Hoffmania!: How I Found Out About McCain’s Pick

yep

Consider this reality: The omnipresence of "God bless America" as a political slogan is an entirely recent phenomenon. We know because we've run the numbers. Analysis of more than 15,000 public communications by political leaders from Franklin Roosevelt's election in 1932 — the beginning of the modern presidency — through six years of George W. Bush's administration revealed that prior to Ronald Reagan taking office in 1981, the phrase had passed a modern president's lips only once in a major address: Richard Nixon used it to conclude an April 30, 1973, speech about Watergate.

But Reagan brought "God bless America" into the mainstream by regularly using it to conclude his speeches. Since then, presidents and other politicians have used it nearly to death. Like Nike's "Just Do It" or any other ubiquitous catchphrase, the words eventually lose their meaning. "God bless America" has become the Pennsylvania Avenue equivalent to consumerized Madison Avenue staples.

Sadly, No! » The Beast is Red, Chapter 12: Show Us Your Twits

...the Reagan around which this conservative circle is jerking is a myth, a fabrication, a fiction. The real Reagan raised taxes (or rather engaged in “revenue enhancements”), presided over a massive recession, cut and ran when faced with bloody terror attacks, talked constantly about a balanced budget and a line-item veto but did nothing about them, and “won” the Cold War by spending nonexistent money that would be handed down to his heirs, never to be paid off, as if this were somehow more fiscally conservative than the tax-and-spend model with which he vilified Democrats. Reagan’s strength as a paragon of conservativism is identical to Christopher Reeve’s strength as Superman, a pleasant fiction propped up with special effects and made believable by the empty shell upon which it was impressed. This is, by no means incidentally, the reason the CPAC crowd loves Romney so much: he is their new Ulrich, their man without qualities, upon whom they can press the rubber mask of Reagan.

Earlier today on the Senate floor:

Think about what we’ve been hearing from the White House in this debate. The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retroactive immunity. No immunity, no new FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he is willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies. The President’s insistence on immunity as a precondition for any FISA reform is yet another example of his disrespect for honest dialogue and for the rule of law.

I can't decide who I like less, Bush or the telco companies. At least Bush is term-limited.

ACSBlog: The Blog of the American Constitution Society: Leading Conservative Activist Seeks Punitive Damages

Judge Robert Bork, one of the fathers of the modern judicial conservative movement whose nomination to the Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate, is seeking $1,000,000 in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages, after he slipped and fell at the Yale Club of New York City. Judge Bork was scheduled to give a speech at the club, but he fell when mounting the dais, and injured his head and left leg. He alleges that the Yale Club is liable for the $1m plus punitive damages because they "wantonly, willfully, and recklessly" failed to provide staging which he could climb safely.