Castro resigns

I’ll have much more to say about this when I have some time. The reign goes to his “kid” brother Raul – a spry 76.

A bunch of comments from Nation contributors.

Addendum: Castro is giving up power to take up blogging. The catchy title: “Reflections of Comrade Fidel.”

Some national political notes

A slow day locally from what I can tell. The freeze in Wisconsin is keeping the primary out of the news, but I may have an item or two before I’m done typing this post up.

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So how did the baseball steroids issue become partisan?

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Some of you might have caught the equality of marriage effort locally last week. In New Jersey, they’re putting up even more of a fight. This Americablog post incorporates a series of ads being played in NJ about the inadequacies of their civil unions act.

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On the FISA fight, this time around, the House majority didn’t cave under “deadline” pressure and called the Republican bluff. The president may not get a bill that immunizes the telecommunications companies from consumer lawsuits against those companies turning over information about their customers without so much as a warrant or subpoena. This Kos poster’s prose leaves much to be desired, but his overall point is salient. The Heritage Foundation and other conservatives probably figure they’ve lost the frame war on this debate and will be trying to regroup during the break. They’re testing the waters with the old trial lawyer gambit, but I think the average citizen/voter will want to know precisely what the companies did to necessitate immunity. I don’t think they wanted to be debating this, which is why they tried to muscle it through in a hurry. Not enough Blue Doggers in the House and all of them are facing re-election in November, with a few facing tough challenges from primary candidates to their left. In fact, I’m wondering if the Donna Edwards win killed the the immunity clause.

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Score Vermont for Obama. Free ice cream!

The founders of Ben & Jerry’s endorsed Barack Obama on Monday, and lent his Vermont campaign two “ObamaMobiles” that will tour the state and give away scoops of “Cherries for Change” ice cream.

Cherries for Change? How about Baracky Road?

A side note, B&J’s site has some information on the federal banning of their ability to advertise the lack of rBGh in their product. I mean, I really find that quite remarkable – that they are not even allowed to inform consumers for whom that might be a choice, on the grounds that the government knows better than the consumer what’s best for the consumer. Where is the outrage from the Cato Institute types?

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CNN has Obama and Clinton in a dead heat in Texas, but I don’t believe it. Maybe after a week of campaigning there, but there’s nothing that’s happened in the last few days to make it that close. Obama will be in San Antonio and Houston tomorrow.

Meanwhile, his frontrunner status and the realization that he could very well be the next president have drawn attention to his wife, and this Newsweek article has been the talking head focus throughout the weekend.

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Jackie Speier may replace Tom Lantos. She was an assembly rep for years in San Mateo County. There is a mystique about her because she survived after bleeding with 5 bullets in her for nearly a day before help arrived after the Peoples Temple ambush on a Guyana runway which killed Rep. Leo Ryan.

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Dissent has an excellent symposium on the Jury system as a political institution, starting with Toqueville’s famous piece on topic. I’ll post some highlights later.

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Addendum: So McCain got George H.W. Bush’s endorsement today, and pledges “no new taxes” while on the same stage. Seriously.

It was a stupid pledge to make in 1988, it’s incredibly moronic to do so with the guy whose political career it destroyed standing several feet from from him. And even more so as you’ve got deficits out of control and a war that costs 35 million an hour.

Is he trying to lose? Or trying to got down in flames if he wins?

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And new allegations of Obama plagiarism, this time from a cartoon character. The image comes from photobucket.