Lucky for the country, the Democrats control the Senate and the House. Otherwise, all kinds of bad stuff would be happening — like extending the Bush tax cuts.

From endless Senate Republican filibusters to hysterical attacks on relatively low-level government employees, this is collective action to stop the government from working, and an attempt to drive competent individuals out of civil service.

After being offered a new job with USDA, Shirley Sherrod told the media she indeed wants to hear from the President, to acquaint him with some realities from her life that he may not understand. So she needs to be convinced that he — the President of the United States — believes in, and will fight for, the principles he claims to hold.

Americans consider the War on Drugs to be a multi-billion-dollar failure, and by a slim margin, they approve legalizing marijuana. The question for supporters of California’s Prop. 19 is whether supporters will turn into likely voters who actually express their opinions at the polls.

Many of your favorite Firedoglake contributors, diarists, and community members are gathering here at The Rio in Las Vegas for the next few days. . . and I am here, too.

Hearing that 45-year-old Byron Williams, the heavily-armed and bulletproof-vested ex-con who got in a shootout with the California Highway Patrol after an I-580 traffic stop, was headed to the ACLU and The Tides Center to kill liberals made us wonder: how had this ignorant two-striker from Temecula who lived with his mom (and stole her guns for his aborted raid on liberal institutions) ever even heard of Tides?

Meanwhile…”Ousted but now recruited U.S. Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod says she wants to hear directly from President Obama that he and his administration are fully committed to fighting discrimination against black farmers.”

Glenn Beck desperately flails about to save his last sponsors.

Percy Sledge — When A Man Loves A Woman.

As I’ve been discussing elsewhere, this summer marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Harper Lee’s classic American novel To Kill a Mockingbird. It would be nice to believe that the book’s central theme of the need for justice and humanity to prevail over racism, brutality, and vicious ignorance is only relevant to a [...]