw on the tailpipe of my minivan...

Love and linkage to Media Bloodhound, who sent me this Youtube, and comments: "Nothing bought the crazy more than these [2006] commercials. These Competitive Enterprise Institute*** ads seem worth revisiting in light of Gore's Nobel yesterday: 'Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life.'"

If Al Gore and those so-called "scientists" had just adopted this "run the camera backwards" solution to global warming, they woulda won their Nobel and saved a few more glaciers years ago.

***Who the hell are these people, and why is Exxon Mobil funding them? Just guessing, actually. Google google....oops sorry

it's Ford Motor Company. Let the record stand corrected.

Open thread below. Don't do too much CO2 before you post. "Life" is precious!

Some families testified yesterday in utter despair over their loss of a son and a husband. I've written a lot about the actions of the shady Utah mine owner Bob Murray. This is a heartbreaking look at how these families are dealing with the tragic deaths that happened in part because of the incompetent actions of Bob Murray.

Download | play Download | play

Sheila Phillips - Mother of miner Brandon Phillips:

"It's just hard to have hope, and have your heart broke every day, and have your grandson grow up without a dad…And I'd like to talk a little bit about Mr. Murray -- I didn't go to very many of the meetings because I couldn't stand to listen to the man. He was talking about one day when they were moving the drill holes, and they had the pad ready for one and then they decided to drill it somewhere else, and I asked him why they didn't have two going... and he said 'we could drill you 1,000 holes and it wouldn't make any difference.' (transcripts and Digby below the fold)

Continue reading »

This should never have happened in the United States. We're becoming a third world nation before our very eyes.

WaPo: (h/t Pach)

Twelve-year-old Deamonte Driver died of a toothache Sunday.

A routine, $80 tooth extraction might have saved him.

If his mother had been insured.

If his family had not lost its Medicaid.

If Medicaid dentists weren't so hard to find.

If his mother hadn't been focused on getting a dentist for his brother, who had six rotted teeth.

By the time Deamonte's own aching tooth got any attention, the bacteria from the abscess had spread to his brain, doctors said. After two operations and more than six weeks of hospital care, the Prince George's County boy died.

Deamonte's death and the ultimate cost of his care, which could total more than $250,000, underscore an often-overlooked concern in the debate over universal health coverage: dental care.

The War on Christmas is one profitable venture.

The American Family Assn., a conservative activist group, has rung up more than $550,000 in sales of buttons and magnets stamped with the slogan "Merry Christmas: It's Worth Saying."

Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit law firm affiliated with the religious right, has taken in more than $300,000 with its Help Save Christmas Action Packs. The kits include two buttons, two bumper stickers and "The Memo that Saved Christmas," a guide to defending overt religious expression, such as a Nativity scene in a public school classroom...read on

In years gone by---it used to be that many people felt the Holidays were being exploited for profit by corporate America. Not any more. To see these buffoons abuse it is pretty sickening. Dan Radmacher takes aim at Bill O'Reilly:

All this "War on Christmas" nonsense was manufactured in 2004 by that sanctimonious hypocrite Bill O'Reilly to bump up ratings -- and maybe distract attention from that whole unfortunate sexual harassment/phone sex episode...read on

2006 SENATE RACE RANKINGS: Hotline's editor-in-chief, Chuck Todd's analysis of the races....and vet and senate candidate, James Webb, shows he knows how to respond to vile GOP slurs. In other congressional news, it appears that the Ney operation is crumbling. Pete Seeger on our friend and NY Dem candidate for congress, John Hall.

Sadly, No! In Praise of Robert Somerby

Sooner Thought: We know the proudly ignorant G-Dub doesn't read, but apparently, nobody in that chickensh*t outfit does. BushCo could have saved themselves the trouble of pissing off the entire world by peeking into their bank records and simply read Loretta Napoleoni’s book, which lays out how terror funding really works.

Taylor Marsh: Jack Bauer would laugh at Rush...who may have a new gig.

Martini Republic: Here's a story that slipped under the radar..