I don’t think New York Magazine’s epithet for Alabama’s Latest Shame is quite specific enough, because who north of the Mason-Dixon line knows which is the “Cotton State”? But they absolutely have found the best Getty photo of Shelby Steal, so you should give them the click and go admire it for yourselves.

Ezra Klein’s ransom note is pretty good, too.

Other potential labels from our brilliant BJ commentariat:

Senator Crimson Bribe
Sen. French Connection
The Alabama Extortionist
Senator Porkwall
Senator Squeegee Man
The ‘Bama Blackmailer
Sen. Earmarks-for-Airbus
Sen. Shellgame
The ‘Bama Scammer
Sen. “Roll Bribe!”
Shelby the French Privateer
Sen. Shelby (R-Toyota / Airbus)

And finally: “... has ‘traitor’ been taken?”

Choose a favorite below, or add your own!

Shortly after Senator Brown #2 abandoned his much-advertised pickup truck for the plush chauffered limos of DeeCee, there was a five-alarm tire fire back in his home town. Shortly after Scotty was sworn in, gleeful weatherpersons started predicting up to 24 inches of snow in the nation’s capital… and maybe an inch, or so, in the southern half of Massachusetts.

Assuming the forecasters are correct, we Massholes definitely got the better end of this particular deal with Pat Robertson’s devil. We have both firefighters and snow removal equipment here in New England.

It appears the teabaggers have stumbled upon the missing ingredient that will make their movement more palatable to the public at large- xenophobia:

The Tea Party movement has energized activism against President Obama’s vision for immigration reform.

The link between tea partiers and immigration politics developed last summer, when the impact of illegal immigration on the health care system became a prominent side issue in town hall debates.

Since then, illegal immigration has steadily gained ground on the Tea Party agenda.

Immigration “is one of our main issues in the state of North Carolina,” said David DeGerolamo, co-founder of Tea Party group NC Freedom, in a phone interview. “And what it comes down to is that the United States is a republic based on the rule of law. What part of illegal is right?”

DeGerolamo is scheduled to give a talk today on “How to Unite State Tea Party Groups” at the National Tea Party Convention, which began yesterday in Nashville.

The Nashville event has devoted a good share of its spotlight to activists devoted to promoting get-tough policies against illegal immigrants and blocking White House plans to offer a path to legal status for the nation’s 12 million undocumented immigrants.

I’m sure this is related to their anti-corporate stance.

And one of these days, can we stop calling them teabaggers and call them what they really are- Republicans.

*** Update ***

Then you have this:

The opening-night speaker at first ever National Tea Party Convention ripped into President Obama, Sen. John McCain and “the cult of multiculturalism,” asserting that Obama was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”

What about a poll tax, Tancredo?

Some idiot at Kaplan today (in a piece about how liberals are condescending):

It follows that the thinkers, politicians and citizens who advance conservative ideas must be dupes, quacks or hired guns selling stories they know to be a sham. In this spirit, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman regularly dismisses conservative arguments not simply as incorrect, but as lies. Writing last summer, Krugman pondered the duplicity he found evident in 35 years’ worth of Wall Street Journal editorial writers. “What do these people really believe? I mean, they’re not stupid—life would be a lot easier if they were. So they know they’re not telling the truth. But they obviously believe that their dishonesty serves a higher truth. . . . The question is, what is that higher truth? What do these people really believe in?”

In Krugman’s condescending world, there is no need to take seriously the arguments of “these people”—only to plumb the depths of their errors and ponder their hidden motivations.

How is this condescending at all? If I call someone a liar and then say “I know you’re not dumb, so why are you telling this ridiculous lie”, how is that condescending?

It’s a strange political world we live in, where pointing out, however politely, that someone is lying makes you uppity and condescending. And where people write entire pieces complaining about how “their side” is called liars without in any way defending themselves from the charge. And where a once serious newspaper publishes all of this.

No comment.

The ad, called “12 inches of Global Warming” is specifically targeting Reps. Rick Boucher (D-VA) and Tom Perriello (D-VA) in advance of the fall midterm elections.

The number of mentions at Reason’s Hit and Run about Shelby’s hostage crisis for billions: ZERO

Number of mentions of Nelson’s 100 million dollar deal for HCR? You count ‘em. I have shit to do.

Predicted glibertarian response should they even notice: “Hey, we are all in favor of anything that shuts down government!”

There is a reason folks think you all are Republican strategists.

*** Update ***

Good on Captain Ed, though.

Much to my surprise, Reason comes out against this! Cue the Hallelujah chorus.

Nobody move, nobody gets hurt:

Congressional Republicans have been breathtakingly irresponsible of late, but Shelby’s latest gambit might be the single most ridiculous stunt in a long while. What kind of right-wing clown rails against government spending and then holds the Senate hostage until he gets his earmarks?

This from a senator who once pledged to do “whatever it takes” to give presidential nominees “up or down” votes?

If Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback” became a national punch-line, Shelby’s scheme—it’ll need a clever little name—should easily become a humiliating moment for the senator and his party.

What makes it even better is who will be the recipient of the largesse Shelby is demanding (via Marci Wheeler):

The key issue is that Shelby wants the Air Force to tweak an RFP for refueling tankers so that Airbus (partnered with Northrup Grumman) would win the bid again over Boeing. The contract had been awarded in 2008, but the GAO found that the Air Force had erred in calculating the award. After the Air Force wrote a new RFP in preparation to rebid the contract, Airbus calculated that it would not win the new bid, and started complaining. Now, Airbus is threatening to withdraw from the competition unless the specs in the RFP are revised.

Essentially, then, Shelby’s threat is primarily about gaming this bidding process to make sure Airbus–and not Boeing–wins the contract (there’s a smaller program he’s complaining about, too, but this is the truly huge potential bounty for his state).

I’m not sure why anyone at all is surprised about this. First of all, this is just a repeat performance for Shelby. You will remember, of course, during the auto bailouts, Sen. Shelby and Sen. Corker did everything they could to make sure that GM and Chrysler died, and people remember that they were motivated in large part by their insatiable desire to destroy the UAW and weaken the power of unions nationwide. But the other reason Shelby and Corker were so eager to see GM and Chrysler die was because of the large presence of foreign auto manufacturers in their respective states. In other words, they are used to going to bat for foreign manufacturers over the American people and American industry. That is just how they roll.

Second, the other reason he is doing this is because is because he can. He will pay no political price for this whatsoever. The beltway media will not flay him alive like they did Nelson, even though the 100 billion dollar potential contract to a company propped up by foreign governments is ONE THOUSAND times bigger than the 100 million dollar Nebraska sweetheart deal that Nelson received. Not only will he not pay a price, but, in a couple of weeks, you can guarantee that Shelby will be intoning gravely about deficit spending and pork on one of the Sunday shows, and NO ONE will call him on it. Remember his rhetoric during the stimulus debate?

So, in short, I’m just not sure why anyone is surprised by this. Like any serial liar and thief, the reason he is doing it is because he can. Remember- IOKIYAR.

Chat.

Ezra Klein.

Shelby has likely overplayed his hand. The reason holds work is that they’re small enough, and rare enough, that they never rise to the level of something the majority can’t live with. Shelby, in putting a hold on all pending nominations, just made holds very big indeed. And he did it for the most pathetic and parochial of reasons: pork for his state. If the Democrats have any sense at all, Shelby’s hold is about to become as famous as Nelson’s deal.

Uh-oh. Maybe Shelby will denounce himself and demand that Harry Reid ensure that malfeasance like his never happens again? Otherwise Obama might have to learn to live without nominees.

Shelby’s move is a natural response to the Democrats’, and particularly Obama’s near-pathological instinct for conflict avoidance. Find another frustrating example here. If you push them and they don’t push back, then you push them a little harder. If they still don’t push back then you give a real shove. That’s party politics.

Some shift in the national atmosphere (take your pick) has rendered Senate traditions obsolete. Americans as a whole don’t care about this stuff, but they do care that Democrats have a huge majority and yet Republicans still ritually humiliate them. If Harry Reid cannot adapt to this new world and fix the problem, then insane moves like Shelby’s will just become part of the landscape. At least until Republicans get a majority back and once again govern like Republicans.

Ask your House Member to Pass The Damn Bill. Tell your Senators YES on reconciliation. Ask Repubs whether they support the Ryan budget proposal (e.g., tossing Social Security and Medicare to the private sector). Switchboard: (202) 224-3121. Guide for first timers here.

Also, take the poll. Please answer honestly; it will help us to gauge whether this blog had any impact on the process. If you phone a lot, please estimate how often in the poll’s comments.

Thanks!

***Update***

The poll’s internal comments seem fairly hard to use, so if you phone a lot just leave an estimate in the comments of this post.

***Update 2***

Steve Benen has a nice summary of recent developments. Short version: not much has changed, so you can still influence the process by getting on the horn with your Reps.

I’ve been thinking for a while that the discussion of the deficit reminds me of the pre-war discussion of Iraq. Krugman spells it out:

To me — and I’m not alone in this — the sudden outbreak of deficit hysteria brings back memories of the groupthink that took hold during the run-up to the Iraq war. Now, as then, dubious allegations, not backed by hard evidence, are being reported as if they have been established beyond a shadow of a doubt. Now, as then, much of the political and media establishments have bought into the notion that we must take drastic action quickly, even though there hasn’t been any new information to justify this sudden urgency. Now, as then, those who challenge the prevailing narrative, no matter how strong their case and no matter how solid their background, are being marginalized.

This sort of thing happens every so often in the Village—the Clinton impeachment is another good example and I’m sure there are lots of others.

I don’t think I’ll ever understand how this happens, but maybe we could think of a good catchphrase to describe it, something we could add to the lexicon. Any ideas?

You probably heard about this:

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary “blanket hold” on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate, according to multiple reports this evening. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless Senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold.

“While holds are frequent,” CongressDaily’s Dan Friedman and Megan Scully report (sub. req.), “Senate aides said a blanket hold represents a far more aggressive use of the power than is normal.”

The Mobile Press-Register picked up the story early this afternoon. The paper confirmed Reid’s account of the hold, and reported that a Shelby spokesperson “did not immediately respond to phone and e-mail messages seeking confirmation of the senator’s action or his reason for doing so.”

It goes without saying that this shows what a great, venerable institution the Senate is, what a serious, bipartisan legislator Shelby is, and (of course) what a failure Obama has been at changing the tone in Washington.

Here’s what I’d like to know: is there any limit to how much a strong-willed minority can slow things down in the Senate? Could a new Republican Senator do something like this every day and bring everything to a complete halt for months on end?

The pro-corruption caucus never rests and it rewards their foot soldiers with work through the many brushes with the law that they have.

A good case in point is Susan Ralston. She was Jack Abramoff’s secretary/confidant and gate-keeper for years. Then she went to work in the same role for Karl Rove (and serve as an important member of Team Abramoff in the White House. Here you can see a photo of Susan with Jack and many members of the gang (she is the one sitting in front of Jack). Most folks in that photo have either had charges filed against them or are still under investigation. Susan falls into the latter category. It was only last August when the Department of Justice named her as a co-conspirator in the Abramoff Scandal.

To say that she is under a cloud of suspicion would be an understatement. And yet, Republicans are more than willing to hire her to raise money for them and organize their affairs. The St. Petersburg Times reported yesterday that Ralston is the point of contact for a major GOP fundraiser for seven Republican Candidates for Senate this year. Here is the invite:

This list of things that afflict pregnant women is enough for me to state that were I a woman, I would never, ever, ever get pregnant intentionally:

Oh your sweet little baby is healthy and moving around and kicking. You can feel him bumping around. It’s magical.

HOLY SHIT! WHAT WAS THAT?

That? That crazy sudden pain that almost made you collapse? That feeling that someone just sent an electric fireball down your vagina and through your legs? That, my dear, was your sweet little baby kicking you in the cervix.

You can’t prepare for it. You can’t stop it. You can only hope that each time it happens, you are near something to break your fall. Or that you are in a place where no one cares if you scream.

I know we have a number of moms reading the site, including some very new members to the club, so you will have to tell the males here how accurate this piece was.

And speaking of new moms, I loved this new pick of Sam, spawn of Redkitten:

Look at that grin.

This isn’t my blog (I’m just a hired hand working on a dream I plan to try) so I think I can safely tout this without being called a braggart: traffic was fantastic here last month! Nearly two million page views, which is over 50% more than in January 2009, and more than this place ever got even during the election.

I think the credit for this is entirely due to all of you, if for no other reason than that page views actually measure how many times you visit the site.