It's a grey Saturday here at Jack and Jill Politics. The perfect weather to spend listening to the soothing bluesy sounds of "The Incredible Jimmy Smith" album: Back at the Chicken Shack. Don't take my word for it. It says right on the cover art over the chicken coop and above the black-and-white dog in big red letters that he's incredible.

First a word: Jack and Jill Politics is looking for local minority-authored blogs to start building a blogroll. We want to find more progressive blogs covering politics in the states like CTBlogger (CT), Where Is the Outrage (NC), Vivian Paige (VA) and Black At Michigan (MI) with voices that can add new perspectives. If you are a local minority blogger or know a local minority blog that deserves a little more attention, please leave the link in the comments or email us at jjpolitics at gmail.com. Thanks in advance!

Mama's got a lot to do today and I bet you do too. So I'm gonna hit you with some quick links to check out in our weekly roundup of what's happening at the crossroads where minorities and politics meet.

* First, this Mark Foley Predatorgate coverup thing is not partisan despite Republican efforts to make it so. That's why they are going to lose and lose big in the elections. It's not Democrat vs. Republican; it's Right vs. Wrong. The cover-up caused even conservative Christian Black blogger La Shawn Barber to dig deep and question her loyalty to the current GOP leadership. Furthermore, Wanda Sykes would like you to know that Foley is giving alcohol a bad name. (Thanks to the Huffington Post for the link!) I would like to know why Mark Foley is in rehab and  not in jail. Isn't what he did somehow against some law somewhere?

* Republic of T breaks it down on attempts to connect homosexuality and pedophilia. This is wrong and ignorant, Margaret Cho agrees. Hopefully, pastors will keep that in mind in church this Sunday. Let's keep the hate where it belongs: directed at child molesters and not at the GLBT community, ok?

More after the jump...

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I've had occasion to be critical of Harry Reid in the past.

But this from Matt seems to me to stray far from the facts:

The torture bill could have been stopped fairly easily by the Democratic Senate leadership, but they didn't care enough to stop it.

The technicalities here are vital, as I explained earlier.

The choice that Reid made to agree to the UCA meant that, on the Specter amendment on habeas corpus (the bill's opponents' strongest card), Frist was challenged as hard as he could have been.

In the past, Frist's counting has not exactly been stellar - and it's as plain as a pikestaff that a vote in favor of the Specter amendment was the best hope of stymieing the bill.

If Reid had not gone this way, his only choice would have been to try to keep Frist from getting 60 votes on the Mexican fence bill - which would have been to piss away the chance of putting Frist on the spot.

There has been a whole slew of counterfactuality in the lefty sphere (not too much of it over here, thank God!) over the torture bill, which only goes to provide corroboration to the charge from those hostile to the influence of the sphere that it is essentially a bunch of amateurs with loud voices and small understanding.

I wonder how much of this ululation has been an attempt to distract attention from the fact that, if the sphere had been on the case a good deal earlier, it might conceivably have persuaded one or two Dem senators to switch votes on habeas corpus, and have thus inflicted a stinging blow against the GOP.

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Since my piece yesterday, my little grey cells (such as they are) have been beavering away.

The following is, I believe, the thinking informing the rather strange antics of the Video Doctor (as described in yesterday's piece):

Once the text of a torture/detainee bill had been settled between the WH and Congressional GOP leaders, the imperative was to get it enacted this week.

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I can't pretend to have studied the Secure Fence Act (S 6061). But the idea of a keeping out the hordes from the south by a fence that leaves most of the frontier unprotected has never seemed to me in the realm of sanity, let alone good government.

(Remember the Maginot line? That was the fortified barrier built by the French in the 30s that was meant to keep the German army out. But it was left with a gap along the Franco-Belgian border.

And which way did those sneaky Boches march in?)

However - so cowering and timorous are the beasties on the Dem side of the Senate aisle that no fewer than 18 Dem senators voted for cloture on the bill.

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There are some sports where, for a spectator, not knowing the rules is no impediment to the enjoyment of the game.

Beach volleyball is a prime example.

But, in most other sports - not so much.

Such are the sports played in the Capitol.  There is no way to - enjoy isn't quite the word - the goings on there without an intimate understanding of the rules.

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