It’s a Sesame Street Christmas special.

The footage is a little grainy.  I can’t believe someone had it to upload to YouTube, frankly.

But there amidst the Ethel Merman "Tomorrow" extravaganza, and a kooky Oscar the Grouch trash can dream?

A young, cheery Michael Jackson.

Seemed appropriate for today somehow.

Funny how little snippets from your childhood just flood back, isn’t it? This seems like such a sweet, melancholy moment right in the middle there. No idea why I remembered seeing this, but I did.

For all the lost childhood dreams, I suppose…

Via express permission only, Donna H. Chiarelli.

Somewhere in the last few weeks, the Beltway stupor has begun to lift on obstructionist tactics.  Sort of.

When even Norm Ornstein raises his eyes from the muck and sees a need for finger wagging, you know there’s been some sternly worded chatter over manchego and port in Georgetown.

As of May 31, only 151 of the 1,100-plus Senate-confirmable positions had in fact been confirmed by the Senate….If a few controversial cases are filibustered, so be it…But if the filibuster is used for capricious or simply obstructionist means…then that tactic should be widely condemned and may be even a call for reform of the rule….

And maybe, after this mess is cleared up, we can get to a bipartisan effort to reform the nomination and confirmation process for future nominees and future presidents.

Note the plea to return to the bipartisan gentility of yore? I always get the feeling that these people think fairies will come along and sprinkle "play nice" pixie dust and all that nasty political infighting will just blow away like so much sewer gas on a night breeze.

Yeah. Right.

Government is trench warfare for ongoing political turf battles and election cycles to come.  Staging and rampart building for the next round, staking out the best field positions for lobbing sewage at one another…it’s how our government works at the moment.

No amount of saying "bipartisan" and clicking your heels together three times makes it not so.

Further, when governance becomes more about covering your complicity, keeping things moving for your hefty donor database participants and trying not to make waves?   Who thinks of that as actually governing? 

The constant bipartisan zombie refrain of "let’s return to consensus governance" belies the fact that it takes all sides cooperating and not just one caving to the other.  And it drives me over the edge that it is trotted out most consistently as the Democratic leadership mantra in precisely the areas where a firm line is most desperately needed:

"We’re trying to set a tone here," the official said. "We’re trying to send a message that we’re going to spend time consulting in the Senate. We are eager to put the confirmation wars behind us."

Well, that’s lovely sentiment on judicial nominations, isn’t it?  I’m certain that the Federalist Society and the rampant minions of conservative jurisprudence-r-us are just willing to shake and make nice.

Case in point? Dawn Johnsen, whose nomination to fill OLC’s helm still languishes shamefully. (more…)

Am digesting the language as I type here, but the gist is that the strip search of 13-year-old Savana Redding has been declared unconstitutional as an unreasonable violation of her Fourth Amendment rights.

Here’s language from the summary to start:

Because the suspected facts pointing to Savana did not indicate that the drugs presented a danger to students or were concealed in her underwear, Wilson did not have sufficient suspicion to warrant extending the search to the point of making Savana pull out her underwear. Romero and Schwallier said that they did not see anything when Savana pulled out her underwear, but a strip search and its Fourth Amendment consequences are not defined by who was looking and how much was seen. Savana’s actions in their presence necessarily exposed her breasts and pelvic area to some degree, and both subjective and reasonable societal expectations of personal privacy support the treatment of such a search as categorically distinct, requiring distinct elements of justification on the part of school authorities for going beyond a search of outer clothing and belongings. Savana’s subjective expectation of privacy is inherent in her account of it as embarrassing, frightening, and humiliating. The reasonableness of her expectation is indicated by the common reaction of other young people similarly searched, whose adolescent vulnerability intensifies the exposure’s patent intrusiveness. Its indignity does not outlaw the search, but it does implicate the rule that “the search [be] ‘reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.’ ” T. L. O., supra, at 341. Here, the content of the suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion….

ACLU has been working on this case for some time, and did a great summary of the facts and arguments here.

More on this as I have time to read and digest. In the meantime, the YouTube is an interview with Savana about what she went through and why she took this case to court. It’s powerful stuff — and a good reminder of the human consequences that our courts deal with every single day.

I have seen a lot of exasperated judges in my day, especially when dealing with unprepared or outright smarmy lawyering from appearing counsel. It’s usually a comment from the bench, reining in some inappropriate overstep or a warning to back away from misconduct or failure, saving the written opinion text for a more staid, measured rebuke.

Churros via cynk.I have heard a lot of crazy-assed Appalachia jokes in my day. Growing up in West Virginia, it’s part of the territory, I suppose.

But…the Appalachian Trail now comes with Argentina?!? Sweeeeeeeet.

Mark Sanford. Nuttier than my Aunt Myrtle’s fruitcakes.

For more than a year, our family life has been a little chaotic. Between multiple parental hospitalizations, the passing of my mother-in-law last October, and then the home health care we took on for my father-in-law shortly thereafter, it’s been a wee bit crazy here, to put it mildly.

For the last year or so, we’ve been dealing with a family health care crisis. Most of you know that both my in-laws were hospitalized for months last summer, only to have my mother-in-law pass away last October.

Since that time, my father-in-law moved in with us because he could not live on his own any longer — he is a grieving, gentle man with health issues of his

Cute factor 100.

Have a little coffee break…

(H/T to Elliott who sent this along. Made me smile. Thanks!)