I can't figure out how to embed it here, but check out the video (here) attached to this article, describing the catch-22 confronting innocent prisoners facing the parole board: only by admitting guilt do they have any realistic chance of gaining parole, but that same admission of guilt will destroy any possibility of future exoneration (in that prosecutors can and will use the prisoner's parole testimony against them). Wild -- and devastating -- stuff.

I've been saying this for a while, but in the wake of my brilliantly correct predictions in the two of yesterday's races that I cared enough about to predict (Sestak beating Specter and the Dems holding PA-12), I figured I should write this down and publish it, so that I may claim credit for it come November 3: the economy will continue to rebound (albeit slowly), the Tea Partiers will fade, and the Dems will maintain control of both chambers.

House

• Currently (including Critz): 255-177 Dems
• November 3: 235-200 Dems

Senate

• Currently: 59-41 Dems
• November 3: 55-45 Dems

Republicans will pick up seats across the board, but they won't come anywhere close to retaking either the House or the Senate. Mark my words.

Sometimes bad people do good things. Kudos, Wal-Mart.

(It's also a pretty amusing example of corporate oneupsmanship. Yesterday, Target announced "a $2.3 million program to create pantries in schools that can be used to teach children about good nutrition at the same time they are fed." That's an admirable idea, and they deserve some [relatively smaller] kudos of their own, but could they have picked a worse time to announce it than the day before their biggest competitor announces a plan to spend $2 billion? I don't think they could have.)

This is phenomenal.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Michael Steele Plays the Race Card
www.thedailyshow.com

This is uncomfortable to think about (on any number of levels):

The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday.

(Let's just hope they don't try to do it on U.S. soil...)

My top five recommendations from borders.com right now:

• American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies, and More Dirty Lies That the Government Tells Us by Jesse Ventura
• Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History by Andrew Napolitano
• Courage and Consequences: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight by Karl Rove
• No Apology: The Case for American Greatness by Mitt Romney
• Defining Conservatism: The Principles That Will Bring Our Country Back by Jonathan Krohn (this kid)

They know me so well! (Seriously, Borders: what the fuck?)

Dark times for cap and trade:

Today, the concept is in wide disrepute, with opponents effectively branding it “cap and tax,” and Tea Party followers using it as a symbol of much of what they say is wrong with Washington.

Two thoughts:

• 1. Dear Tea Party followers: I know irony is not your strong suit, but I really wish you could stop decrying earmarks the stimulus the bailouts health care reform cap and trade as "a symbol of what's wrong with Washington" long enough to appreciate how blatantly you are being used.
• 2. Want to make something that's not scary sound scary? Add the word "tax" to it! Doesn't matter how nonsensical it is; it always works! Watch:

  Not scary: "Cap and trade"
  Scary: Cap and tax
  
  Not scary: "Medicare"
  Scary: Meditax
  
  Not scary: "Magazine"
  Scary: Taxazine
  
  Not scary: "Bird"
  Scary: Taxbird

I'm willing to accept that these folks are not a representative sample of the opposition to the healthcare bill, but I think it's also pretty clear that there are more of them out there than intelligent Republicans would like to admit.

God, these people.

As the House engaged in initial parliamentary maneuvering, hundreds of anti-reform protesters gathered on the south side of the Capitol between the building and the House office buildings across Independence Avenue, chanting and jeering Democrats and applauding House Republicans who egged them on.

“Nancy Pelosi you will burn in hell for this,” one woman intoned repeatedly through a bullhorn as members of the crowd rang bells, blew a bugle, waved a varied assortment of flags and chanted “Kill the bill.”

After racial slurs and other derogatory terms were hurled at Democrats by protesters on Saturday, numerous Democrats walked en masse from the House office buildings to the Capitol, running a gantlet of jeering and booing demonstrators. One was heard calling Representative Barney Frank, the openly gay Democrat from Massachusetts, a slur generally uttered against gays.

Emphasis mine. Do you think they go home at night and congratulate themselves for having contributed to public policy? How are Republicans not humiliated by these people?

“It is almost like the Salem witch trials,” Mr. Frank said. “The health bill has become their witch. It is a supernatural force and you get hysteria. There is an anger obviously that goes beyond anything connected to the bill.” Mr. Frank said he thinks the name-calling will backfire.

“I don’t think this is the way you win over the American people,” he said. “I think the average American says ‘No, I don’t like this anger, this bigotry.'"

Barney is so wise.

Do Republicans realize how ridiculous they sound when they rail against the healthcare bill on the floor of the House by using the phrases "Cornhusker Kickback," "Louisiana Purchase," "Gator Aid," and so forth, as if those were actual things? I don't think they do.

(Also, Chris Smith just helpfully explained that abortion is about "the exploitation of women." Good to know!)

Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann on reconciliation:

Neither party has been shy about using this process to avoid dilatory tactics in the Senate; Republicans have in fact been more willing to do so than Democrats.

The history is clear: While the use of reconciliation in this case — amending a bill that has already passed the Senate via cloture — is new, it is compatible with the law, Senate rules and the framers’ intent.

Boom, bitches.

I'm not generally a big Keith Olbermann fan (he veers into polemicism a bit too often for my taste), but I happened to see a fair-sized chunk of Countdown today (in between periods of the Canada/Russia game, for the most part), and the man was on fire.* There are two things in particular for which I must laud him:

Thing One
For showing, in its entirety, this absolutely magnificent Anthony Weiner meltdown ("Every single Republican I have ever met in my entire life is a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry!") on the floor of the House:



Thing Two
For this genuinely moving essay about his father's failing health:



Kudos, Keith.

* - Unlike some people.