Yes, it’s another busy day in the USA.

Justice Elena Kagan

The Senate today confirmed Elena Kagan as the 112th  Justice of the Supreme Court, but the Republicans (and Ben Nelson) show they just do not want to play ball. The final vote was 63-37, with five Republicans (Snowe and Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of S.C., Lugar of Indiana, and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire) voting for her confirmation (no Scott Brown, hmmm), and one DINO, Ben Nelson, voting against her.  Can we just kick Nelson out of the party already?

Net Neutrality is also top of mind today as Sen. Al Franken pens an Op-Ed piece for CNN.com, “Net Neutrality is foremost free speech issue of our time,” on this, the same day that the headlines are screaming that Net Neutrality and the internet are dead…

The New York Times is reporting that Verizon and Google have cut a deal to be announced next week that “could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege. The charges could be paid by companies, like YouTube, owned by Google, for example, to Verizon, one of the nation’s leading Internet service providers, to ensure that its content received priority as it made its way to consumers. The agreement could eventually lead to higher charges for Internet users.”

We’ll delve into this issue a bit tonight, and probably in greater detail early next week. But if you haven’t yet signed the petition in favor of Net Neutrality at savetheinternet.com yet, please take a moment and do so now.

The term “anchor babies” is getting bandied about an awful lot these days, as the xenophobes on the right want to repeal the 14th Amendment. The always brilliant Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer Connie Schultz (aka Mrs. Sherrod Brown) penned an excellent piece this week called “Blame the Babies.”  She’ll join us tonight to talk about it.

We’ll start the show with a conversation with one of the many candidates vying to win Kendrick Meek’s soon-to-be-vacated seat in the House of Representatives (as he’s running for the US Senate).  It just so happens to be in my district.  We appear to have a very viable PROGRESSIVE running — Marleine Bastien.  She’ll try to convince me to vote for her this evening.

Unfortunately, John Fugelsang will not be able to join us this evening for our regular Thursday get-together.  His father passed away this week. Our thoughts and love are with him… and he’ll be back with us next Thursday.

Joining us in John’s place tonight is comedian/cartoonist/satirist Matthew Filipowicz, who I had the pleasure of meeting last month at Netroots Nation.  I think you’ll enjoy meeting him too, as we discuss the progressive bloggers gathering in Vegas, the confirmation of Elena Kagan, the overturning of Prop 8, the importance of Net Neutrality, and anything else that comes up….