Select Biscuit Variety Pack

One of Pandagon's guest bloggers says "Eason Jordan was right"

Via everyone, this article on the Federal Election Commission, bloggers, and the dollar value of a link to your favored political candidate

Orcinus points us to a tale of a student at Santa Rosa Junior College who pinned red stars and a copy of a California law against communist indoctrination of students onto faculty members' office doors.

"It's a big issue," said McPherson, president of the SRJC Republicans, a campus club. "The opinion of the far left is presented as fact, with no alternative."

NYT update on Kansas AG's Late-Term Abortion Fishing Expedition
From NYTimes: Declaring Victory, U.S. Drops Abortion Line at UN. VICTORY, DEFEAT, WHAT's THE DIFFERENCE?
From the AP:

The Republican-controlled Senate refused to limit consumer interest rates at 30 percent Thursday as it moved methodically toward passage of legislation making it harder to shed personal debts in bankruptcy.

Yesterday I wrote about the Nevada Congressional Rep who said nasty things about liberals at a speech. Today we learn (via various) that he plagiarized the speech from one given by someone named Beth Chapman in 2003. The plagiarism isn't the part that interests me. Go visit her site.

Amy Sullivan guest-blogging on Political Animal:

The inaccurate and/or indiscriminate use of concepts and terms like "values" and "religion" without context is fast becoming my biggest pet peeve, and if I have to become a one-woman officiating squad, then so be it. A few weeks ago, Time magazine managed to raise my blood pressure with these parting sentences in an article about Democratic efforts to reach religious voters: "But the biggest risk for the party is to come off as insincere. Religious voters might like the music, but they're unlikely to be seduced by it as long as Democrats stick to their core positions." [my emphasis]

Yes, because Lord knows "religious voters" couldn't possibly agree with any Democratic core positions. Good grief. You've heard me say it before, but apparently it needs repeating: A good many people are Democrats not despite their faith but precisely because of their faith. I don't want to read "religious" when what you mean is "right-wing." I don't want to read "evangelical" when what you mean is "conservative evangelical." And I don't want to read "moral values" when what you're really referring to are hot-button, right-wing sexual morality issues. The conflation of those terms with those specific definitions is NOT a neutral decision; it's part of a very conscious strategy. It's understandable that some news outlets have been taken in by the spin. Repeating the spin, however, is irresponsible.