Draft languagefor the 2007 Farm Bill reauthorization, currently under consideration by the House Committee on Agriculture, includes an amendment which would "prevent a State or locality from prohibiting an article the Secretary of Agriculture has inspected and passed, or an article the Secretary has determined to be of non-regulated status" (to see, click on the first link above, then under Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry click on Title I - Section by Section Analysis and scroll down to Sec. 123).

OK, Hillary admittedly has less need of an auxiliary brain than George W. She does own the ability to synthesize for herself large masses of data and formulate complex policy (not to mention the ability to speak in complete sentences). But her choice of guru and the way she is letting him shape her politics raises some alarms, based on a WaPo article today by Anne Kornblut. While not her official campaign manager, the strategist controlling her run for the White House is longtime DLC pollster Mark Penn, whose previous clients include Joe Lieberman, Tony Blair and rightwing Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

Penn first penetrated the Clintons' circle as part of the team put together by slimy Republican renegade Dick Morris (of whom Hillary reportedly was a great fan) at Bill Clinton's request after the 1994 Republican triumph, and it's clear how much Hillary values him (continued below the break):

Those whose mailboxes, like mine, are bombarded daily with the outpourings of Slate know that Dahlia Lithwick is their most readable and possibly most astute contributor. In the past, the Supreme Court been her regular beat, but her most recent column focuses on the scandal that is Guantanamo. Noting that three examples of a phenomenon are normally considered sufficient to render it newsworthy, she wonders why three recent reports in the last two weeks confirming the bankruptcy of the Bush Administration's policies in Guantanamo have garnered so little attention.