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- The Hill reports that Senate Democrats are taking up immigration reform this year in addition to everything else that is on Congress' plate. Harry Reid put it thusly: "As far as I’m concerned we have three major issues we have to do this year, if at all possible: No. 1 is health care; No. 2 is energy, global warming; No. 3 is immigration reform. It’s going to happen this session, but I want it this year, if at all possible." Surely this makes Rush Limbaugh and Michael Steele's concern for the fate of white males prescient.
- Speaking of race, I'm not sure what to say about National Review's latest cover, featuring "The Wise Latina" Sonia Sotomayor with Asian features and a Buddhist theme. Rather than actually examining Sotomayor's judicial record on race, as others have done, the NR gang has decided juvenile mockery and stirring non-controversy is the way to go.
- I really wanted to avoid mention of Sarah Palin ever again on this blog, but her remarks on government control of the people through federal bailout money presents a great opportunity to point out, as Conor Clarke writes, that "Alaska gets $13,950 per resident from the federal government, more than any other state in the nation. It ranks number one in taxes per resident and number one in spending per resident. It's also number one in pork-barrel spending. Each Alaska resident receives a check for $3,200 a year from state oil revenues -- which Palin bumped up from $2,000 last year."
- I wish he were wrong, but Chris Hayes' editorial on banking, health care and other corporate lobbyists co-opting the Democrats now that they're in power reads as a pretty good description of reality. And unlike Republicans, who have to win elections and popular support, corporate lobbyists don't care who's in power in order to meet their goals.
- Ezra Klein takes down the notion that all this wild borrowing and spending is making the bond markets jittery, jeopardizing our near-term fiscal solvency and ability to finance things like universal health care. He also cites a great line from Daniel Gross on what motivates the critics: "[Niall] Ferguson represents a strain of intellectual Toryism bedeviled by the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be getting social insurance."
- Remainders: Obama's first judicial nomination gets out of committee on a party line vote; more big Obama donors get rewarded with sinecure diplomacy jobs; Norm Coleman proposes an alternative to Ted Stevens' "series of tubes"; James Inhofe's confusion feels a few steps away from an accusation of treason; the "liberal media" loves it some Liz Cheney; the AMT really, really needs to be reformed; and the nudist lobby plans to make its case before Congress -- clothed.
--Mori Dinauer
