1. I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)     Otis Redding
2. The Man I Love                                                             Etta James
3. Comes Love                                                                   Ella Fitzgerald
4. You’re The Nearest Thing To Heaven                      Johnny Cash
5. I Put A Spell On You                                                    Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
6. This Girl’s In Love With You                                     Aretha Franklin
7. Here I Am (Come And Take Me)                             Al Green
8. Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You                                Lauryn Hill
9. All Over Again                                                             Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
10. Hallelujah I Love Her So                                          Ray Charles
11. Just One Kiss                                                              Raphael Saadiq Feat. Joss Stone
12. Just A Little Bit                                                          Etta James
13. For Once in My Life                                                  James Brown
14. Two Hearts, Two Kisses (Make One Love)          Frank Sinatra
15. Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours                     Stevie Wonder
16. When She Begins                                                      Social Distortion
17. I wanna be your lover                                              Prince

So, expect it in your mailboxes soon. If I don’t have your address (like, for instance, one Miss Unfokused) shoot me an email. I love y’all!

Imagine this 'stache, but with an accompanying goatee.

Peter Kirsanow definitely wins the award for the most in-charge facial hair at the hearings.

He is a commissioner at the US Commission for Civil Rights and he was part of the panel that addressed and took question during the hearings today. This panel also included two firefighters from the Ricci case, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, several lobbyists and other people who knew Sotomayor previously in her career.

Kirsanow should holla at me for the golden mustache. Facial hair grooming is dying amongst the men of my generation. I implore my peers to get themselves some flair. This hipster, quasi-mountain man BS y’all have been peddling is played out, for real.

The award for lamest opening goes to Linda Chavez of the Center for Equal Opportunity.

“I testify today not as a wise Latina woman but an American who believes that skin color and national origin should not determine who gets a job, a promotion or a public contract or who gets into college or receives a fellowship.” link

I think that, for the most part, Chavez did a fantastic job expressing her points and beliefs, but this opener made me groan. Chavez can get with me if she’s interested in the Cheap Line award I’ve got for her.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) had an interesting exchange with Chavez, who is vehemently opposed to Sotomayor being confirmed. Chavez was using the GOP’s arguments, but doing a much better job at not sounding like a six-year-old parroting, and sometimes butchering, Uncle Rush’s talking points. When Chavez talked about the wise Latina comment, she echoed Graham’s assertion that he could never have said something like that and gotten away with it. He fired back with, “As the white guy who said that…” and proceeded to kinda sorta defend Sotomayor.

But, Graham even managed to fail at sounding empathetic. He told Ben Vargas, one of the men who sued the City of New Haven in the Ricci case, that he should understand the inclination toward the policy that kept him from a promotion he earned because a generation ago, his last name would have precluded him from being in contention to be a firefighter at all.

So, let me get this straight. Vargas should be understanding because he would have been screwed a generation ago, and now that he’s worked his way to being in contention for a PROMOTION in the fire department, he should be understanding that there’s a reason he’s being DOUBLE screwed in the name of progress?

I certainly hope not everyone accepts Senator Graham as an example of “average, every-day white guy”s. I know many white dudes who would shudder at being placed in his company. Senator Graham, call me. I’ve got your brass cojones for you if you want them.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C) has become the star of these proceedings due to his determination to be as quotable as possible. He told Sotomayor a couple of days ago that she would be confirmed, barring a complete “meltdown.” Now, a couple of people have said that that remark was sexist, that he would have never said that to a man. OK, maybe they’re right, but aren’t we ignoring the greater issue here? What is the point of having these hearings if the only way that someone doesn’t get the job is if there is wailing and gnashing of teeth?

Graham had another quotable moment yesterday. The blogosphere is falling all over itself to congratulate him, and I’ll give it to him, he did sound pretty damned snappy.

“GRAHAM: Well, I don’t know how else you could take that. If Lindsey Graham said that I will make a better senator than X, because of my experience as a Caucasian male makes me better able to represent the people of South Carolina, and my opponent was a minority, it would make national news, and it should.

Having said that, I am not going to judge you by that one statement. I just hope you’ll appreciate the world in which we live in, that you can say those things, meaning to inspire somebody, and still have a chance to get on the Supreme Court.

Others could not remotely come close to that statement and survive. Whether that’s right or wrong, I think that’s a fact.

GRAHAM: Does that make sense to you?

SOTOMAYOR: It does. And I would hope that we’ve come in America to the place where we can look at a statement that could be misunderstood, and consider it in the context of the person’s life.

(CROSSTALK)

GRAHAM: You know what? If that comes of this hearing, the hearing has been worth it all, that some people deserve a second chance when they misspeak and you would look at the entire life story to determine whether this is an aberration or just a reflection of your real soul. If that comes from this hearing, then we’ve probably done the country some good.” link

Tell ‘em what your name is, Senator Graham. But, does he deserve any snaps for his performance? I say NAY! He already said he’d vote for her barring a meltdown. What say YOU?

I’m moving back to the great state of Texas soon. I like DC a lot, but it’s expensive to live here and they have winter. I’m not a big fan of winter. There’s also the whole “girl out of Texas” conundrum. Also, Texas is better than California. I always knew that, but having evidence is always fun.

Here’s the exchange:

Here we go!

Here’s the Vanity Fair piece that got the whole hullabaloo started.

William Kristol, Palin’s number one fan, immediately called out several parts of the article. One thing that Kristol takes issue with is that Purdum wrote that several people had reported Palin as having “extravagant self-regard” without him asking them about her attitude.

“Is there any real chance that ‘several’ Alaskans independently told Purdum that they had consulted the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders? I don’t believe it for a moment. I’ve (for better or worse) moved in pretty well-educated circles in my life, and I’ve gone decades without ‘several’ people telling me they had consulted the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.” link

Kristol also took the opportunity to point a finger at Steve Schmidt, a top aide on the McCain-Palin team, as being one of the anonymous sources cited in the article.

Jonathan Martin wrote a great piece for Politico about the tiff and got Schmidt’s response to Kristol’s allegations. They are truly scathing.

“Asked about the accusation, Schmidt fired back in an e-mail: ‘I’m sure John McCain would be president today if only Bill Kristol had been in charge of the campaign.’

‘After all, his management of [former Vice President] Dan Quayle’s public image as his chief of staff is still something that takes your breath away,’ Schmidt continued. “His attack on me is categorically false.’” link

Martin also wrote in the same piece that Randy Scheunemann, an adviser to McCain who also happens to be quite close to Kristol, also accused Schmidt of the leak in an equally inflammatory way.

“Steve Schmidt has a congenital aversion to the truth,” Scheunemann said. “On two separate and distinct occasions, he speculated about about Governor Palin having post-partum depression, and on the second he threatened that if more negative publicity about the handling of Governor Palin emerged that he would leak his speculation [about post-partum depression] to the press.” link

Mark Hemingway at the National Review wrote an exhaustive analysis into who might have leaked the information. It’s definitely an entertaining read. It’s got email transcripts and everything.

This Mother Jones piece calls Sarah Palin “the gift that keeps on giving,” and the last line of the story is snark at it’s lowest common denomenator.

“There’s only one proper response to this: Palin/Sanford 2012!  Drill baby drill!” link

And just to make the whole thing even more ridiculous, a blog called RedState has issued a political hit on the staffers that leaked to Vanity Fair. It looks like somebody’s been watching too many mob movies. I knew this one was going to be good when I saw the title, “A friendly suggestion to former McCain campaign staffers: You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.” LMBO

“If you are a McCain staffer who did not talk to VF, I suggest that you find some way to demonstrate that you aren’t one of the people in the first paragraph.  Because until we know who talked, the default assumption is going to be that you may have talked.  This will not wreck your career, but it will blight it if the base has anything to say about it.  On the bright side, a simple and declarative denial will do; of course, if your denial is a lie and we catch you at it, brush up on your typing skills.” link

Good work everyone.

Aren’t we in the middle of health care reform and cap-and-trade stuff that the GOP claims will hurtle us full-tilt toward socialism/bring the country to its knees?

SO. Now that we’re all up to speed, here’s what’s been swirling in that thing all the cool kids like to call the blogosphere. I also put a coupla “traditional” news sources in there for good measure.

OK. This blog was posted by Tom Goldstein on the Plank at The New Republic. This one’s really worth a read because the guy obsessively follows the SCOTUS, he’s argued in front of it more than 20 times and he is the founder of SCOTUSblog. The title alone tells you why this is a juicy must-read. The post is called, “What Ricci Says About The Court’s View Of Sotomayor.”

Mark Thompson at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen thinks that the decision disproves the notion that the court is pro-business and pro-government because…

“The effects of this decision are going to be to increase, rather than decrease, litigation against  employers, while also making it harder for employers to comply with anti-discrimination laws.” link

Freddie, another one of the Ordinary Gentlemen, is afraid of what this will do for advancing minorities in our culture.

“But my question is open, and I apply it to the most thoughtful opponents of affirmative action and the most rabid and unthinking alike: what are the effects, for our country, of a permanent racial achievement divide? And can we reasonably expect to maintain a peaceful and just society with such a gap between the races?” link

This article at Slate is a thoughtful, if a bit long, look at race in the United States and puts the Ricci case in historical perspective. It’s part of a five part series. I recommend it.

The Editors at the National Review wrote a piece that argued that the SCOTUS was unanimous on one point, even though the vote was close.

“The only consensus the nine justices found was that the handling of case by Sotomayor’s three-judge appeals-court panel was shoddy. Even the four dissenting justices agreed that the Second Circuit applied the wrong legal standard.” link

Linda Greenhouse wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that delves into both the majority and minority decisions. I recommend it if you’re interested in the legal aspect of the whole issue, as opposed to solely Ricci’s impact on Sotomayor.

Paul Krugman wrote a column called “Betraying the Planet” that has gotten quite a response from the internet community.

He got Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard all riled up because said that denying climate change was treasonous.

Here is the passage that Goldfarb took issue with:

“Still, is it fair to call climate denial a form of treason? Isn’t it politics as usual?

Yes, it is — and that’s why it’s unforgivable.

Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an “existential threat” to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole — but the existential threat from climate change is all too real.

Yet the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat, placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because it’s in their political interest to pretend that there’s nothing to worry about. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is.” link

Goldfarb argued that of all the scientists he’s talked to about the threat of global warming not ONE of them said that the threat was existential. He also quoted one who said some wishy washy stuff, but the gem is his ending.

“Instead, relying on his own authority as a Nobel prize-winning economist, Krugman offers a vision of global warming as worse than nuclear winter — as if humanity hasn’t survived and prospered through repeated climate fluctuations. Krugman claims he knows how it’s all going to pan out — and that anyone who disagrees with him is a traitor to planet earth.

I’d bet my pitiful life savings that my carbon footprint isn’t one-tenth of Krugman’s, but if he wants to call me a traitor to planet earth, fine. Just don’t question my patriotism.” link

E.D. Kain of The League of Ordinary Gentlemen also took issue with Krugman’s calling people treasonous. He thinks that the cap-and-trade system is the wrong way to address climate change and compares it to indulgences in Catholicism.

“Like cap and trade itself, the passage of Waxman-Markey is an example of legislation as indulgence.  Carbon credits, like papal indulgences, don’t actually limit carbon emissions anymore than indulgences sped one’s soul to heaven.  Perhaps in theory they do, but in reality the concessions to industry are always too great, the compromises entrenching industry status quo and crowding out innovators and alternative energy start-ups.” link

John Cole at Balloon Juice is cheesed about Krugman’s linguistical choice. It was the quote of the afternoon over at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen.

“There needs to be some form of one of the corollaries to Godwin’s Law that applies to the word treason, in that anyone who accuses someone of treason for non-treasonous behavior automatically loses the argument. Yes, the climate change deniers are, in my opinion, wrong, and yes, they are making all sorts of ridiculous arguments, but after the last eight years, can everyone just knock it off with the accusations of treason?” link

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution thinks that the bill doesn’t do enough to address the problem. Nay! He says that he thinks that the bill, as it stands, woul be counterproductive “once the international scale of the problem is taken into account.” link

Free Exchange, the blog of the Economist, seems to think that these tariffs might be a strategy to get crackin’ on an international agreement.

“My impression is that Mr Obama is anxious to do something about climate change, yet realises that America can’t halt the process of warming by itself; it must have agreement on emission reductions from basically all of the world’s large economies. So perhaps the very imperfect Waxman-Markey bill is best seen as a means to push forward a global agreement on emissions.” link

Other stuff…

Here’s a great post at The Swamp that talks about Obama’s reservations about the tariffs proposed in the House version of the climate change bill and a good sweeping view of the other reactions on the hill.

Here’s the transcript of an interview that Obama did with a pool of reporters along with Carol Browner, assistant to the president on energy and climate change and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu.

I first saw that Michael Jackson had been rushed to the hospital on Twitter. Most of the media sites I checked had updated and had a breaking section that showed that he had been hospitalized. The discrepancies started when several more gossipy sites started reporting that he was dead. So far as I can tell, several websites jumped the gun on reporting Jackson’s death by more than 30 minutes.

In the crazy news cycle that we live in on the web, is there anything to gain by holding back until something has been confirmed? Can we afford to be sure? As a journalist it makes me hella uncomfortable to even consider putting information out there that hasn’t been affirmed in some way. As I sat with some fellow students at school today, we were comparing which sites had gone with the story that MJ had died and which ones were holding off. I tend to value a news source taking that extra couple of minutes to make sure, but I am not under the erroneous impression that I am an average consumer.

What do y’all think about the way that Michael Jackson’s death was reported?

I’ll leave you with some of my favorite Michael Jackson videos. RIP MJ. Thanks for the tunes and the dance parties you’ve inspired.

Thriller

Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough

Beat It

The Way You Make Me Feel

Smooth Criminal

Black or White

All videos are from Michael Jackson’s official YouTube page.

FoxNews pundit Bill O’Reilly and US Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) got into a screaming match the way that intelligent, rational, grown-ass men do when they’re trying to debate issues last year. It was about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and it was EPIC. It managed to be a standout in screaming matches, and on The O’Reilly Factor, that’s saying something. See for yourselves.

Today, Frank went back for more after he released a statement urging Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax standards for certain kinds of mortgages. I found the encounter, which was much more civil this time, on YouTube.

Here’s a transcript provided courtesy of the show.

People say a lot of things about O’Reilly, but you can’t deny that the man knows how to have himself a daily quarrel.