While others were tuned in to the Massa freak show on Beck, I caught some of the replay of the Mets spring training game yesterday, and was most pleased to hear old man Kiner in the booth. He's lost more than a step, getting most names wrong and speaking very slowly, yet it still gets no better than Ralph Kiner color commentary.  The old stories, the vast knowledge of the game...he's simply the man, an uber-class act.  I hope he has an open invite for the regular season and we hear him often.  NY loves Ralph Kiner!

Liberals in the House, who have spent much of the past year complaining that other congressional Democrats and the White House are insufficiently progressive, will get a chance this week to vent about one of their biggest concerns: the war in Afghanistan.

House leaders will allow three hours of formal debate, probably Wednesday, on an antiwar resolution written by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), one of the leading antiwar voices in Congress. The resolution, which has 16 co-sponsors, calls for the United States to remove all of its troops from Afghanistan in 30 days -- or by the end of the year, if it is determined that trying to do so in a month would be too dangerous.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/08/AR2010030803787.html

Quote 1

As Matt Yglesias points out here, that site is effectively a PUMA-style operation whose opinions are nothing like most of the people on the actual left.

Quote 2

I wish that FDL agreed with me and Chait and Paul Krugman and the SEIU and the NAACP about health care rather than taking its counterproductive dead-ender stance. But the fact of the matter is that on this issue they represent a rather marginal point of view and I don't see any real evidence that there's major support for their view.

Interesting part of the opinion, since Holder's pronouncement about not going after medical MJ dispensaries has been talked about a great deal on this blog:

In addition, Defendant relies on certain statements by U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder. During a press conference on February 24, 2009, in response to a question whether raids of medical marijuana clubs established under state law represented American policy going forward, Holder stated, "No, what the president said during the campaign, you'll be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we'll be doing in law enforcement. He was my boss during the campaign. He is formally and technically and by law my boss now. What he said during the campaign is now American Policy." On March 19, 2009, Holder explained that the Justice Department had no plans to prosecute pot dispensaries that were operating legally under state laws.

Defendant's reliance on the above-quoted statements is problematic for several reasons. First of all, as pointed out by the Government, Defendant does not state that he personally read or heard these statements prior to engaging in the conduct that forms the basis of this criminal case. Furthermore, the comments by then-candidate Obama and his campaign spokesman cannot be deemed representations of the federal government regarding drug-prosecution policy.

Although Holder was Attorney General when he made the statements at issue, his statements do not constitute affirmative representations that Defendant would not be prosecuted under federal law. Holder's comment that "what [Obama] said during the campaign is now American Policy" is vague and provides no real guidance as to what the so-called "American Policy" is. Similarly, Holder's statement that the Justice Department "had no plans" to prosecute pot dispensaries that were operating legally under state laws was a loose statement that left open the possibility the Justice Department could change its "plans" or could choose to prosecute medical marijuana dispensaries on a case-by-case basis.

SNIP

Even if Obama's and Holder's statements can be viewed as establishing a general policy against prosecuting marijuana dispensaries operating legally under state law, a reasonable person would not rely on these statements as an assurance that he or she would not be prosecuted under federal law. Defendant could have sought specific guidance regarding the applicability of federal law to his situation. However, Defendant admittedly did not contact anyone within the Department of Justice or any other federal agency.