Closing jam featuring B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Eric Johnson, Lonnie Brooks, Gregg Allman & Koko Taylor.

“Everyday I Have the Blues”

In a country where millions are uninsured, the level of poverty is on the rise, our kids are in Iraq in the middle of a civil war, the economy is taking a nosedive, our military is being privatized, the nut in the White House wants to bomb Iran, our veterans don’t receive the care they need, we hold people without ever charging them, we torture, our constitutional rights are being striped away from us……. and all these assholes can worry about is abortions.

Evangelical voters gathered here yesterday to weigh their political options even as one of their champions, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, officially withdrew from the 2008 presidential contest, robbing many of their first choice in the Republican nominating battle.

The 2,000 activists attending the Values Voter Summit listened to the candidates, some prayed for guidance, and many expressed deep discomfort with the Republican Party’s two front-runners: former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Romney presented himself as the antiabortion, pro-family, pro-religion contender whom Christian conservatives are seeking.

“I’ll oppose taxpayer funding of abortion, oppose partial-birth abortion. I’ll oppose abortion in military clinics. I’ll work to ban embryonic cloning,” Romney promised.

Romney only briefly mentioned his Mormon faith, a source of concern among some Christian groups, saying, “I understand that some people think that they couldn’t support someone of my faith,” then joking that they must be thinking of Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who is also a Mormon.

Giuliani is scheduled to face the group this morning with a message that emphasizes areas where he agrees with social conservatives, such as national security, taxes and the economy.

More at the Washington Post

With all the rocks we’d be throwing at our televisions, very few sets would be left to view this clown show.

Oh, and take a moment to check out the image inside the blockquote. Does the phrase “thick as thieves” come to mind?

Alito: Few would watch Supreme Court TV

National Italian American Foundation awardee and Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani, center, flanked by U.S. Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, right, and Samuel Alito Jr.

WASHINGTON - Justice Samuel Alito doubts the public is clamoring for Supreme Court sessions to be televised and predicts they would battle Congress for last place in the ratings.

Alito said Friday that the same-day availability of oral argument transcripts on the Internet and extensive media coverage means the “only thing missing is pictures of the justices and the lawyers with their lips moving as they ask and answer questions.”

“I am concerned that if our arguments were televised we’d be competing neck and neck with Congress … for the lowest ratings that have ever been recorded by the Nielsen system,” Alito said in an often humorous speech at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics conference on the need for major changes to the Constitution.

Alito refrained from addressing specific proposed reforms, including those dealing with electing Congress and the president or ending lifetime tenure for Supreme Court justices.

“There are very strong reasons to be wary about wholesale or dramatic constitutional change,” he said.

MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press

Yahoo! News

The Bill Maher Show was wild last night. Some 911 conspiracy theorists were in the audience screaming and had to be removed so the show could continue. More than once. There was a great interview with John Edwards, and this exchange with Gary Kasparov. Check it out…….

From Chessbase.com: