[...]Black History Month Open Thread – Jack & Jill Politics[...]…

Excellent thread, I saw this really good thread today and I wanted to link to it. Thanks again for taking the time to post….

just saw Sade on David Letterman..

NO WAY is she 51.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senate Republicans flexed their new political muscle on Tuesday and blocked President Barack Obama's nomination of a union lawyer to help referee labor disputes.

Obama's fellow Democrats in the Senate fell far short of the needed 60 votes, 52-33, to end debate and clear the way for a confirmation vote on Craig Becker, who the president wants to put on the National Labor Relations Board.

Republicans prevailed with the help of two Democratic senators from conservative states, Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln. Nelson, like a number of Republicans, voiced fear that the union attorney would take a “personal agenda” to the NLRB.

While Democrats still hold the Senate majority, 59-41, Republicans have a stranglehold on the chamber — thanks to Scott Brown's win in a special Senate election in Massachusetts last month.

With Brown sworn in last week as the 41st Senate Republican, Democrats no longer hold the 60 votes needed to clear Republican procedural roadblocks.

The new balance of power puts much of Obama's agenda, including his bid to revamp U.S. healthcare, in dire trouble unless the president can win rare bipartisan support in a divided Congress.

To be sure, even before Democrats lost their 60-vote supermajority, they were often unable to stick together. But now, even if they do, they need the vote of at least one Republican to confirm nominees and approve legislation.

Obama, frustrated that Republicans have delayed votes on a number of his nominees, said on Tuesday he may make temporary “recess appointments” during Congress's break next week.

“We can't afford to allow politics to stand in the way of a well-functioning government,” Obama declared.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/02/09/us/po…

Texas Could Remove Cesar Chavez, Thurgood Marshall from Public School Studies

The Texas State Board of Education is moving toward removing Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall from the social studies curriculum taught to its 4.7 million public school students. According to one of the six “expert reviewers” revising the 1997 curriculum, Chavez “lacks the stature, impact and overall contributions of so many others; and his open affiliation with Saul Alinsky’s movements certainly makes dubious that he is praiseworthy.”

Another reviewer concluded that Marshall, a Supreme Court justice who as an attorney argued the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case, is “not an appropriate example as a historical figure of influence.” These are not the rantings of powerless and fringe people; they are statements from those recommending a new curriculum to the full Board. And so during a week in which an African-American President’s appointee of the first Latino to the Supreme Court dominates the news, we have Texas – whose Governor spoke of “secession” earlier this year – trying to turn back social and racial progress.

Former Bush speechwriter and torture-thrillist Marc Thiessen has, of late, been mounting some sort of prolonged campaign of pure, mountain-grown idiocy. He reached a new plateau today with a piece that essentially bitches about how President Barack Obama's success at eliminating terrorists is putting the country in danger. I know: What?

Just so we're clear, let the record state that Thiessen agrees that Obama is doing a good job killing terrorists. I found this out by searching his article for the phrase, “to be sure,” which I knew was in there somewhere!

To be sure, unmanned drones are critical in the struggle against al Qaeda. They allow the United States to reach terrorists hiding in remote regions where it would be difficult for special operations forces to reach them, or to act on perishable intelligence when the only choice is to kill a terrorist or lose him. Constantly hovering Predator (or Reaper) drones also have a psychological effect on the enemy, forcing al Qaeda leaders to live in fear and spend time focusing on self-preservation that would otherwise be used planning the next attack. All this is for the good.

Okay, that said, Thiessen's basic problem here is that with all this eliminating of the terrorist threat, Obama is harming our ability to detain and torture terrorists for their valuable intelligence.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/09/marc-t…

LOL

http://www.businessinsider.com/disney-works-for…

“

DIS Feb 9 2010, 06:40 PM EST
29.84 Change % Change
+0.36 +1.22%
Disney is getting involved in the White House's new “Let's Move” campaign. Their goal: Cure the childhood obesity epidemic within a generation.

For their part, Disney is creating a series of public service announcements which will feature Disney characters encouraging kids to get active and eat healthy….”

http://www.willmarryforhealthinsurance.com/

“And yes, as drastic as it sounds, I will marry for health insurance!!!

Please help my cause.”

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALe…

“White House hastens concert to beat snow
(AP) – 3 hours ago

WASHINGTON — Facing another wintry wallop, the White House decided to move a concert celebrating civil rights music from Wednesday to Tuesday night to beat what could be a second crippling storm in a week.”

Yes, I'm not sure how they're going to cover the Alamo.

The kind of attempted “disappearing” you describe is almost not news, it's so common there, but there is some back-and-forth about it:

Board voting Friday on social studies curriculum
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jan. 14, 2010, 11:24PM

AUSTIN — Christmas and Aesop's Fables are in, but Henry Cisneros won't be included in new social studies class guidelines considered Thursday by the Texas State Board of Education, which could influence curriculums nationwide…

Jose Antonio Navarro, a Texas revolutionary and contemporary of early Texas leader Stephen F. Austin, was added to the kindergarten curriculum in response to a public push for more examples of notable Mexican Americans.

Even in their name-adding frenzy, however, the board voted to leave Cisneros, the former Housing and Urban Development Secretary, out of fourth-grade lessons…

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolita…

“they hate her because she is beautiful and speaks for reeeal america and libruls are condescending, look down on outside folks folksy and folks” — Teabagger 1

“this is the same sexism hillary faced” — Hillary44

“the media is librul bias and hate her cuz she is not an establishment candidate, she breaks the rules” —- Morning Joe, Washington Post

“these are males executing precious sarah, they hate beautiful and intelligent women, they are scared of sarah, sarah 2012.. Palin/Brown 2012″ — Newt.org, Drudge Report

Thank you… I am taking bets….
I say this will begin tomorrow morning

talking about the Telepalmter:

yeah, we (the media) have been having fun with this….because she's stupid.

LMAO

It turns out that the criticism surrounding the decision to read Miranda rights to the attempted Christmas bombing suspect didn't originally come from any office-holding Republican.

Rather, it was pioneered by Tom Ridge and Dick Cheney in the days after Christmas, and only later picked up by members of Congress like Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) and Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO).

With the heated Obama-GOP back-and-forth this week over the Mirandizing of Umar Abdulmutallab, we decided to look back at the facts of what happened, and when critics pounced on the issue.

One notable fact is that Abdulmutallab was criminally charged by the Justice Department on Dec. 26, just a day after the incident. At that point, it would have been fair to assume that Abdulmutallab had been read his rights.

Here's the rest of what we found:

Dec. 25

Abdulmutallab is captured in Detroit after the alleged bombing attempt. “Shortly after 3:30 p.m.” FBI agents begin what would be a 50-minute interrogation of Abdulmutallab at the hospital, according to the AP.

The agents deliberately decide not to initially inform Abdulmutallab of his rights (e.g. to remain silent, to consult an attorney).

(There is a public safety exception to the Miranda rule — though it's unclear if the FBI agents had it in mind. It arises from the 1984 Quarles case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that police could ask an arrestee about matters that could threaten public safety before reading the arrestee his rights. The police in the case asked the arrestee where he had hidden a gun.)

After 50 minutes, the agents end the interrogation after Abdulmutallab was given medication “and the investigators decided it would be better to let the effects of the drugs wear off before pressing him further,” according to the AP. After he went into surgery for several hours, a second, “clean” team of agents came in to interrogate Abdulmutallab.

According to the AP, “FBI bosses in Washington had decided a new interrogation team was needed. They made that move in case the lack of a Miranda warning or the suspect's medical condition at the time of the earlier conversations posed legal problems later on for prosecutors.”

Abdulmutallab is read his rights “nearly 10 hours” after the attempted attack, according to the AP. That would be roughly 9 p.m. After he was read his rights, he did not speak to the second team, the AP reported.

Sometime during the evening, Brennan calls four leading Republicans — Hoekstra, Bond, Rep. John Boehner, and Sen. Mitch McConnell — and updates them on the case, noting that Abdulmutallab was in FBI custody. They do not raise the Miranda issue.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/…