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- It makes a lot of sense for Democrats to pass the more contentious portions of health care reform using the reconciliation process and save the non-budgetary provisions for a separate piece of legislation. You see, in fantasyland Washington D.C., the two major political parties each want health care reform but disagree on the details, necessitating serious bipartisan negotiations. In the real world, Republicans want to destroy Barack Obama and tar Democrats as failures so they can ride to electoral victory next year and 2012. Nihilists and hypocrites indeed.
- Tom Ridge isn't blowing any minds by revealing that he was pressured by Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft to use the DHS' color-coded terrorism warning system for George Bush's political gain, but you'd think this would be a auspicious time for some enterprising journalists to point out that Republicans are still politicizing national security, this time to cover their complicity in the use of torture by the government.
- Just because the cover of the new National Review doesn't feature jokes about racial stereotypes or threats of anal penetration doesn't mean the publication is starting to take itself more seriously. I mean, Andy McCarthy still writes for them, observing today that because the president occasionally goes sans necktie, it reminds him "that the Iranian regime has shunned the necktie ever since Khomeini pronounced it a symbol of Western decadence." I'm sure McCarthy felt the same way about George W. Bush. You know, if I were an earnest young conservative looking to get into serious political writing and thought that interning at NR would advance my career, I would be pretty embarrassed by the magazine's commitment to supporting utter nonsense.
- Anti-gay marriage crusader Maggie Gallagher has five predictions about the effects of legalizing same-sex marriage, which seems like a pointless exercise given that SSM is already legal in several states and thus you don't actually need to "predict" anything. But the list does have some value. For instance, she believes that "people committed to traditional notions of marriage will feel afraid to speak up for their views, lest they be punished in some way." By whom? Or prediction six: "Only a small minority of gay couples will seek gay marriages where they are available" because "it makes so little sense for them." In short, gays and liberal PC thugs want to punish "traditional" people, and that is the totality of the push for SSM.
- Remainders: The DNC outraises the RNC in July; Foreign Policy has a good list of the biggest lies being pushed in the United States about other health care systems in the world; lawmakers haven't forgotten about dealing with the estate tax this Fall; since he brought it up initially, is it fair to ask whether John Cornyn is gathering an enemies list?; I find the 'seasteading' movement's undiluted selfishness fascinating; and everything you need to know about the Viper Militia.
--Mori Dinauer
