Sunday Muse, Spring Has Sprung!

Browsing through this week’s news clippings, a few thoughts on a Sunday morning:

Anyone else out there going to be planting their inaugural vegetable garden this year? Gotta love Michelle.

Ditto Barney Frank, the first congress critter for whom I ever voted. Turns out he possesses supernatural powers over hapless Republicans.

More from the circular firing squad once known as the Republican Party:

· When the Governator - the leader who makes Californians wish for the good old days of Gray Davis and rolling brownouts (the definition of Epic Fail in the Golden State - is one of the few Republicans making sense on the stimulus, you know the GOP is DOA.
· Sometimes this Bush Legacy effort is sad. Other times, its tragic. This is simply laughable.
· When will Michael Steele realize he should simply shut his mouth? Here's to hoping he never does. Long live Chairman Mike!
· As Republicans decry Obama's "lurch to the left," has Rahm emerged as the new Rove?

From the "Well, duh!" File:
· Former Bush official admits abstinence only doesn't work.

In the “The FUBAR File” or, Just a Few More Things on Barack's Plate:
· Is the Afghan war about to become a regional conflagration?
· While it may not go the way of the Italian lira and Greek drachma, the days of the Almighty Dollar are coming to an end.

Just wondering, have we reached a tipping point in our nation's war on drugs?

More on our planet in crisis:

· The power of multinational lobbyists is coopting the democratic will of the people resulting in governmental inaction when all science points to the urgency of the moment. NASA climatologist James Hansen argues for civil disobedience as perhaps the only hope in preventing climaticide.
· Are we a generation away from global water wars?
· Could Manhattan be underwater by the end of the century?
Ending on a positive note, giving credit when credit is due:

Despite Congress' ham-handed efforts to rein in rogue financiers (and the stampeding to pass legislation to tax bonuses that should've never been paid out), sometimes they do things right. Promoting national service is one of them.

Sunday Muse, Ides of March Edition

Caesar: Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue shriller than all the music
Cry "Caesar!" Speak, Caesar is turn'd to hear.

Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.

Caesar: What man is that?

Brutus: A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.
Julius Caesar Act 1, scene 2, 15–19

As if Team Obama didn’t have enough on its plate already:
· Sea level rise caused by melting Antarctic ice sheets and Greenland glaciers could inundate Florida by the end of the century.
· Could the raging drug war south of the border become the defining foreign policy crisis of the Obama Presidency?

From the Economic FUBAR File:
· Wonder what Harry “The Buck Stops Here” Truman would think of the Alan Greenspan’s "The Fed Didn't Cause the Housing Bubble" drivel?
· Does anyone else think NBC's censorship to protect GE’s bottom line no worse than Fox News' regurgitating of GOP talking points?

With campaign 2008 still not resolved in Minnesota, the politicos are already revving up for Election Day 2010. Can the Democrats break through and win a filibuster-breaking 60 Senate seats? The bigger question is, “Do they really want to?”

They could break the threshold by enticing Arlen Specter to abandon the dwindling herd of Irrelephants in the Senate. As we debate the possibility, the wingnuts at Human Events provide their hunting list of RINO Senators. You know it’s bad when Utah’s Bob Bennett and Mississippi’s Thad Cochran make their top ten.

Pure drivel from CQ Politics about the tough place Harry Reid finds himself in:

As Senate majority leader, he juggles a myriad of competing political interests. He also has to balance those against his own best interest as he gears up for a potentially tough re-election battle in 2010.

Lately, the Nevada Democrat has been putting some daylight between his positions and President Obama’s. It’s a strategy that might help him avoid the fate of Tom Daschle, who was defeated for re-election in South Dakota in 2004 despite being the Senate’s top Democrat.

Reid, 69, recently has made a point of saying he’s working with
Obama, not for him.

Right. Nevada’s voters backed President Obama last fall and kicked out one of their two Republican house members. The incumbent Republican governor is one of the least popular in the nation and the administration has moved to abandon Yucca Mountain, removing Nevada politics’ most radioactive issue and Harry Reid is afraid of running as part of the President’s team?

The analogy to Tom Daschle who ran in a Deep Red state against a very popular president riding the post-9/11 Terror Train is intellectually lame. If Reid is indeed frightened of the specter of Daschle’s defeat, Democrats should be worried about the quality of our Senate leadership.

Change I Can Believe In:
· Breaking the stalemate: Pat Leahy threatens to name names.
· Restoring the Constitution: Confounding Republicans, Democrats show they understand the Founding Principle of the three co-equal branches of government. After years of rubberstamping Dubya's policies, GOPers are perplexed by congressional Democrats fulfilling their Constitutional role.

From the “Wishful Thinking” File:
Doomsday Clock May Finally Stop Ticking

Ending on a positive note: Americans love our new First Lady.