ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

For years, CBS and other networks banned "advocacy" commercials from airing during the Super Bowl.

But CBS recently reversed its stance. A commercial that opposes abortion, featuring Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow, is set to air in this year's big game. And some fans say they don't want to see these types of ads in the Super Bowl.

In the past, CBS and other networks airing the game refused to run advocacy ads from groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the United Church of Christ and MoveOn.org. Some of these commercials lambasted the Bush-era U.S. deficit or spoke on the issue of gay rights.

Women's rights and abortion rights groups point out that long-standing ban — they want CBS to pull the Tebow ad. They also warn that CBS might alienate viewers by showing divisive commercials.

CBS approved the Focus on the Family commercial before making a statement about their new policy on advocacy ads. As the controversy over the ad grew louder over the past few days, CBS issued the new policy. The broadcaster now says it will accept advocacy ads that are produced "reasonably."

Business Insider declared the name "terrible," with one columnist writing that he'd heard rumors of the name "but dismissed it immediately," thinking that Apple would have the foresight to predict a landslide of menstruation mockery. (Did they not see "MADtv's" iPad parody in 2007?)

Meanwhile, the blogosphere found the name debate totally absorbing -- "How will it stand up to other tablets if I pour a test tube full of blue water on it?" one Lemondrop blogger wondered -- and a heavy flow of iPad-related Twitter traffic led "iTampon" to become a top trending topic.

"Are there NO women in the Marketing or Biz Dev department of Mac?" wrote one user, speculating that "iPad" would pass muster only with a man. No women were present on Apple's panel at the San Francisco announcement.

In his speech before a joint session of Congress, scheduled for 9 p.m. Washington time, Obama has a chance to retool his message as he seeks to give some momentum to his agenda before the November election that will determine control of Congress.

"He has to send a clear signal to the country, and to his own party, about what his top priorities are and what he is really prepared to fight for," said Bill Galston, a scholar at the Washington-based Brookings Institution who was President Bill Clinton's domestic-policy adviser. "The signals coming out of the White House have not been clear and to some extent they have been contradictory."

Health Care

The president's main domestic priority, an overhaul of the health-care system -- which represents about 17 percent of the economy -- has hit snags in Congress.

White House aides said the administration hasn't been successful in selling the U.S. public on the health-care plan.

The effort "became a caricature of its component parts," Robert Gibbs, the president's spokesman, said yesterday. "To the degree that that's a communications failing, I think people here at the White House and others would certainly take responsibility for that."

Since Brown's election, Obama has injected a populist tone into his speeches. During a Jan. 22 town-hall meeting in Elyria, Ohio, he used the word "fight" or "fighting" more than 20 times.

Afterward, the president was still in a feisty mood as he toured a sporting-goods factory and was given a shiny football helmet. "I'll need this during the State of the Union," Obama said. "I can knock some heads with this."

When things looked their darkest for Gov. Mark Sanford — when he was in danger of being impeached for running off to Argentina to see his mistress — his best insurance policy may well have been South Carolina's lieutenant governor, Andre Bauer.

Lawmakers knew if they removed Sanford, they would end up with Bauer, a fiercely ambitious Republican with a reputation for reckless and immature behavior.

Now Bauer has folks shaking their heads again, after he likened government assistance to the poor to feeding stray animals.

At a town hall meeting Thursday, Bauer, who is running for governor in his own right now that Sanford is term-limited, said: "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed! You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that."

Despite discussion of hookups, friends "with benefits" and other sexual openness, the survey found a double standard for guys and girls: 53% of guys said having lots of hookups makes them popular, but 71% said it makes girls less popular.

"Girl can't do what a guy does and be thought of the same way," Cooks says.

But one administration official said that limiting the much smaller discretionary domestic budget would have larger symbolic value. That spending includes lawmakers’ earmarks for parochial projects, and only when the public believes such perceived waste is being wrung out will they be willing to consider reductions in popular entitlement programs, the official said.

“By helping to create a new atmosphere of fiscal discipline, it can actually also feed into debates over other components of the budget,” the official said, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity.

My favorite cause seems to have picked up a new spokesman: Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.

We'll see if the Little Girls of the United States Senate pay him any more attention than they have me. (In addition to the two links above, you can read more of my earlier arguments on this subject here, and here.)

There's an interesting subtext to today's election in Massachusetts. The Senate's two best-represented demographics are facing off: a woman and a white man.

...

Saying women are the second best-represented demographic is like saying Scottie Pippen was the second-best player on the Bulls in the '90s – the leader is so far ahead of the pack, the appellation doesn't mean much. To use an expression I picked up from King Kaufman, the first-place demographic for Senators is white males, then daylight, then women.

The 17 female Senators comprise (in an easy math question) 17% of the Senate. In a nation that is 50.7% female, they're underrepresented in the Senate by 33%. White males, on the other hand (disclosure: I'm one of those), comprise approximately 32% of the population – but 78% of the Senate.

The difference is striking when viewed on a map of the United States:






You may note, however, that some of the states that have a female Senator are the most populous in the nation. Let's adjust for population, using the numbers from Wikipedia.

Both Senators represent the entire state, of course, so if a state has even one female Senator, she represents the entire population. Likewise with the white men. Under this calculus, 134,976,372 Americans are represented in the Senate by a woman, or 44%. This is closer to a fair representation of the population, but still off by a yawning margin.

The network has rejected ads from MoveOn.org, PETA, and the United Church of Christ among others on the grounds that their content is too controversial.

But there's something wrong with CBS's definition of "controversial." This year, the network approved an ad produced by the ultra-conservative group Focus on the Family attacking a woman's right to choose.

Demand that CBS pull this incredibly controversial and insensitive ad from the Superbowl line-up.

The Superbowl is the most-watched television program in the country, giving anti-choice voices an enormous audience to broadcast their idea that a woman doesn't have the right to make decisions about her own body. To top it off, CBS has no plans to run a pro-choice ad to balance the two sides of the issue.

Mr. McCain, a Republican from Arizona, said on the CBS news program "Face the Nation" that President Obama should sit down with Republican leaders and begin adopting some of their ideas for improving the nation's health care system such as overhauling medical malpractice lawsuits, allowing residents of one state to buy health insurance from a company in another state, and granting tax credits for people who purchase health insurance on their own.

Still, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," said that in the wake of the Democrats' defeat in the Massachusetts Senate race, "my hope is that the current bill is finished."

"The American people are telling us please stop trying to pass this," he said.

He faulted Mr. Obama for pursuing during his first year a single-mindedly liberal path in running the country rather than trying to engage moderates.

"The president made a decision to go hard left," he said. "That's why he doesn't have many of my members. If he chooses to govern in the middle, I think he'll have much broader cooperation from Republicans."

you stupid sad informed idiot if you really think that they put trillions into? blacks you are obviously a uneducated white person!! the money your talking about went straight to the white rich elite or in other words bankers!!So you keep believing that black people eat cash you twat!!!

I was talking on the phone this morning with Thom, and he brought up the irony that may be prophetic that the infamous Dredd Scott decision that declared slaves to be property led to the Civil War. Now, we have a Supreme Court decision that affirmed that corporations have, according to the GOP 5-4 vote, the same election rights as people...

... For America, it's been a decade of two Supreme Court coups that have stolen democracy and replaced it with something akin to activist right wing judicial rulings on behalf of the oligarchy that pulls the strings in D.C.

The Dredd Scott decision, as Hartmann points out, resulted in the Civil War.

tori is a fuckin nut winged psycho. Em went through some rough times && need to vent. tori just decided to be a bitch and jump on his case for nothing. all he did was talk about killing his wife.