Deborah Lipp

The ever-astute Hendrik Hertzberg:

For five days last week, the White House and its Capitol Hill allies did urgent battle against what they perceive, or say they perceive, as an attack on the institution of marriage. It’s a strange sort of attack, to be sure: a wonderfully pacific attack, a supportive attack, an attack without the slightest intention or capacity to cause harm, consisting, as it does, of the earnest wish of certain loving couples to join themselves to that very institution and thus to feel themselves, and be accepted as, full members of the American (and human) family.

[Cross-posted at If I Ran the Zoo]

Yesterday’s Chronicle ran a story on an unique immigration protest: five motorcyclists who call themselves the Paul Revere Riders, crossing the country to sound the alarm about illegal immigrants. Here’s a representative sample:

“One if by land, two if by sea, three if from Mexico,” declares their Web site — comparing illegal migrants from Mexico to British redcoats of two centuries ago.

“The idea is to get enough people enough excited about their country to take action,” said leader Frosty Wooldridge when the group arrived in Los Gatos Tuesday evening. “Paul Revere in April of 1775 was the great communicator. He rode and spread the word and actually beat the British. We’re trying to spread the word through our neighbors and through the Internet.

“We’ve seen people march for anarchy, march for Mexico, march for illegality,” said Wooldridge, who hopes legal immigration will be reduced dramatically and illegal entries stopped altogether. “It’s time we as Americans stand up.”

The story quotes exactly five people: the leader, and four of the anti-immigration protestors. All had positive things to say about the ride, and about the anti-immigration cause. Nobody was quoted with anything critical to say. A story on a politically charged protest ends up coming off as a human interest story.

Just to be clear, I don’t think the reporter, Tyche Hendricks, has an agenda here. » Read more..

Start with the suicides of three detainees at Guantanamo–one of whom had been cleared for transfer.

Compound that with (Assistant Deputy Secretary of State) Colleen Graffy’s comments to the BBC that the suicides were a “good P.R. move” and “a tactic to further the jihadi cause.”

It looks bad, and the administration realizes it looks bad. The problem, of course, is not that what Graffy said was completely appalling to civilized humans; the problem is that it didn’t work. She certainly wasn’t off the reservation: » Read more..

It’s good to know the DHS is protecting us from bootleg T-shirts. (The post title is from the article; I wish I’d made it up, but I didn’t.) Hat tip: Kevin Drum.

[Cross-posted at If I Ran the Zoo]

So Rove isn’t going to be indicted. Oh well. Christy at Firedoglake reminds us that this isn’t over, but it’s still disappointing…and I’m not holding my breath waiting for a Cheney indictment. I’m just glad I was properly skeptical about Jason Leopold’s Rove indictment story.

[Cross-posted at If I Ran the Zoo]

A federal judge is allowing a lawsuit against the NSA to proceed. But monthly job growth is below projections again.

Abramoff and Scanlon are continuing to cooperate with the feds. But Robert Kennedy Jr. has a whole lot of evidence that the 2004 election really was stolen…and there isn’t a damn thing we can do about it.

Ann Coulter is in big trouble. But the BBC has video showing another massacre by U.S. troops in Iraq.

Ugh. I think maybe today, just today, I’ll stick to the frivolous posts. I don’t have the heart to get into anything serious.

[Cross-posted at If I Ran the Zoo]