Fresh Loaf

Juliana at Blog For Democracy points out that U.S. Rep. Tom Price, R-Springfield, need not kvetch that the stimulus plan includes $30 million to save some mice. After his theatrics, which included waving around what looks like a cat toy, it turns out the stimulus, in fact, does not earmark money for the rodents.

Decaturite wonders how blogs can be robust tools to connect communities as newspapers continue to dwindle in size and shape.

Sara agrees that “video lottery terminals” are not what a casino make. Griftdrift brings the thunder on the issue and wins 10 points for best blog post title of the day. Two points for great art, too.

Atlanta Business Chronicle columnist and blogger Maria Saporta says not to believe the Georgia Department of Transportation and Amtrak’s assertion that much-needed commuter rail running into a still-unbuilt downtown train terminal doesn’t have to run along tracks for the Beltline near Piedmont Park.

Ben at Terminal Station has a bunch of good posts. Most recent: He’s not too upbeat about the fact that Atlanta City Councilmember Mary Norwood leads in a poll for the next mayor.

A giant bowl of strawberries in your bathroom. Style, indeed!

Jim Galloway posts a moving account of Freddie Norman, a Cobb County police whose patrol car was struck by a drunk driver 21 years ago. Norman, who was left nearly comatose from the accident, died this weekend.

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Many have called the White House’s proposed $700 billion Wall Street bailout a giant rip-off.

Few have done as succinctly and as cleverly as Paula at Blog For Democracy:

From: Minister of the Treasury Paulson

Subject: REQUEST FOR URGENT CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe. . .

Read the rest of the letter.

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Hillary Clinton hasn’t been able to stop Barack Obama with “35 years of experience,” “Ready on day one,” “He’s a cokehead,” “He’s the new Jesse Jackson,” “He’s stirring up false hopes,” “He’s all talk,” “Change you can Xerox” or any other of her approaches to voters.

So yesterday, with just eight days to go until must-win contests in Ohio and Texas, Clinton played her last card — the “Barack Obama isn’t really American” card.

If you have an ounce of doubt in your mind about the inspiration and source of this week’s Obama costume drama, read this post on The New Republic and watch the accompanying video. It features Clinton supporter Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, insinuating that Obama is a foreigner — three times.

One of the more interesting parts of this story to me is that it puts good people who support Clinton in the position of having to defend their candidate’s naked appeal to bigotry.

Some, like JerryT at Blog For Democracy, are honest and upset:

I’ve rationalized quite a bit of crap to justify my support of Sen. Clinton, but I am running out of excuses.

Some, like MelGX and Phlange, are positively Baghdad Bob-like in their refusal to acknowledge the obvious:

“I don’t think it matters who sent it out.”

“Can we just agree to hold off on accusing HRC of doing this until proven guilty??! Thought this was the land of Innocent Until Proven Guilty.”

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(Nutjob photo by Joeff Davis)

Macon City Council member, RedState.com editor and Peach Pundit Poobah Erick Erickson is collecting cyberscorn for comments he made at the recent CPAC conservative political convention.

Erickson suggested the success of progressive bloggers relative to their conservative counterparts is because progressives have more free time. Conservatives “have families because we don’t abort our kids, and we have jobs because we believe in capitalism,” he said.

Contributors at AtlantaIndignationCouncil.com Blog for Democracy followed DailyKos‘ lead and pounced on Erickson:

“He seriously thinks progressives don’t have families OR jobs?”

“Right wing nutjobs are icky.”

“People like him often need to be knocked off their high horses, but so often aren’t.”

I spoke to Erickson this afternoon and he confirmed something that should have been perfectly obvious to anyone who’s ever read Peach Pundit or spoken to him in person.

He was being sarcastic.

“I was joking,” he said. “I was laughing when I said it. Other people were laughing.”

The only person who didn’t realize he was joking, he said, was the person who posted the comments without noting it was a joke.

I wonder how many minutes will pass before the Indignation Council jumps on me for defending a “right wing nutjob.” My guess is 60-90. At most.

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Reverend Joe Beasley twice calls Senator David Shafer a “race man” and accuses him of trying to get the City of Atlanta abolished when Maynard Jackson was elected Mayor (in the early 1970s when Shafer would have been in elemetary [sic] school). You can hear it here.

— Erick at Peach Pundit, on WABE-FM (90.1) series “Saving Grady” about Grady Hospital.

Note, Beasley doesn’t explicitly accuse Shafer of trying to abolish Atlanta. Instead, he seems to conflate Shafer with state legislators of the early 1970s.

Whether he’s actually accusing Shafer of being the Doogie Howser of legislative racism is beside the point. Beasley is clearly trying to short-circuit a serious discussion about Shafer’s legislation by calling him a racist.

Incidentally, Beasley also calls Maynard Jackson “the first mayor of the city of Atlanta.”

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Hey, it’s raining outside

— Mel at Blog For Democracy helpfully notes that it’s raining outside — as opposed to inside. Thanks, Sonny.

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I suppose some Democrats are going to say, “Clinton managed to balance the budget and create a surplus.” Clinton deserves some credit, but the Republican controlled Congress deserves just as much recognition for their part, like I said above…Congress holds the purse.

— Jason Pye accuses AJC columnist Jay Bookman of intellectual dishonesty for saying Democrats are more fiscally conservative than Republicans.

In the same post, Pye praises President Reagan for cutting federal spending, never mentioning that Democrats controlled the House of Representatives during Reagan’s two terms.

Either they “hold the purse” or they don’t.

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Why should we give the legislature, the body that has cut more than a billion dollars from local school systems, the sole responsibility for funding our educational system?

– flackattack at Tondee’s Tavern on Glenn Richardson’s state tax-overhaul proposal. Note: Flackattack refers to Richardson as “The Stache,” a reference to facial hair he apparently no longer has.

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Here in Atlanta, we saw for ourselves what the International Olympic Committee is really all about. The IOC is filled with a werid mix of rogue, thuggish elites that think they’re worthy of titles, such as, “your excellency.” How the government of China treats its citizens is of no concern to them. Apparently as it was no concern to those that awarded Olympiads to Adolf Hitler and the peace loving USSR, who just months before hosting the 1980 Summer Olympics, invaded Afghanistan.

– Button Gwinnett at Liberal Lucidity on calls to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

If boycotting the Olympics means not watching or paying any attention, then I’ve boycotted every one since 1984.

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This is odd. A man is suing Duluth for not allowing Walmart to build a “super store” on his land and his attorney is Roy Barnes.

– Mel at Blog For Democracy thinks it’s odd for the former governor to represent a man who wants a Wal-Mart on his land. It think it’s odd that she thinks it’s odd.

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