LIGHTNING ROUND: RACIAL OUTREACH, GOP STYLE.

• If the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary committee wanted to proved to America that they're a pack of dinosaurs obsessed with race, then Mission Accomplished. Led by Jeff Sessions, they managed to turn today's confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor into a referendum on her ethnicity (who apparently all think alike). Although Sotomayor herself had the best comeback of the day, Matt Yglesias gets special mention for the comeback we all wish she had made.
• The House Education and Labor, Ways and Means, and Energy and Commerce committees have issued their joint health care reform bill, and the CBO score of the legislation hits that arbitrary, yet politically palatable figure of a bit over $1 trillion over ten years, covering 97 percent of the population.
• I had almost forgotten about the color-coded terrorist warning system adopted (and systematically abused) by the Department of Homeland Security during the salad days of the Bush administration. So I guess it's a good thing that the Obama administration is creating a task force to change the system, but why don't we just, you know, get rid of the warning system altogether? What is gained by knowing that, right now, we are at an "elevated" national threat level, "high" when traveling by air?
  
• Speaking of the DHS' worthlessness, nobody could have predicted that plucking Janet Napolitano from the governorship of Arizona would have set back progressives in the Grand Canyon State. Now, in addition to the freedom that comes with being able to carry concealed weapons into bars (seriously, WTF?), women now have the privilege of being shamed for 24 hours before they can get an abortion.
• Mother Jones looks at the forgotten member of the Obama economic team, Jared Bernstein, and wonders whether he's just the token labor lefty or has actual influence: "In the battle for Obama's heart, progressive economics certainly hasn't triumphed. But the moderate approach, pioneered by [Larry] Summers in the 1990s, hasn't totally prevailed, either. ... If Summers and Bernstein end up on the same page, then Bernstein will be much more than a token."
• Remainders: Groves is confirmed to head the Census; Harry Reid wants to repeal DADT; Bill Clinton comes out more forcefully for same-sex marriage; Obama outlines his vision for urban policy; ladies and gentlemen, presenting the one, the only, Michael Steele; and let us never forget the imminent danger of animal-human hybrids.

--Mori Dinauer