You don't have to be a doctor to know that the first year of a baby's life, indeed the first weeks, are critical for its healthy development. That's why the government has historically taken on the responsibility of subsidizing health care for infants of low-income mothers, regardless of citizenship status. Not anymore. Today's newspapers report that babies are the newest pawn in the right-wing's campaign to punish undocumented immigrants. As a result of a new policy pushed by two pro-life Republicans, babies born born to undocumented immigrants will be denied health care. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, November 3, 2006 11:12 AM | Permalink
The mainstream media line that Democratic success in reclaiming at least one house of Congress on Election Day would be a victory for centrists is false. As is often the case, a mixed set of campaign themes is being sandwiched into a convenient narrative that fits a punchy headline —and the talking points of middle-of-the-road, corporate-linked Democratic operatives. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Wednesday, November 1, 2006 11:28 AM | Permalink
What bizarre science-fiction horrors have to occur before the American media wakes up to the strange war that Israel is prosecuting against Palestinian and Lebanese civilians? People are still being maimed or killed every day in Lebanon thanks to unexploded cluster ordinance dropped massively by Israel in the 48 hours after a cease-fire had been negotiated but before it went into effect. Over 30 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in October alone. As usual, however, Lebanon and Palestine have vanished from the newscycle (where Israel is currently represented by a president who refuses to step down despite an all-but-indictment for multiple rape charges and an openly fascist party joining the government ). But there has been a steady drumbeat of revelations, largely in the Israeli and British media, ignored entirely by the American media, about Israel's use of horrifying new weapons on civilian populations. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Monday, October 30, 2006 2:53 PM | Permalink
Marc Lynch, an associate professor of political science at Williams College who routinely reads and analyzes both Arabic-language media and Arabic-language jihadi forums on the Internet, has an incredibly important and interesting post this weekend on al-Qaida and the elections. He provides a summary of how one jihadi commentator has summed up al-Qaida's likely strategy: If they want the Republicans to win and America to stay bogged down in Iraq, they will be active and release another video. If they think they're ready for the Americans to leave Iraq, they'll stay quiet: [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Monday, October 30, 2006 11:22 AM | Permalink
Last week, I shared information on how you can get involved in projects to protect the integrity of next Tuesday's election. Today I'm passing on tips about steps you can take to increase the chances of your individual vote counting. Speaking this morning on a gloomy edition of "The Diane Rehm Show" about this year's election, Dan Seligson of the nonpartisan group Electionline.org offered practical advice for protecting the vote you cast. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, October 30, 2006 11:08 AM | Permalink
The Washington Post's front page today has a story about a message that prominent Republicans want George W. Bush to carry to Vietnam next month, along with lots of lucrative business and trade deals for the nominally Communist country. They want Bush to step up pressure on the Vietnamese government to free Thong Nguyen "Cuc" Foshee, a 58-year-old American citizen from Florida, who has been held without formal charge by the Vietnamese government since September 2005. Who is Foshee, and why should Bush care? [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Friday, October 27, 2006 10:35 AM | Permalink
Good evening, America. Your vice president, Richard Cheney, confirmed publically in an interview with one of his sycophantic radio fans Tuesday that the United States water-boards people it doesn't like: [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Thursday, October 26, 2006 3:41 PM | Permalink
The reaction to the New Jersey Supreme Court decision is entirely predictable, and as Doug Ireland points out , it’s not even as much of a “win” for gays as one might hope: Essentially the court punted on the issue of marriage, saying “separate but equal” was acceptable to them. Hmmm. “Separate but equal.” Where have I heard that before—and it worked out so well the first time? We are clearly building a country that—like other issues in the past—is planning on being half-free, half-gay-free. This kind of fence-straddling on an issue without a fence should be unacceptable to politicians running for office. There is no “middle ground” when it comes to gay rights. You are either for them or against them. [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Thursday, October 26, 2006 11:54 AM | Permalink
President Bush used an unintentionally apt phrase in his press conference Wednesday to describe what he calls his shift of tactics in Iraq. It is the same phrase the Ford Motor Company has used in its so-far unsuccessful campaign to come out of its corporate death spiral: the “way forward.” Bush's way forward in Iraq, however, is amped-up smoke and mirrors and fake, Democratic straw men for suffering Republican candidates on the campaign trail. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Wednesday, October 25, 2006 12:23 PM | Permalink
From faulty electronic voting machines to voter challenges and intimidation, there's plenty of concern this year about whether every vote cast will be counted and whether every voter who can legally vote will be allowed to. According to Barbara Arnwine, the executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, this election "poses significant challenges for voters more than any time in recent history, with an estimated 30 million voters using new machines for the first time." Fortunately, the Lawyers' Committee and other civil rights groups are organizing efforts to watch the November 7 voting process like hawks. Read on to find out how you can join their effort. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, October 25, 2006 9:49 AM | Permalink
There is more proof in the past 24 hours that a majority of the public is siding with progressives on the war in Iraq and on the economy. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Friday, October 20, 2006 12:11 PM | Permalink
The media is doing its best to show its class bias and/or ignorance with its wild celebrations of the 12,000 Dow. I like a good party as much as anyone, but being someone who works for a living, I didn’t get invited to this one, and neither did most of the rest of the country. [more]
--Dean Baker | Thursday, October 19, 2006 4:06 PM | Permalink
A Canadian citizen who has not been charged with a crime—who a Canadian judge has said does not even have a credible allegation against him—is still being barred from entering the United States. And yet we are still not outraged at the usurpation of power and disregard for basic human rights that the Bush administration brandishes in the name of homeland security? [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Thursday, October 19, 2006 11:13 AM | Permalink
Unfortunately, the social and cultural front of George W. Bush's "war on terror" has nominal liberals racing to battle even as they denounce Bush's geopolitics. How else to explain Salman Rushdie weighing in on the side of Tony Blair and Jack Straw? Beyond the patriarchy of men in the "West" presuming to know what is best for Muslim women, of course, there is the fact that the entire project of "saving brown women from brown men" in Afghanistan, Iraq or the U.K. is one that is organically linked to creating the justification in the public mind for war and occupation. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Wednesday, October 18, 2006 11:28 AM | Permalink
Democrats are poised for a sweep of Congress that has not been seen since the 1994 political tsunami that swept Republicans into the majority in the House, according to the latest series of surveys. But “poised” is the operative word. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Tuesday, October 17, 2006 10:40 AM | Permalink
Today, defense lawyers and civil libertarians throughout the nation can rejoice in the news of the greatly reduced sentence imposed by Judge John Koeltl on New York defense attorney Lynne Stewart. Although the prosecution had asked for 30 years, Koeltl imposed a sentence of 28 months. Koeltl imposed the greatly reduced sentence, he said, because of Stewart's “extraordinary personal characteristics.” [more]
--Jennifer Van Bergen | Tuesday, October 17, 2006 8:16 AM | Permalink
Anna Politkovskaya was murdered on Saturday, October 7. She was a fearless journalist in a country where a free press is fast disappearing. She was a fierce critic of Russia's actions in Chechnya, which Russian President Vladimir Putin has justified as a front of George Bush's "war on terror." Twelve journalists have been slain in "contract-style" killings since Putin came to power, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. This is the last article she was working on, which ran today in her newspaper, Novaya Gazeta. [more]
--Anna Politkovskaya | Friday, October 13, 2006 1:27 PM | Permalink
After pulling its report last week on Rep. James Sensenbrenner's conflicts of interest related to immigration policy, New American Media has now re-issued it . The editors never disputed the central facts, but wanted to bolster them with "the requisite denials from Haliburton and Red Lobster" and more sources, according to one editor. As a result of New American Media's concerns, we pulled my post from last week highlighting the report. Now an updated version follows after the jump. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, October 13, 2006 11:29 AM | Permalink
The Sunday funnies, like the Government Accountability Office, are old-school, hardcore and something I love deeply despite (because of?) the musty smell of old-fashioned, out-of-date unsexiness they exude. Print newspapers, unfortunately, will soon die, and with them the pleasure of the Sunday funnies. But for right now, we have Doonesbury, and Doonesbury continues to give back to us. This week, in addition to the most consistent and incisive political commentary out there, Gary Trudeau has launched an effort to bring the face of the war closer to his readers. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Thursday, October 12, 2006 4:43 PM | Permalink
It's been one day in the U.S. news cycle since the findings of the new study on Iraq deaths were released, and still not one credible criticism of the study has surfaced. Yet American newspapers today are filled with headlines suggesting the study's methods and motives are being widely attacked. Dig beneath the headlines broadcasting controversy—"Critics say 600,000 Iraqi dead doesn't tally," "New study estimating number of dead in Iraq hotly contested,""Disputed study says 600,000 Iraqis killed during war "—and you'll find the articles are quoting the same handful of critics, almost all of them Bush administration partisans. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, October 12, 2006 9:50 AM | Permalink
National Coming Out Day is hardly making much of a ripple today, and that is a shame. October 11 has been celebrated since 1987 as a day lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people make themselves visible, either in large or small ways. And one way same-gender-loving people can celebrate Coming Out Day would be to show up at their local armed forces recruiting center to challenge the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policies. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Wednesday, October 11, 2006 11:12 AM | Permalink
So which was a better program to watch during the last presidential election for campaign information, the evening news or “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart?” An academic study published last week reports that “The Daily Show” had as much substantive political content covering the 2004 campaign as did the national network evening news. But the real take-away from the study shouldn’t be “it’s great that ‘The Daily Show’ is so politically substantial” but that the network news producers should be downright ashamed of themselves for putting out such a shoddy product. [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Tuesday, October 10, 2006 10:09 AM | Permalink
Eman Morsi, a 22-year-old Egyptian, is a teacher's assistant in the English literature department at Cairo University and writes for the English-language Egyptian newspaper The Daily Star. She will also soon help launch a blog at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights , a human rights group based in Cairo. We spoke as she came through Washington on, of all things, a State Department-sponsored visit for Arab political science and American studies academics. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Thursday, October 5, 2006 9:38 PM | Permalink
The source of the Sensenbrenner report on which the blog was based, New American Media, has issued the following statement: "Due to an editing error, we failed to include a response from Red Lobster concerning their alleged use of undocumented labor. We are getting that response now and will republish an improved version of the article later today or tomorrow."
--The Editors | Thursday, October 5, 2006 2:54 PM | Permalink
Poor Bill Frist. After finishing a grueling session of selling out American freedom in the Senate, the Republican leader decided to take a quick jaunt to Afghanistan to see how they were loving their freedom. Apparently the dose of reality that slapped him in the face produced a bit of a shock. Speaking from the military base in Qalat, Frist said some things that got him into hot water at home: [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Thursday, October 5, 2006 10:39 AM | Permalink
Florida Republican Mark Foley made sexual overtures to teenage pages over whom he had authority. To conservatives, this scandal isn't about Foley abusing his position of power or lacking impulse control. This isn't about those who were in a position to stop Foley dismissing his behavior as harmless. This is about Foley being gay. Because straight men never sexually abuse children, never sexually harass subordinates nor use their positions of power for sexual fulfillment (cough, Bill Clinton, cough). [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, October 4, 2006 10:42 AM | Permalink
The issue of parental involvement in a teenager's decision to get an abortion is tricky. On the surface and at a distance—that is, removed from actual situations where a teen is considering an abortion—it seems reasonable to many people that the government require teens to seek parental consent before getting the procedure. In an ideal world, we all wish that teens struggling with the question of abortion could talk to their parents. But we don't live in such a world. And before adjourning for recess this weekend, 38 Democratic and four Republican senators cast a vote that recognized this complexity by defeating the so-called Teen Endangerment Act. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, October 2, 2006 11:17 AM | Permalink
This cannot be stressed enough: The Republican-led 109th Congress has done the least work —and at the same time the most damage—of any Congress in recent memory. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Friday, September 29, 2006 11:31 AM | Permalink
Hi. It's do or die time for freedom here in Washington, D.C., and as usual for the 21st century the bad guys are winning and the good guys are running away from a fight. The doomclock is ticking for the writ of habeas corpus and the only thing that stands between it and obliteration is the moral backbone of members of the U.S. Senate. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Tuesday, September 26, 2006 11:08 PM | Permalink
The decision by the Bush administration to keep the conclusions of the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq classified could only have been a political one. That is not only evident from a plain reading of the document, which was declassified Tuesday, but also comparing it to comments by retired Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, a vociferous critic of the Iraq occupation who was one of the witnesses at a forum conducted Tuesday by House Democrats. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Tuesday, September 26, 2006 11:01 PM | Permalink
To get some perspective on just how constrained the reproductive rights debate has become in the United States under Bush 43, look South. Despite the fact that Latin and South America contain overwhelmingly Catholic and socially conservative countries, every one of them—except Ecuador—allows the sale of emergency contraception because they recognize that "EC is contraception, not abortion." And Chile's populist president is expanding access to EC on the basis that it promotes women's equality. When was the last time you heard that argument from an American pro-choice politician? [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, September 26, 2006 10:41 AM | Permalink
As Congress prepares to undo the best part of 1,800 years of Western legal tradition and officially strip our detainees of their right to challenge their detention in a court of law, perhaps it would be nice to spend some time contemplating where we are sending these "worst of the worst." [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Tuesday, September 26, 2006 9:42 AM | Permalink
Over the last several years, the world has grown increasingly frightened at the speed and severity of global warming. Amidst melting ice caps and intensified hurricane activity, nations ask how they can limit their greenhouse gas emissions. As the world’s greatest greenhouse gas emitter, the United States should also lead in strategy and financial commitment. [more]
--Jeff Rickert | Thursday, September 21, 2006 3:42 PM | Permalink
With all the battles over abortion and Plan B, sometimes we forget that religious conservatives aren’t focused only on making sure that every joining of sperm and ovum are held sacred, they are also waging war against the medication women use to prevent the joining of the sperm and the ovum in the first place. Starting tomorrow there’s a two-day conference happening in Rosemont, IL, called "Contraception Is Not the Answer." While I want to ridicule their logic and throw tomatoes at the group—and their creepy videos—the reality is, they’re here, they’re empowered and they’re organized. And all of this is a little scarier than it might seem at first glance. [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Thursday, September 21, 2006 2:37 PM | Permalink
Two days ago, President Bush lectured the United Nations about freedom, saying "Freedom, by its nature, cannot be imposed. It must be chosen." That same day, a military coup toppled Thailand's elected government, eliciting nary a word of condemnation from the White House. "Disappointed," is all the White House would say about the regime change imposed on the Thai people. No call for the elected Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to be returned to power. No call for the restoration of democratic institutions. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, September 21, 2006 9:54 AM | Permalink
The most illuminating portion of an article about Georgia’s voter ID law in today’s New York Times comes, as these things usually do, near the end. In the very last paragraph the reporter notes that two Georgia election officials she interviewed say they have never—in their entire careers—encountered a single case of voter fraud based on a person posing as someone else at the polls. Their experience reflects the national pattern: Individual voter fraud is a very minor problem. Yet to listen to the alarmist rhetoric coming from conservative Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, voter fraud is an epidemic threatening our democracy. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, September 20, 2006 12:32 PM | Permalink
I made a bet with my friend over beer yesterday after work. “If the Republicans retain control of at least one house of Congress after the November elections, we will be bombing Iran within four months.” That puts us at early February. At stake is a melon shisha at our favorite shisha bar. And, you know, the assured death and suffering of innocents, the predictable backlash around the world, the continuing madness of life in Bush's America, the despair of the impotent antiwar movement, etc. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Wednesday, September 20, 2006 8:07 AM | Permalink
"Now I have an obligation as a senator. I admire our president, I want to help him. But the biggest risk in the world is not Lindsey Graham losing an election. We can have a good country without Lindsey Graham being in the Senate. We cannot have a great nation when we start redefining who we are under the guise of redefining our law." [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Monday, September 18, 2006 12:44 PM | Permalink
The tragedy of today’s news that Rep. Bob Ney is expected to plead guilty for his role in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal is that the Republicans in Congress are still determined to block the kinds of reforms that might have nipped that and other scandals in the bud. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Friday, September 15, 2006 10:07 AM | Permalink
In his excellent article in TomPaine.com today about the Child Custody Protection Act, Paul Loeb references a bill introduced in the Ohio State House that would not only ban abortion, but make it illegal for an adult woman to travel to other states to have an abortion. Let me restate: Ohio wants to make it a crime for an adult woman to go to another state to have a legal medical procedure. I think the legislator involved, Ohio Rep. Tom Brinkman, should go even further. Why stop at allowing women to travel freely across state lines to obtain legal procedures? Why not outlaw selling adult women shoes? [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Wednesday, September 13, 2006 12:45 PM | Permalink
In the "under the radar" section of the news comes a website launched today that actually breaks down one of the more complicated ongoing grassroots-level schemes of the right: the little-known connections of a right-wing real-estate developer and the nationwide ballot campaign he funds. [more]
--Ethan Heitner and Isaiah J. Poole | Tuesday, September 12, 2006 4:53 PM | Permalink
Remember all of the laments about the lack of foreign news on the evening network newscasts before 9/11? It may be time, in the fifth year of our “new normal,” to lament the lack of both foreign and domestic news on the evening newscasts. More specifically, we should be pressing the networks to get beyond the event-driven mentality of the evening news directors, a mentality that easily plays into the hands of the Bush administration and its desire to dominate the news cycle. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Tuesday, September 12, 2006 2:14 PM | Permalink
Remember how the Bush administration almost sounded feminist when lamenting Afghan women’s rights after its invasion of Afghanistan? By 2002, all Americans knew what a burqa was—as it became the worldwide symbol for women’s oppression in fundamentalist Islamic society. Even the First Lady worked to publicize the persecution of women under the Taliban. Then about late 2002 or so, Bush’s campaign to swaddle Afghan women in the cloak of freedom was derailed by a campaign to liberate some other people—Iraqis. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, September 12, 2006 11:57 AM | Permalink
As everyone and their uncle rushes to comment on Bush's detainee bombshell yesterday (which, as Dahlia Lithwick points out, was 100 percent recycled from what Bush has been saying all along), the one piece that really fills in the details of Ray McGovern's comprehensive analysis is Salon's interview with Ron Suskind. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Thursday, September 7, 2006 11:25 AM | Permalink
In light of President Bush's amazing reversal today, acknowledging the existence of CIA "black sites," granting Geneva protections to the desaparecidos held in them and transferring 14 of them to Guantanamo Bay, it's important to reconstruct the full grand narrative of the past five years of his regime's terror tactics. From the first reported murder of a detainee held at Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan in 2002 through the aftermath of the Supreme Court's Hamdan ruling this summer, Eric Umansky has written a remarkable piece for the Columbia Journalism Review tracing both the evidence of the administration's policy of deliberately abusing detainees during interrogations and media coverage of those revelations. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Wednesday, September 6, 2006 1:09 PM | Permalink
I was all set to blog about Moammar Gaddafi's new blog and his fascinating insights into FIFA and U.N. reform, but, instead, why don't you compare it to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's and draw your own conclusions (obvious starting point: Moammar is a lot more opinionated and prolific a writer)? I thought it was important to highlight a number of news reports in today's papers about America's Other Unfinished War, the unloved red-headed stepson of the Global War On Terror, Afghanistan. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Tuesday, September 5, 2006 12:54 PM | Permalink
Yesterday, we ran the alarming news in our NewsWorthy section that military families are being exploited by predatory lenders. According to a new Pentagon report, as many as "one in five members of the armed services are being preyed on by loan centers set up near military bases that can charge cash-strapped military families interest of 400% or more." Today, David Sirota explains how Congress actually contemplated protecting military families from just this predicament, but couldn't muster the political will. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, September 1, 2006 1:19 PM | Permalink
Quick: Name the big media event of last week involving the murder of a pretty little girl? You know it. Creepy wannabe murderer John Mark Karr returned to the United States voluntarily where he faced charges for the killing of JonBenet Ramsey. Thanks to the muckraking efforts of cable news and press reporters, we learned what delicacies Karr consumed during his flight from Thailand, among other details about his personal life. Now: Name the other story last week involving the murder of a pretty little girl. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, August 31, 2006 1:43 PM | Permalink
You can imagine that the latest release of income and poverty statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau landed with a thud at the White House. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Tuesday, August 29, 2006 2:54 PM | Permalink
It is time to give thanks for the “just us” moment, the time when politicians and other public figures let their hair down and say what they really feel to, you know, “between you and me"—and an often-mortified public. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Monday, August 28, 2006 12:47 PM | Permalink
After four hellish years in Guantanamo, Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish man with German residency, was released back to Germany this week with a final “f-you” from our government. According to his lawyer, for his flight home Kurnaz was “kept blindfolded and in chains.” Sure, prisoners are often transported in chains (although why the blindfold?) but aside from the fact that sending him back to Germany was pretty much an admission that Kurnaz wasn’t considered “dangerous,” it’s just a plain outrage that our government couldn’t resist getting in one final dig at the guy after reportedly torturing him for years while he was in their custody. But here’s the other outrage: Reuters, which first covered the details about the flight, failed to mention a key fact about Kurnaz: that he was cleared of being al-Qaida and was never charged with any crime. [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Friday, August 25, 2006 12:21 PM | Permalink
One of my favorite writers at Alternet, Josh Holland, does a handy job of explaining why Robert Reich was off-base in his latest piece of advice to Democrats, published earlier this weekon TomPaine.com. In it, Reich urges Democrats to "resist" the temptation to use their increased power on the Hill after the midterm elections for launching investigations and hearings into the Bush administration on any number of issues. As laudable and as justified as such investigations might be, says Reich, they'll have no traction because they'll be perceived as merely partisan attacks. Holland argues, and I agree, that Reich is wrong in framing the Democrats' options as an either/or proposition. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, August 24, 2006 10:10 AM | Permalink
The charter school evangelists, including their high priests in the Bush administration, keep getting doused by the cold rain of reality. The latest report from the Department of Education’s own National Center for Education Statistics puts a further dent in the Bush administration’s attempt to sell charter schools as a panacea for the woes of public education. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Wednesday, August 23, 2006 1:36 PM | Permalink
Even though Bush could barely bring himself to admit it in public, he seems grudgingly willing to allow adult women to have access to emergency contraception. Looks like there's a trade-off in the making: Bush will allow EC to become available to adults if his nominee to head the FDA, Andrew von Eschenbach, gets confirmed. [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Tuesday, August 22, 2006 2:56 PM | Permalink
Due to a problem with our server, e-mail sent between Aug. 16 and Aug. 21 to TomPaine.com via our Web site, such as through our comment page, or to editor@tompaine.com , may not have reached us. (E-mail addressed to individual TomPaine.com editors is not affected.) If you sent e-mail to TomPaine.com during that period directly through our Web site, please resubmit it. We apologize for any problem or inconvenience that this has created. The problem has been identified and corrected. Thank you for your forebearance and continued support.
--Isaiah J. Poole | Monday, August 21, 2006 1:57 PM | Permalink
I’m not sure if this is a problem or not, but I noticed that quite a few of the major dailies’ stories about the decision that struck down the warrantless NSA wiretapping included a photo of the judge, Anna Diggs Taylor. The New York Times did, and so didThe Washington Post and the LA Times. The thing is, I don’t recall seeing many other photos of judges in other stories about federal rulings. It does make me wonder—are the papers demeaning the ruling by emphasizing the judge's personality? [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Friday, August 18, 2006 12:26 PM | Permalink
Part of the reason there hasn't been that much attention paid to the new pension legislation signed by President Bush is that it just doesn't affect that many of us. Unless you work for a large corporation or the government, fewer and fewer Americans are enrolled in pension plans, considered the "third leg" of retirement security in America. Most of us don't have any workplace retirement plan at all, according to the Christian Science Monitor. The barely half of us who do are enrolled in a 401(k). The new pension law is predicted to increase that percentage, and in this era of stock markets addled by corporate scandals and deflating housing markets, that's not good news for retiring Americans. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, August 18, 2006 11:08 AM | Permalink
It’s kind of like Charlie Brown, Lucy and the football, isn’t it? The government trumpets to the media that they just averted a massive terrorist plot. They then brag about what a great job they have done, while also hinting that this indicates America is still at risk. And then facts slowly leak out that contradict the government’s line on about how immediate these so-called “threats" were. It’s happened in Lackawanna, it’s happened in Miami and now it looks like it’s happening in London. [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Thursday, August 17, 2006 11:19 AM | Permalink
Wednesday was protest day at the AIDS conference in Toronto, as activists made their anger with U.S. government policies known. [more]
--Naina Dhingra | Thursday, August 17, 2006 9:30 AM | Permalink
President Bill Clinton came under fire on Monday by AIDS activists for de-emphasizing the impact of PEPFAR’s abstinence-until-marriage prevention policies. President Clinton stated: [more]
--Naina Dhingra | Wednesday, August 16, 2006 8:50 AM | Permalink
It has become clear that challenging the U.S.'s ideologically driven HIV prevention policy is a common theme of the 16th International AIDS Conference, with sectors of the global community from researchers to activists united in pushing back. [more]
--Naina Dhingra | Tuesday, August 15, 2006 9:52 AM | Permalink
[more]
--Ethan Heitner | Tuesday, August 15, 2006 9:45 AM | Permalink
The world of HIV/AIDS—some call it a movement, some call it a turning point in global history and others simply call it a business. It is all of that and more, and this week these different viewpoints will collide as 25,000 people meet in Toronto for the 16th International AIDS Conference. Who are these people? They are activists, researchers, policy-makers, doctors, foundations, non-profits, community-based organizations, corporations, youth and people living with HIV. The world of HIV/AIDS is truly its own world. We speak in our own language. Our celebrities are people like Paul Farmer, Bill Gates and Zackie Achmat. And this week in Toronto is the Academy Awards of the AIDS world. Except there are no awards this year; 25 years into the AIDS pandemic and the global community is still is faced with basic issues of denial, stigma and discrimination. [more]
--Naina Dhingra | Monday, August 14, 2006 9:10 AM | Permalink
Only the most paranoid might conclude that today’s arrests in Britain in connection with an alleged terror plot was timed to coincide with Republican mobilization for the fall elections. But you have to concede that the timing is at least convenient. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Thursday, August 10, 2006 10:39 AM | Permalink
As a supplement to Dr. Beinin's insightful article today on TomPaine.com about looking past the inflammatory rhetoric used by Hezbollah and Hamas, there's an excellent short piece by Nicholas Noe on Electronic Lebanon today about how negotiations almost led to peace, if not normalization, between Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Hezbollah in 2000: [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Thursday, August 10, 2006 9:54 AM | Permalink
It’s very clear now where the dividing line of acceptable and non-acceptable interrogation techniques lies in the mind of Alberto Gonzales and others in the Bush administration. Basically if the detainee isn’t bleeding and isn’t suffering pain equivalent to serious physical injury such as organ failure, it’s not torture. Since it’s clear that Gonzales doesn’t care about any kind of pain other than physical—and even then not until its just short of death—you can see why he’s pretty non-plussed over many examples of degradation and humiliation suffered by detainees that don’t rise to the level of “torture.” [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Wednesday, August 9, 2006 2:18 PM | Permalink
I was heartened to recieve the following e-mail recently: [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Wednesday, August 9, 2006 11:54 AM | Permalink
Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, and Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, discuss how a campaign to inform his constituents helped lead to Ohio Rep. Bob Ney's decision not to run for reelection. [more]
--Ellen Miller and Roger Hickey | Monday, August 7, 2006 5:26 PM | Permalink
Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney is a genial fellow, and whenever I asked him questions earlier this year about the influence-peddling scandal that was imperiling his re-election bid, his responses—or lack of responses—were smooth and good-natured. But his repeated insistence to me and other Capitol Hill reporters that he would not back off his reelection—under the belief that he could politically weather the taint of his association with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff—turns out to have been hopelessly naïve. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Monday, August 7, 2006 12:58 PM | Permalink
All this year, President Bush has been able to bamboozle at least some people into thinking that the economy has been humming along just fine for working Joes and Janes. With today’s unemployment report, that spin machine will falter. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Friday, August 4, 2006 11:34 AM | Permalink
"Even if the United States conquers Tehran, we will still have to live with the Palestinians." So writes Tom Segev, a well-respected Israeli journalist and historian and one of the most important critics of Israel's founding myths, in yesterday's Ha'aretz, succintly summarizing the problem of listening to the neo-con armchair warriors. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Friday, August 4, 2006 11:27 AM | Permalink
So the fundamentalist, anti-contraception group the Family Research Council doesn’t seem to understand that when the Food and Drug Administration’s acting chief Andrew C. von Eschenbach says he hopes to resolve the issue with selling emergency contraception (Plan B) without a prescription, he doesn’t really mean it. Because Dr. von Eschenbach is meeting with senators today and wants his nomination to the FDA to move, “suddenly” he has a plan for Plan B. Yeah, right. Like this same exact feint didn’t happen with the last FDA nominee, Lester Crawford. [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Tuesday, August 1, 2006 2:02 PM | Permalink
More than a day after it was first published, a New York Times article on men who are out of the workforce remains as of midday Tuesday the most e-mailed article on the newspaper's Web site. If you haven’t seen it already, this story of how Bushonomics is failing working Americans is indeed a must-read. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Tuesday, August 1, 2006 12:33 PM | Permalink
Better late than never. With the midterm elections less than 100 days away, and after months of disunity on the topic, Democrats have finally arrived at a coherent position on the war in Iraq. With the costs mounting—in thousands of American and Iraqi lives and billions of U.S. tax dollars—Hill Democrats are finally listening to what many have long been calling for: starting the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq before the year's end. And for that, I applaud them. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, August 1, 2006 11:22 AM | Permalink
The latest House Republican game was nakedly plain for all to see by mid-afternoon Friday, and yet House GOP leaders played along as if they honestly believed people would not see through it. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Monday, July 31, 2006 1:05 PM | Permalink
The same week that George W. Bush passed the bill reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act, the Boston Globe documented how little this administration actually cares about the principles enshrined in the historic legislation. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, July 28, 2006 10:49 AM | Permalink
It was easy, listening to Thursday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on John Bolton’s ambassadorship to the United Nations, to get lost in the minutiae of U.N. programs and resolutions, and fear that the big picture of the damage Bolton is doing to America’s standing in the world would be lost. If that happens, it could lead to the disaster of Bolton’s successful nomination as U.N. ambassador. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Thursday, July 27, 2006 1:11 PM | Permalink
What do you do when you've got the world's most expensive fighter jet and its canopy won't open correctly so you have to chainsaw free the hapless pilot? [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Thursday, July 27, 2006 11:13 AM | Permalink
Sen. Bill Frist may not have a direct financial stake in the record buyout announced earlier this week of HCA, the healthcare company founded by his family . But he does have a personal stake. For one, his brother belongs to the investment team that cut the deal. Then there's that nasty ongoing federal investigation into whether Frist dumped his stock in HCA right before the stock lost value. The SEC investigation has faded from the headlines since it was first announced, but it's not over. With any luck, the HCA deal will give reporters an opportunity to note that Frist is still under the cloud of an investigation. And the public will remember that, at the same time he was making decisions about the nation's health care policy, Frist had a vested interest in the private health care industry. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, July 26, 2006 10:55 AM | Permalink
When sources are promised to be quoted "off-the-record" is there a limit to how many reporters they can talk to at once and still be considered “anonymous?” Do anonymous sources get to invoke a “cone of silence” at any time, for any reason and expect everyone to follow along? Yes, according to Dana Milbank. In his column in today's Washington Post , about a “GOP Senate candidate” who is ashamed of being a Republican, Milbank writes that as long as the source doesn't want to identify himself, the reporters have to honor that agreement. Even if that source were talking to an entire room full of reporters and not saying anything particularly shocking. [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Tuesday, July 25, 2006 9:09 AM | Permalink
Those of us who were labeled America-haters for saying that Iraq was a mess and that our military presence was making things worse are actually being proven right – by the military’s own documentation. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Monday, July 24, 2006 9:43 PM | Permalink
From the IRS comes more evidence that the government continues to work very well for the very wealthy. After all, Bush calls them his "base." Why wouldn't he deliver? David Cay Johnston in The New York Times reports that the IRS is cutting the jobs of those who audit the "tax returns of some of the wealthiest Americans." Speaking off the record to Johnston, some IRS lawyers accused the Bush administration of trying to "shield people with political connections and complex tax-avoidance devices from thorough audits." In other words, the IRS is making it easier for tax dodgers and tax cheats—as long as they're wealthy—to get away with their crimes. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Sunday, July 23, 2006 12:00 PM | Permalink
A chilling article on the front page of today's Washington Post reports that the White House is "content to see the Israelis inflict the maximum damage possible on Hezbollah," as if that will accrue some benefit for the United States in its nebulous "war on terror." The article ends with a Jewish-American businessman praising the president for his obstinance: "I have never seen a man more committed to Israel." To believe that decimating Lebanon is somehow in Israel's best interests is folly. And no less than one of the leading American Jewish magazines says so. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, July 21, 2006 1:38 PM | Permalink
In anticipation of President Bush’s speech before the NAACP today, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, told USA Today that after refusing to address the organization the first five years of his presidency, "I hope that this time, he makes it worth the wait." [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Thursday, July 20, 2006 11:59 AM | Permalink
So a new GAO report about Bush’s famous faith-based initiatives shows that the programs perform exactly as expected—it just hands bundles of cash to churches and doesn’t ask what they do with the money. This sort of reminds me of a scene from “The Simpsons” where Ned Flanders goes to feed the homeless singing a little tune: [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Thursday, July 20, 2006 10:06 AM | Permalink
The headline of today's Washington Post article says it best: "Republican Candidate Linked to Abramoff Loses in Ga. Primary." It's refreshing to see voters—and in this case Republican voters—reject a candidate who has engaged in such underhanded nastiness as Ralph Reed. His advocacy for casinos reveals that Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition, has in the past answered to no higher calling than the almighty dollar. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, July 19, 2006 11:32 AM | Permalink
While the rest of the world was distracted by the powder keg in the Middle East, the Service Employees International Union's Andy Stern quietly fired an opening shot yesterday in the battle for universal health care. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, July 18, 2006 11:30 AM | Permalink
So how much does Henry Waxman rock? You have to love the work he does. The report released yesterday from his office that 20 out of 23 federally funded pregnancy crises centers gave bogus information to their researchers really shouldn’t be all that shocking. It’s not like people (including Waxman) haven’t been saying for years that many anti-abortion, anti-sex education programs are based on morality masquerading as science. So why should it be any different in centers that are designed to prevent abortions? We already know medical science isn't their top selling point. The report is chock full of horrible statements of untruth told to the pretend 17-year-olds from Waxman’s office. [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Monday, July 17, 2006 5:28 PM | Permalink
The barriers of language, distance and culture have always prevented the multiple audiences of conflicts in the Middle East from reaching a common understanding of violence there—a disconnect that has too frequently led to continued violence itself. On the other hand, we are blessed to live in an era where communication across those gaps is easier than ever. The voices of Iraqis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Afghanis—all are available to us, in their own words (even if they are forced to speak in our language) through the magic of the Internets. It is vital that the American public invest itself in the task of listening. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Monday, July 17, 2006 7:54 AM | Permalink
The front page of Friday's The Washington Post contains emotional vignettes of the victims of what it is calling “a surge in killings” which have been occurring since July 1. The crime wave has received national attention as part of what other media outlets, such as USA Today, are labeling a jump in violent crime—particularly juvenile crime—in various parts of the country. Washington Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey’s declaration this week of a crime emergency in the nation’s capital—which allows him to override police union contract provisions in deploying officers—has only heightened the sense of crisis. What usually gets lost in crime reporting—and this recent spate of reporting is no exception—is context. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Friday, July 14, 2006 9:39 AM | Permalink
I'd like to think that one of the running themes of my blogging here is that every human being is equal. Palestinian lives and deaths are just as important as Israeli lives and deaths. Iraqis' dreams and hopes for their country are equally important as Americans' for theirs. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Friday, July 14, 2006 9:07 AM | Permalink
The most recent escalation of violence in Iraq—which has even a U.S. Army Maj. General admitting that things should be going better—focuses our attention on the sheer level of murder, rape and death happening in the country. But it’s important to remember that even when people aren’t dying (either U.S. soldiers or Iraqis), that doesn’t mean Iraqis’ daily lives are running smoothly. There is a general level of aggravation and indignity Iraqis have to confront every day. There is more to security than just not being raped or killed. [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Thursday, July 13, 2006 8:39 AM | Permalink
This week sees a convergence of events in the attempts of our system of law and order to survive an assault on its very foundations launched by Bush & Co. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Wednesday, July 12, 2006 1:43 AM | Permalink
Here at TomPaine.com we're still working on delivering more on the debate about a progressive foreign policy. I've been slogging through Peter Beinart's book, but frankly, once you get past the hype, it's not very interesting. In brief, he's interested in using international institutions as a tool to legitimate American hegemony—if we play nice with the world, no one will mind our power. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Monday, July 10, 2006 9:52 PM | Permalink
Ben Stein is popularly best known as either the teacher in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” or as the host of a Jeopardy-like cable television game show, “Win Ben Stein’s Money.” But political insiders know him as a former speechwriter for President Richard Nixon and a supporter of President Bush. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Monday, July 10, 2006 12:59 PM | Permalink
So far I've only managed to write about television and reproductive rights for this blog, and I'm already sick of one these topics—and it ain't Jon Stewart . Once again we have an extreme anti-abortion group who has decided they are going to spend a week making everyone's lives hell at an abortion clinic. Once again, we have to call in the police, the courts and the counter-protestors to ensure that the clinic workers are safe (or at least as safe as they can be) and that women have access to the clinic with a legally-acceptable amount of harrassment. This scene keeps playing over and over again and I'm throughly sick of it. And of course it's the same group that always shows up to block clinic access, Operation Rescue (now called Operation Save America). Operation Save America has announced that it is going to spend next week trying to make Mississippi an "abortion-free state" which is easy enough to do because it only has one clinic to shut down. [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Thursday, July 6, 2006 2:40 PM | Permalink
Next week's meeting of the world's most powerful nations, the annual G-8 conference, will take place in St. Petersburgh, Russia. The theme of the meeting will be "energy security." Last year's meeting, at Gleneagles, as you recall, was all about debt relief and helping poor nations. (You remember how well that worked, and how the G-8 subsequently ended poverty in Africa, right?) In any case this year the big eight are looking out for themselves. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Thursday, July 6, 2006 12:45 PM | Permalink
The story is familiar. A nativist, racist strain of populism has arisen denouncing dark-skinned immigrants who speak a strange language and have unfamiliar cultural practices. Unfounded worries of a lack of assimilation that threaten the very fabric of the nation. Even the paranoid phobias of an “reconquista” parallel (just substitute “Eurabia” for “Aztlán”). [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Thursday, June 29, 2006 9:44 AM | Permalink
Here is a scene that only a person like Jim Wallis could pull off: Rep. James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus and a top lieutenant in the House Democratic leadership, was giving a sermon-like speech Tuesday afternoon to a rainbow-colored crowd in the Hart Senate Office Building. The audience was dominated by casually-dressed people in their 20s and 30s sitting on the floor of a large, open room, giving the space the feel of a rally in a church basement. Sitting behind Clyburn, listening appreciatively and waiting his turn to speak, was Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., an archconservative whose outspoken stands against gay marriage and support for President Bush’s economic policies have put him at or near the top of the progressive movement’s enemies list. [more]
--Isaiah Poole | Wednesday, June 28, 2006 11:38 AM | Permalink
Perhaps it's time to retire the phrase “pro-choice?” That was an interesting thread dangled at a panel at the National Press Club on June 22, sponsored by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund of Washington, D.C. Ostensibly the talk was about the South Dakota total ban on abortion that was passed by the state legislature last March, and is currently up for a repeal on the November ballot. However, as Sarah Stoesz, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota pointed out there is only one clinic in South Dakota—located in Sioux Falls—that performs abortions. So basically there’s not much left to ‘ban.’ [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Monday, June 26, 2006 4:31 PM | Permalink
Jerry and Joe Long at HuffingtonPost manage to both amuse us and skewer pro-war Republicans in a post where they consider what would happen if the GOP pledged—in a show of solidarity— "to live like average Iraqis." [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Saturday, June 24, 2006 9:11 AM | Permalink
The smear campaign is in full force against Lt. Ehren Watada, who on Thursday made news for refusing to deploy with his unit to Iraq. Watada is being called a "disgrace to those in uniform" and "publicity hound" by pro-war critics who can't bear the attention that a uniformed officer is bringing to Bush's disaster in Iraq. Friends and family of Lt. Watada are asking for public displays of support. Read an open letter from his mother, Carolyn Ho, after the jump to learn more. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, June 23, 2006 4:37 PM | Permalink
TomPaine.com will not publish today so that we can perform much-needed internal maintenance. We will return on Monday, June 26, with all our pixels polished and our circuits cleaned.
-- | Friday, June 23, 2006 8:11 AM | Permalink
Is there one person in this country who’s happy with their cable TV service provider? Cable television companies have long resembled the old Lily Tomlin skit from Saturday Night Live: “We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company.” [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Wednesday, June 21, 2006 4:04 PM | Permalink
The House of Representatives was busy yesterday engaging in vicious class warfare against working families. [more]
--Jared Bernstein and Ross Eisenbrey | Wednesday, June 21, 2006 10:11 AM | Permalink
Google has been delivering good, clean fun to computer users for years with pranks like the results from Googling the word "failure" (if you don't know, type in "failure" and then hit "I'm feeling lucky"). Now public interest groups are getting in on the action. Punch in the full name of your congressman or woman into Google and you can find out how they treated America's middle class in 2005 by checking the "ad" on the sidebar on the right of your screen. Based on the record of how they voted on bills that affect middle-class Americans, John Boehner earned an "F" and Henry Waxman an "A" in the Drum Major Institute's just-released Middle-Class Scorecard. To promote their scorecard, DMI bought 30 days' worth of Google ads so that every time a member of Congress gets Googled, his or her record on issues from health care to economic security gets outed, too.
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, June 20, 2006 8:14 PM | Permalink
Your intrepid editorial staff sat down Monday for a brown-bag lunch and discussion with author Peter Beinart about his book that is cutting through left-Democratic circles in D.C. like a hot macho knife through soft liberal butter. It’s called The Good Fight: Why Liberals—and Only Liberals—Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole and Ethan Heitner | Tuesday, June 20, 2006 8:53 AM | Permalink
An important part of the Democratic Party’s "New Direction" agenda formally unveiled Friday is an economic "wedge issue"—raising the minimum wage—that will get a higher profile in the coming days. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Friday, June 16, 2006 12:17 PM | Permalink
In yesterday's staged 11-hour debate on the Hill about the war in Iraq, supporters of Bush's bungled misadventure fell back on name-calling and deceit. Lacking any substantive rebuttal, pro-war legislators called critics who support a withdrawal plan "defeatist" and invoked the mother of all lies about the war in Iraq: that there was some association between Iraq and 9/11. But opponents of Bush's war were not so easily cowed. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, June 16, 2006 11:09 AM | Permalink
It's not news that caregivers in the United States have it rough. The United States has the unique distinction of being one of only four countries that don't guarantee any paid leave to new mothers. We're keeping company with poorer nations like Lesotho, Papua New Guinea, and Swaziland, and one other industrialized deadbeat, Australia. Finding affordable child care is an ongoing challenge. Then, there's that whole damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't bind American mothers find themselves in regarding work. What is news to many—and quite good news—is the flurry of activity aimed at changing these realities. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, June 15, 2006 11:49 AM | Permalink
There has never been any doubt that Sen. Russ Feingold would run a take-no-prisoners campaign if he formally jumps into the 2008 presidential race, so I was not surprised by his unapologetic stance against the Iraq war, the Bush administration and some of his Democratic colleagues at the Take Back America conference this morning. Still, it was good to be reassured that Feingold remains unafraid to stand out amid Democrats who would prefer to play it safe in their bid to take back control of Congress and the White House. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Wednesday, June 14, 2006 11:28 AM | Permalink
Like North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, George Bush was born to the wrong role. Ignoring the grim task of making carefully considered policy decisions for the welfare of his citizens, Bush clearly dreams of staging political theater. As the death toll of U.S. troops tumbles towards 2,500 in Iraq, as domestic politicians of every stripe scramble to find some "new" way of framing the Iraqi debacle without uttering the words "Bring Our Troops Home Now," as academics and experts hash over whether Zarqawi's presence in Baquba means he was on the outs with the Anbar-based Sunni insurgency, Bush is singularly uninterested. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Tuesday, June 13, 2006 4:35 PM | Permalink
A possible 2008 presidential candidate made an aggressive bid to woo progressives Tuesday, but it was a failed 2004 presidential candidate that told progressives what they needed to hear. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Tuesday, June 13, 2006 10:36 AM | Permalink
After a tepid speech yesterday by Harry Reid, during which all he managed to say about Iraq was "we need a plan to start bringing" our troops home," I wondered what Gary Hart was thinking. The former senator—and outspoken critic of the war from the beginning—was standing in the wings watching the Senate minority leader speak to a packed room at the Take Back America Conference. About Reid's failure to articulate any kind of concrete strategy on Iraq, Hart complained, "They [the Democrats] don't think they have a responsibility" to develop a way forward on Iraq. Hart explained that Reid is trying to acommodate the big constituency in his party that somehow believes it's smart politics to leave Iraq to the Republicans. They want the Republicans "to hang themselves" on Iraq. It's the Republicans' mess, thinks most of the party. They should clean it up. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, June 13, 2006 9:47 AM | Permalink
Progressives are fired up and the public is angry. A majority of Americans are ready for a change, and we are ready to bring it about. But are progressives and the rest of the country really on the same page? [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Monday, June 12, 2006 12:19 PM | Permalink
Since 8:15 this morningwhen I set up shop in a near-empty exhibition hall, TomPaine.com is temporarily relocating from our secure location close to the heart of power in Washington, D.C., to the underground nerve center of Take Back America 2006 (which happens to be only about a mile away at the Washington Hilton). [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Monday, June 12, 2006 9:43 AM | Permalink
At least one of the Republicans now pandering to the party's base is honest. When talking about the Senate's failure to win repeal of the estate tax—which GOP senators pushed despite not having the votes —Trent Lott of Mississippi said: "The conservative base will appreciate the fact that we are trying." [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, June 9, 2006 10:40 AM | Permalink
I feel a little bit bad that Canadian counterterror officials, after less than a week in the headlines, are now going to be buried underneath Zarqawi stories in the "War on Terror" slot of the nightly news. After all, it's pretty clear that the Other Shocking Success of the week, the raid that captured 17 Canadian Muslim boys and young men (five of them teenagers) accused of being part of a massive and spectacular terror ring, was done with an eye for headline-grabbing theatricality. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Thursday, June 8, 2006 11:15 AM | Permalink
Few things hurt more deeply than the sight of passionate, and often compassionate, African-American pastors selling themselves for an illusion, with their followers applauding as if the rhetorical points their spiritual leaders scored had any meaning. [more]
--Isaiah J. Poole | Tuesday, June 6, 2006 3:52 PM | Permalink
Sunday's Washington Post had a perfect first-person story about a woman who unexpectedly found out how screwed up our laws are regarding both emergency contraception and abortion when her inability to get one directly caused the other. Fascinating reading. [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Monday, June 5, 2006 4:32 PM | Permalink
The top U.S. general in Iraq has responded to the public disclosure, after six months of attempted cover-up, that Marines murdered men, women and little children in cold blood in the town of Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Friday, June 2, 2006 10:21 AM | Permalink
Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision involving whistleblowers sets up a “damned if they do, damned if they don’t” situation for public employees who witness gross negligence or wrong-doing by their bosses. If they speak up internally—which is almost always the first way employees try to handle problems (Who throws a press conference to announce their boss’s bad behavior?)—they can be fired. Yet, in some cases, public employees can be held liable for not speaking up. Certainly this is true of district attorneys' offices where failure to disclose evidence is a major crime for prosecuting attorneys. However, speaking up still got the defendant in this case in trouble. [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Wednesday, May 31, 2006 3:11 PM | Permalink
Yesterday, opponents of South Dakota's sweeping abortion ban filed a petition to stop it. Weeks before the deadline and with twice the number of signatures required, the petition was delivered by a coalition of pro-choice groups called theSouth Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families. The petition clears the way for the controversial abortion ban to be decided by popular vote in the November elections. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, May 31, 2006 10:56 AM | Permalink
I was just about to start a quick blog advising our readers to examine several recent pieces by Gareth Porter, a historian and journalist for the Inter Press Service, on the history of our diplomatic relations with Iran in the past five years. His articles are critical to understanding the current debacle, revealing the way Bush has continually rebuffed efforts to solve differences diplomatically. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Friday, May 26, 2006 3:29 PM | Permalink
The court-martial of Sgt. Santos Cardona, the 11th soldier to be prosecuted for crimes committed at Abu Ghraib prison in the fall of 2003, opened without much attention earlier this week in Fort Meade, Maryland. The sentencing of his fellow dog-handler, Sgt. Michael Smith, on similar charges, to only six months of prison, and the general lack of interest on the part of the Defense Department in handing out meaningful penalties to those involved in abuse, has led many to lose hope in seeing justice done. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Friday, May 26, 2006 10:44 AM | Permalink
Since Jon Stewart has become the poster boy for political humor, academics have been chomping at the bit to draw conclusions about “The Daily Show’s” contribution to our political process. The most recent academic study to garner some attention is a paper published by American Politics Research titled “The Daily Show Effect: Candidate Evaluations, Efficacy, and American Youth.”The Toronto Star touted the research with the headline “Is Jon Stewart helping or hurting?” The study finds that, at least for the young college students they studied, those who watched "The Daily Show" experienced a corresponding increase in cynicism toward not only John Kerry but also the news media and the electoral process in general. Curiously, George W. Bush wasn't viewed with more cynicism. [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Wednesday, May 24, 2006 2:02 PM | Permalink
Think Progress brought to our attention the latest from the Fox spin machine: [more]
--Jeff Rickert | Tuesday, May 23, 2006 2:27 PM | Permalink
Was it only a year ago? I was living in Egypt. It was the spring of 2005, and across the Arab world, there was something in the air—a feeling no one could put a finger quite on, but that something was coming. Changes were going to happen. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Monday, May 22, 2006 9:58 PM | Permalink
The country is not happy with how the Republican Party is governing. A big election looms. Time for politicians lacking a clue about what to do in Iraq or the economy to trot out an old standby: banning same-sex marriage. Word is that the Senate Judiciary Committee is doing a mark-up of the Federal Marriage Amendment today (Update: It passed). (It's not like the Judiciary Committee has any pressing oversight business or anything, say, regarding the domestic spying by theNational Security Agency.) And Bill Frist reportedly plans to introduce the bill to amend the Constitution in early June. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, May 18, 2006 9:10 AM | Permalink
It seems if a phone company definitely didn’t participate, in any way, with the NSA data-mining or illegal wiretapping scandals their denials should be pretty clear. Either they did or they didn’t cooperate. For example, Working Assets not only emphatically did not cooperate with the federal government but they are the only phone company to join the ACLU’s lawsuit against the NSA for illegal wiretapping. [more]
--Rachel Joy Larris | Wednesday, May 17, 2006 3:01 PM | Permalink
Just a quick shout-out to the kids at CorpWatch , providing detailed and invaluable reporting of corporate corruption and the muck of Big Money. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Wednesday, May 17, 2006 9:32 AM | Permalink
The ongoing revelations about the vast web of surveillance spun around all Americans by the intelligence-industrial complex can get confusing. Over the past year, we've learned so much that it's hard to keep track—especially in a world of multiple acronymed agencies and programs under the CIA, the NSA, the Defense Department and the FBI. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Tuesday, May 16, 2006 11:18 AM | Permalink
Blogger Laura Rozen, of WarandPiece, responding to today's news that the feds are spying on ABC News, eloquently denounces the Bush administration for engaging in police state tactics: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, May 15, 2006 2:20 PM | Permalink
I know, we've been distracted of late by talk of massive NSA surveillance of Americans, slipping poll numbers, and the War on Immigration, but let's not lose track of the real kicker: will Bush defy common sense, global opinion, his own advisors, any shred of decency or intelligence, and the interests of the American people by bombing Iran? [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Monday, May 15, 2006 10:49 AM | Permalink
According to a new poll, a majority of Americans have no problem with the National Security Agency collecting information on their telephone call records. Heck, I'm not a terrorist, the thinking goes. Given this evidence of apathy over basic privacy issues, CQ columnist Craig Crawford's wakeup call couldn't be more timely: "Americans must now tap into their inner Patrick Henry."
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, May 12, 2006 10:46 AM | Permalink
One might think that a long-bearded representative of an eco-farm in Tennessee who talks about the oil addiction of America as “the karmic revenge” of Gaia and an academic who is one of the founders of ecological economics (or eco-economics) would be at opposite ends of some sort of spectrum in the green universe. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Wednesday, May 10, 2006 11:02 AM | Permalink
Is this man too smart to be president? When Russ Feingold talks about how national security and foreign policy intersect, you think this man might just know what he's talking about. His ideas don't sound canned or full of buzz phrases, nor do they appeal to fear. Plus, they make sense. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, May 8, 2006 3:33 PM | Permalink
What does it mean to oppose something on the grounds that it is “illegal”? Should we oppose non-heterosexual marriage based on its illegality? Shall we condemn San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom for the illicit marriages he allowed in 2004? Or are Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin (the first couple to be illegally wedded in San Francisco) to blame? [more]
--Sandi Burtseva | Friday, May 5, 2006 4:31 PM | Permalink
Robert Parry is just the latest principled journalist to come to Stephen Colbert's defense. Responding to WaPo columnist Richard Cohen'sattack on Colbert for being "rude" to the president, Parry gives a useful summary of where politeness in journalism has got us: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, May 5, 2006 12:17 PM | Permalink
Okay, Peter Beinart wasn't completely serious about building a fence on the Canadian border. But he dismissed it on practical grounds only. Beinart's more sincere proposal in his latest Washington Post op-ed is that we invest in the creation of a biometric screening program on the border: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, May 4, 2006 2:36 PM | Permalink
All across the board, Republicans, now that they control all three branches of federal government, have jettisoned their former ideology of "state's rights." They've reverted to what some of us expected all along was their true philosophy—seizing power wherever they can and holding on to it for its own sake. Progressives, in retreat at the national level, have responded effectively by embracing local battles. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Thursday, May 4, 2006 2:22 PM | Permalink
Remember how when Don Rumsfeld came to the DoD he was going to preside over a transformational sweep of our defense establishment? As 9/11, four years in Afghanistan and three years in Iraq have proven over and again, the concern is no longer for "large-scale, conventional warfare against an enemy with power comparable to that of the United States." Rather, as Bush and Rumsfeld have correctly identified, the challenge is effectively dealing with the major threats to our security: non-state actors and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Wednesday, May 3, 2006 11:32 PM | Permalink
A complete sham. A farce. A joke. That's how Common Cause describes the current House bill which purports to change the way Congress does business. Of course, the problem with the watered-down bill is precisely that it doesn't make any major changes to how Congress does business. It doesn't make significant changes to limit the influence of monied interests. Instead, it offers superficial requirements masquerading as reform, like mandatory "ethics training" for all House employees and perhaps eventually -- gasp -- for lawmakers, themselves. But despite its weaknesses, it will likely pass this week with minimal public attention or outcry. Why? [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, May 2, 2006 11:15 AM | Permalink
In truth , it's not that big a deal. I asked TomPaine.com's fearless captain, Alex Walker, if I could take Monday off in honor of the Day Without Immigrants (a.k.a. La Gran Paro Americano 2006) and she said "Sure." [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Monday, May 1, 2006 9:51 AM | Permalink
TPMMuckraker read all the papers and says everyone agrees on why Karl Rove appeared for the fifth—count it, fifth—time before the grand jury on Wednesday: to explain why he failed to tell prosecutors earlier that he'd revealed Valerie Plame's identity to Matthew Cooper. Bloomberg's story quotes "people familiar with the case" as seeing"potentially ominous signs" for Bush's adviser in his latest visit to Fitzgerald's grand jury. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, April 28, 2006 11:09 AM | Permalink
Whether you find it confirmation of the blindingly obvious or yet another example of how atheist, immoral science is attacking the ideals and stories that America cherishes, Reuters today gives you the heads-up: [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Thursday, April 27, 2006 10:12 AM | Permalink
It’s that time of year. High school students are opening college acceptance letters and then praying that they receive enough financial aid to be able to afford to go to that school. College seniors are preparing to graduate and—after the initial euphoria of accomplishment passes—are trying to figure out how they can manage their student loan debt, rent, food and maybe the occasional night out. [more]
--Earl Hadley | Wednesday, April 26, 2006 10:58 AM | Permalink
Senate Intelligence Chair Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, on the firing of CIA administrator Mary O. McCarthy over allegations that she leaked classified information about the network of "black site" gulags the CIA uses to torture terrorism suspects: [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Wednesday, April 26, 2006 9:29 AM | Permalink
Steve Clemons of The Washington Note has a novel idea: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, April 25, 2006 10:57 AM | Permalink
A group of 1,800 physicists, including five Nobel prize winners, sent a letter last week to the president admonishing his administration for "policies that open the door" to using nuclear weapons against Iran: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, April 24, 2006 6:23 PM | Permalink
Curious as always to know what the geezers are saying about me behind my back, I went yesterday to the New Politics Institute’s discussion, entitled “The Millennials: The Next Great Generation That Will Transform Politics.” [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Thursday, April 20, 2006 10:00 AM | Permalink
The man who instituted the aggressive misuse of dogs, stripping detainees naked, leashing them and other humiliating tactics designed to terrorize “high value” detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and was brought over to “Gitmo-ize” detention procedures in Iraq shortly before abuses were documented at Abu Ghraib, will finally speak in court. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Wednesday, April 19, 2006 11:09 AM | Permalink
Broadband access is the latest battleground in the struggle for a digital commons accessible to all, regardless of income. Today, The Notion describes what's at stake: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, April 18, 2006 11:09 AM | Permalink
When human rights activists claim that the U.S. is sabotaging any potential peace process, they don’t mean just the stuff that reaches the headlines, like stopping crucial aid to the new Palestinian Authority government.This morning, Ha’aretz reports that the U.S. has blocked a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s recent, continuous, indiscriminate shelling of the Gaza Strip. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Friday, April 14, 2006 11:19 AM | Permalink
When a headline wrapping a story about the Medicare prescription drug program is as glowing as the one in yesterday's Washington Post —"Most Seniors Enrolled Say Drug Benefit Saves Money"—you know something's up. I don't say this because I'm a cynic or incapable of believing that any program run by this administration could deliver positive results. I say this because the frustration and angst of the older and disabled Americans who are trying to use the Medicare Part D program is widely documented. Even Bill Frist's mother and HHS secretary Mike Leavitt's parents have had problems. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, April 13, 2006 11:39 AM | Permalink
From TAPPED: "DNC Chairman Howard Dean this morning called on the Bush administration to declassify a 2003 Defense Intelligence Agency-sponsored report that undercuts a key administration claim about Saddam Hussein-era Iraqi weapons." [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, April 12, 2006 2:44 PM | Permalink
Many of you may have heard about this, but if there anyone who hasn't, I can't think of a single more important piece to read right now relating to current restrictions on abortion in this country than Jack Hitt's piece for the New York Times magazine, Pro-Life Nation . [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Tuesday, April 11, 2006 10:22 AM | Permalink
One thing I’ll say about the March for Immigrants' Rights yesterday in D.C.—it’s the first public gathering I’ve been to in years, of any type, where the near omnipresence of American flags (not to mention banners reading “We Love the USA,” “Patriotic Americans,” “Proud To Be An American,” etc.) didn’t make me feel threatened. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Tuesday, April 11, 2006 9:04 AM | Permalink
I didn’t go into last night’s debate between Ward Churchill, a critical historian from the University of Colorado, and David Horowitz, a right-wing speechifier (hosted by the Young Republic—excuse me, Students for Academic Freedom—of George Washington University), expecting any great epiphanies. The event's title, “Can Politics Be Removed From The Classroom?” framed the issue in favor of Horowitz and his crowd; suggesting that all they are seeking is a depoliticization of academia, rather than a return to overtly conservative dominance in education.
--Ethan Heitner | Friday, April 7, 2006 2:46 PM | Permalink
It’s bad enough to read almost daily about the shrinking icebergs, endangered polar bears and other signs of global warming. [more]
--Frank O'Donnell | Friday, April 7, 2006 10:47 AM | Permalink
Thanks to SmokingGun via WarandPiece, here's special prosecutor Fitzgerald's filing. Laura Rozen, who runs WarandPiece, reminds us that the big picture—of which the Plame leak is only a small part—is the Bush administration's willingness to deceive Congress and the public in its dogged pursuit of war in Iraq: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, April 6, 2006 2:40 PM | Permalink
The liberal group Alliance For Justice has been a vocal opponent of efforts to limit actions of 527 groups. Their president, Nan Aron, has said that limiting 527s will "chill voter participation, stunt voter registration, and reduce voter turnout during an election year." Here's a quick analysis from AFJ on last night's House vote to pass the 527 Reform Act: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, April 6, 2006 10:59 AM | Permalink
If you were President Bush and wanted an industry-friendly air pollution czar at EPA, whom would you pick? How about a former polluter-industry lawyer who’s already had a hand in the worst Bush dirty-air atrocities? [more]
--Frank O'Donnell | Thursday, April 6, 2006 10:08 AM | Permalink
ThinkProgress put together a list of all the key players in the Bush administration's war of choice. The list is somewhat similar to TomPaine.com's graphic published last fall, Dick and Don's Cabal, that illustrated the special relationships involved in the campaign to invade Iraq, WMD or no WMD. Among other things, the ThinkProgress feature includes an entertaining "key quote" for each person. My favorite is Richard Perle's: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, April 5, 2006 4:28 PM | Permalink
Journalist and blogger Marc Cooper praises Scott Ritter for criticizing the antiwar movement's lack of focus: The anti-war movement, first and foremost, needs to develop a laser-like focus on being nothing more or less than anti-war. Since even before the war, when we enjoyed the biggest marches opposing the invasion of Iraq, it's been frustrating to watch the organizers take an "everything but the kitchen sink" approach. The marches usually evolve into demonstrations in support of causes as disparate as freeing Mumia Abu-Jamal to abortion rights. As a result, the message is diffuse and the impact on the public weaker. In comparison, consider the recent marches supporting immigrants' rights, which were about immigrants. Period.
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, April 5, 2006 11:16 AM | Permalink
When President Bush named Stephen Johnson to head the EPA, he made much of the fact that Johnson was a scientist and that he would “place sound scientific analysis at the heart of all major decisions.” [more]
--Frank O'Donnell | Tuesday, April 4, 2006 10:10 AM | Permalink
It's fair to say that non-Latino political and activist organizations were completely surprised by the size and the energy of the recent marches to protest punitive immigration policies. As far as I can tell, the big liberal groups and usual defenders of social justice have been MIA from this cause. Early on, mainstream civil rights organizations were criticized as well for being noticeably absent from the debate. Last week in Washington, D.C., one of the heroes of the 1960s civil rights movement broke that silence. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, April 3, 2006 12:11 PM | Permalink
We are pleased to introduce Frank O’Donnell as our Uncommon Sense guest blogger this week. Frank O’Donnell is the president of Clean Air Watch and writes frequently for TomPaine.com about environmental issues. [more]
--Frank O'Donnell | Monday, April 3, 2006 10:41 AM | Permalink
One day after the Defense Department completed an internal review of its $7 billion "prime vendor" program and found it "sound," the Defense Logistics Agency (responsible for procurements at DoD) quietly mentioned to Congress that it wasn't planning on renewing contracts over $800 million worth of purchases in June, after deciding they had overpaid for items. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Friday, March 31, 2006 1:03 PM | Permalink
On Wednesday, CongressDaily (sub. req'd.) reported that Sen. James Inhofe is pledging to give liability protection to the manufacturers of the gasoline additive MTBE. All Inhofe offered by way of explanation was "it has to be done." Why do oil companies need liability protection, I wondered? Oh yeah, MTBE is a major source of drinking water contamination and likely causes cancer. Why such a priority for Inhofe? Oh yeah, his biggest campaign contributors are the oil and gas industry. If only the Unpolluted Water Drinkers of America would form a PAC.
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, March 29, 2006 5:20 PM | Permalink
Thanks to RawStory for posting a leaked PDF copy of the Democrats' new vision for national security, which will be officially released at a press conference midday. Unfortunately, about half of it reads upside down, but a quick scan of the legible part shows Democrats deserve praise for highlighting U.S. energy dependence issues and calling for the elimination of the "economic, social, and political conditions that allow extremism to thrive." Good start. But are the Democrats offering a full-blown vision that challenges the Bush paradigm? Do they dispute the notion, shared by many, that we're in the midst of a "long war" against "terror" or "ideologies of hatred"? We'll publish a full analysis on TomPaine.com later this week examining these and other questions.
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, March 29, 2006 10:47 AM | Permalink
The ouster of Andrew Card as Bush's chief of staff wasn't a huge surprise, points out Wonkette. And it's not like Card's replacement Josh Bolten is going to bring in a fresh perspective or help pierce Bush's bubble. The Progress Report put together a nice overview of Bolten's career at OMB as seemingly indifferent to exploding deficits and loyal to his boss.
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, March 28, 2006 2:26 PM | Permalink
Last week, Paul Waldman made a persuasive—and, for many, counterintuitive—argument on TomPaine.com about how South Dakota's abortion ban backs Republicans, especially 2008 presidential hopefuls, into a corner on reproductive rights. A piece published over the weekend in The Philadelphia Inquirer interviewed anti-choice conservative activists who conceded that the retrograde South Dakota law is pitting the Republican pragmatists against the zealots (my word, not theirs). [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, March 27, 2006 12:18 PM | Permalink
The prosecution of two prominent AIPAC lobbyists for sharing classified information seemed the scariest issue at yesterday’s American Constitution Society discussion. Lawyers and reporters counted it more dangerous than Judith Miller’s imprisonment after refusing to name her sources or internal crackdowns at government agencies on whistleblowers and leaks. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Friday, March 24, 2006 1:08 PM | Permalink
Diebold, dubbed an "e-voting recidivist " by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, may soon be blocked from operating their voting machines in Maryland. Two weeks ago, the Maryland House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly to require paper ballots—not electronic voting machines—be used in this year's elections. The Maryland Senate will consider the measure any day now. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, March 23, 2006 11:04 AM | Permalink
Yesterday's conviction of Sgt. Michael Smith bears close examination because of how it differs from earlier Abu Ghraib convictions. In the details perhaps lies the future fate of command responsibility for detainee abuse and a further blow to the “few bad apples” theory. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Wednesday, March 22, 2006 12:43 PM | Permalink
Raising the minimum wage won't guarantee economic security for America's families, but it's a good place to start. Sen. Ted Kennedy's annual effort to raise the federal minimum wage has become something you can count on in Washington, like hot summers. It always fails because of Republican opposition. They argue it will hurt small businesses, which evidence shows isn't the case in communities that recently passed a higher minimum wage. But the fate of Kennedy's bill could be different this year. Public support for a higher minimum wage has been growing—demonstrated by the fact that states and cities across the country are raising the minimum wage. And this year, Kennedy is tapping into the popular support for the measure by asking for citizen cosponsors for his bill. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, March 21, 2006 12:17 PM | Permalink
Since the Bush administration invaded Iraq three years ago, the young Iraqi blogger known as Riverbend has gained attention for her chronicle of the war's impact on daily life and ordinary people in Baghdad. In her post reflecting on the third anniversary of the war, she offers a gloomy assessment of life in Iraq, saying, "I don’t think anyone imagined three years ago that things could be quite this bad today." [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, March 20, 2006 11:26 AM | Permalink
It’s March Madness, baby . And on the heels of the much celebrated—and much gambled—NCAA tournament, a new ad campaign was announced yesterday. Not by Nike, or Adidas or Wilson. But by the American Council on Education. Yes, the American Council on Education, along with hundreds of colleges, is launching a new multi-year public campaign to raise awareness of the broad social benefits provided by higher education. The goal of the effort is to make people realize that colleges provide public benefits, not just private or individual ones. [more]
--Tamara Draut | Thursday, March 16, 2006 10:55 AM | Permalink
Democrats are talking about how Democrats should be talking about abortion. And it’s looking dire. Over the past several years we have watched the erstwhile left-wing party compromise on core values and grow increasingly reluctant to check the current administration’s recklessness. Now that the war on women’s rights has come to a head, it is distressingly clear that there is no party for choice. [more]
--Sandi Burtseva | Wednesday, March 15, 2006 12:24 PM | Permalink
There's a realization going around Washington these days. It goes something like this: If an administration gets elected by saying government is bad, it follows that they will appoint people who don't care about governing. Hurricane Katrina demostrated this in spades last year. But two stories this week illustrate just how endemic, and costly, this anti-government problem is at a strategic level. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Tuesday, March 14, 2006 1:24 PM | Permalink
If you carry a credit card and have a balance, you’ve probably learned first-hand that credit card companies are raising the monthly minimum payment required. The change stems from guidelines issued last year by the Office of the Currency of the Comptroller, one of the regulators of national banks and credit card companies. The new guidelines require credit card issuers to ensure the minimum monthly payment is high enough that it pays off some principal, not just finance charges and fees. [more]
--Tamara Draut | Monday, March 13, 2006 11:12 AM | Permalink
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday about a shift underway in academia: making the tenure track more family-friendly. It may seem like a small development, but it’s actually quite seismic. [more]
--Tamara Draut | Friday, March 10, 2006 9:59 AM | Permalink
Jimmy Carter has, of late, been breaking the unwritten rule that former presidents shall not contradict sitting presidents on major issues of policy. He did it yesterday, when he called the Iraq War unjust, unnecessary and based on false pretenses. Today, the 2002 Nobel peace prize winner did it again, right here on TomPaine.com. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Thursday, March 9, 2006 12:38 PM | Permalink
In yesterday’s New York Times, an article pronounced “Whites to Be Minority in New York Area Soon.” While whites have been the minority in New York City for over two decades, the suburbs are now becoming more diverse, mirroring the demographic face of the city. This change has already occurred in Los Angeles, Miami and Houston. And by 2050, one-half of the US population will be Latino or non-white. [more]
--Tamara Draut | Wednesday, March 8, 2006 10:14 AM | Permalink
Two articles on TomPaine.com today make me wonder just how long the White House communications office can continue to convince Americans that terrorism, an asymetric political tactic, is the main threat facing the country. In our marquee slot, "The Coming Resource Wars," we have an analysis about U.K. Defense Secretary John Reid's admission last week that global warming is going to destabilize the international political order. Meanwhile in our News Worthy section, we have Reid's opposite number in the Pentagon, Don Rumsfeld, pushing a recent strategy paper by Newt Gingrich in which the arch-conservative assumes that it is ideology that is driving threats. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Tuesday, March 7, 2006 1:52 PM | Permalink
In dramatic letter carefully sent to Harry Reid at the end of the newscycle on Friday, ensuring that it has yet to be reported in a single major newspaper, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist threatened to re-write the rules of the Senate Intelligence Committee. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Monday, March 6, 2006 11:17 AM | Permalink
Editor's Note: While TomPaine.com editor Alexandra Walker is on vacation, we are delighted to have Tamara Draut as a guest blogger. Draut is director of the Economic Opportunity Program at Demos, where she oversees the research, policy and advocacy work on economic security issues. She is the author of STRAPPED: Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead. [more]
--Tamara Draut | Monday, March 6, 2006 9:13 AM | Permalink
Like the melting Antarctic ice sheets, the ground on which George W. Bush has to stand just receded even more. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Friday, March 3, 2006 12:21 PM | Permalink
Good news from the Senate. Byron Dorgan and 25 others introduced a bill Thursday to clean up the business of government contracting. It takes its inspiration from the problems with Iraq and Katrina contractors, but applies to all contracting. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, March 2, 2006 6:24 PM | Permalink
Over here at TomPaine.com we keep waiting for the ports "scandal" to die down. Not to die completely—there are some legit concerns—but to stop dominating the news as if it's the biggest threat facing our national security. Yet it's been a week and leading Dems—egged on by our liberal media friends like Buzzflash and ThinkProgress —are still hammering away at the story. If the topline message from Democrats were that this deal is another example of the White House ignoring its duty to consult Congress, or of Bush's rampant cronyism, or of the dangers of outsourcing vital government fuctions, or of outsourcing to quasi-dictatorships, then great. But as a national security concern, the Dems' alarm over ownership has been shown to be misplaced. As a political issue, it's revealing them to be hypocrites. All the while, hidden in plain sight, there's a real scandal that the port story is pushing off the front pages: the NSA warrantless wiretaps. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, March 2, 2006 12:28 PM | Permalink
Just as the energy debate in Washington is focusing in on the question of our addiction and dependence, the world's scientific community is making sure we don't forget what some, like Tony Blair's science advisor, consider to be a bigger threat than terrorism: global warming. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Wednesday, March 1, 2006 10:39 AM | Permalink
Today, the Supreme Court looks at the constitutionality of the Texas redistricting plan, pushed through in 2003. The coverage of the case gets right many important facts: it resulted in a gain of six Republican seats in the U.S. House of Representatives; it was opposed by career lawyers at DOJ, whose objections were overruled by Alberto Gonzales. But the media neglects to mention how the Bush White House was intimately involved in pushing the plan back in 2003 beyond Gonzales' support. Or that, now, the White House is one of the parties defending the plan to the Court. Recently, The Texas Observer's Lou Dubose sketched out on TomPaine.com what he calls the "campaign" to net the GOP more seats in the House: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, March 1, 2006 10:04 AM | Permalink
As I wrote yesterday , the majority of Americans support access to abortion. Lest they get any ideas, legislators across the nation need to hear this from their constituents. And so does George W. Bush, who, though he has no legal authority to support or veto South Dakota's laws, has thus far indicated he would not support the South Dakota ban. Wow, our president missing a chance to pander to the right wing? How long will that last? The president, South Dakota Gov. Rounds and the world need to know that the South Dakota legislature is waaayyy out of step with the country. Planned Parenthood has set up a tool to make it easy to write a letter to the editor of your local paper. Write one now. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, February 28, 2006 1:21 PM | Permalink
One supported NAFTA. The other opposed it. But on other issues, they agreed. Last week, the Campaign for America's Future hosted a debate between two leading economists on the challenges facing this nation in the 21st century. Economic Policy Institute founder Jeff Faux joined former White House economic adviser Gene Sperling to discuss their differing economic strategies for Democrats and progressives. Click here to read a transcript of he debate. Juicy excerpts after the jump. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, February 28, 2006 12:28 PM | Permalink
As frightening as it would be if upheld, could the South Dakota abortion ban be another case of right-wing politicians overstepping their bounds? While Americans are not in full agreement on access to abortion, a majority, when polled, consistently affirms its support for the general right to abortion. And, so, it turns out, do people in South Dakota. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, February 27, 2006 11:45 AM | Permalink
Add William F. Buckley to the list of traitors to the Bush administration. Buckley's recent piece in The National Review calls on Bush to acknowledge that his mission in Iraq has failed. In a post titled, Prepare the noose for Bill Buckley, blogger Glenn Greenwald considers the weight of Buckley's criticism and reminds us of the spanking Howard Dean got after offering a similarly reality-based assessment back in December.
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, February 27, 2006 8:41 AM | Permalink
Will Ted Koppel's frontal assault on one of Washington's most unspeakable open secrets open the door to a real debate over national security? In today's New York Times , Koppel lays out the argument that if oil wasn't the main element of the "the Bush administration's calculations when the president ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003, it would have been the first time in more than 50 years that the uninterrupted flow of Persian Gulf oil was not a central element of American foreign policy." [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Friday, February 24, 2006 12:14 PM | Permalink
"I love America," said former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer last night at a forum sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies . "But when the strongest man in the world tells me that 1+1=3, I cannot agree." Fischer, of course, was talking about his official refusal to accept the conclusions of the Bush administration in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, yet it could also apply to the even larger strategic gap that threatens to permanently divide the transatlantic alliance. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Thursday, February 23, 2006 11:57 AM | Permalink
In these times of the Patriot Act and domestic surveillance, we might justifiably be concerned that our society is becoming post-democratic. So, while the government charging a citizen with the good, old-fashioned crime of sedition might not exactly be commonplace, it is in keeping with recent trends. [more]
--Sandi Burtseva | Tuesday, February 21, 2006 5:08 PM | Permalink
In his now-infamous article in The National Interest, "The End Of History," conservative foreign policy scholar Francis Fukuyama argued that, with the end of the Cold War, geopolitics would inevitably diminish in intensity as the world's nations converged around the organizing principles of democracy and free markets. It was, as Fukuyama admits, "a kind of Marxist argument for the long-term process of social evolution...one that terminates in liberal democracy rather than communism." Had this one-time colleague of Paul Wolfowitz made a Jeffersonian argument for the process of social evolution, Fukuyama might not have been apologizing this past Sunday in the NYT Magazine for his complicity in launching America into our disastrous neoconservative trajectory. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Tuesday, February 21, 2006 11:37 AM | Permalink
Thanks to DailyKos for flagging this post from lawyer-blogger Glenn Greenwald on the politics surrounding the ever-widening NSA scandal. What's worth highlighting is Greenwald's attack on Democrats for shrinking from a full-scale assault on the White House about the program out of fear the issue wouldn't play well in the mid-term elections. Fear that Democrats would look—you guessed it—soft on national security. While pointing out how the scandal is roiling the Republican Party, Greenwald wonders: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, February 20, 2006 5:03 PM | Permalink
Diane Sawyer, anchoring ABC's " World News Tonight," simply repeated the most stark statistic from her network's report yesterday on the increasing melt rate of the Greenland ice sheet. "Twenty-one feet," she said. Twenty-one feet. That's how much the world's sea levels will rise when Greenland's ice fully melts. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Friday, February 17, 2006 10:55 AM | Permalink
Being part of the editorial team at TomPaine.com has been enlightening, educational and just a lot of fun—and I'm truly going to miss it. Today is my last day at TomPaine.com . Next week, I'll be starting a new position as assistant editor of Teacher magazine—a national bimonthly print publication, and a project of the nonprofit Editorial Projects In Education. While I look forward to the new challenges ahead, I'm also grabbing this opportunity to look back on one of my favorite parts of my job at TomPaine.com —contributing to and editing this blog, "Uncommon Sense." Below is a list of some of my favorites of my blog entries; maybe you'll find a favorite among them, too. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Friday, February 17, 2006 10:18 AM | Permalink
Even with revisions—described by Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold and others as merely cosmetic—the PATRIOT Act contains no restrictions on government "fishing expeditions." Feingold is protesting the intrusive powers the Patriot Act gives the government by voting against reauthorization today. His will be the only "no" vote. In a statement released today, he argues, "This deal was a beast two months ago and it hasn’t gotten any better-looking since then." Full statement after the jump. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, February 16, 2006 10:56 AM | Permalink
Colonel (ret.) Larry Wilkerson's worst national security nightmare is the rise of a "dumb tyrant" into the Oval Office. Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, admitted last month that he is living that nightmare. If there was any doubt, yesterday's front page of The New York Times clears it away. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Wednesday, February 15, 2006 11:30 AM | Permalink
If you live in Washington, D.C., (or New York City, or San Francisco) it's pretty hard to miss the ads: They're larger-than-life-sized and pasted on bus shelters and in metro stations. The ads feature artistic black-and-white shots of couples (straight and gay!) gazing lovingly into each other's eyes or embracing. And then there's the text, simple and straightforward: "We believe in God. We believe that sex is sacred. We believe in caring for each other. We believe in using condoms." [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Tuesday, February 14, 2006 11:16 AM | Permalink
Mortal peril isn't the only risk of going hunting with Dick Cheney. So is suffering a serious lapse in ethical behavior. If you're a Supreme Court justice, hunting with the Veep might draw accusations of bias and prejudice and possible law breaking. This is precisely what happened when Antonin Scalia joined Cheney in his other famous hunting trip. Cheney just happened to have a little "business" pending with the judge. You might recall that, in 2003-2004, that business was the matter of Cheney's secret energy task force, which the Supreme Court was being asked to review. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, February 13, 2006 11:32 AM | Permalink
The bloggers at ThinkProgress are busy this week! From posting e-mails in which Jack Abramoff describes his relationship with President Bush to tracking Scott McLellan's hapless reaction to the e-mails, ThinkProgress is the go-to source for coverage of the Bush-Abramoff connection.
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, February 10, 2006 1:20 PM | Permalink
I want to thank Donald Rumsfeld for the new Quadrennial Defense Review. This 92-page defense-planning guide depicts in no uncertain terms the Bush administration's vision for America 's future: a long, expensive war on terror culminating in a knock-down, drag-out, high-tech fight with China. That's a future that is, in fact, very likely if America does not make a significant change in direction. But it is not a future that is in any way pre-ordained. If Dems can exploit the Bush administration's fatalism, they have a major opportunity to challenge the GOP in 2008. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Thursday, February 9, 2006 11:31 AM | Permalink
In the Bush administration, praise is a PR sleight of hand. The more a person or program is publicly lauded by officials, the worse it must be. Last fall, the president complimented FEMA's Mike Brown for bungling the response to Katrina. And today, according to CongressDailyPM (sub req'd), HHS Secretary Leavitt appeared on Capitol Hill today to face grilling over the widely criticized Medicare prescription drug program and asserted he is "proud of Part D. We are 38 days into the biggest change in Medicare history."
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, February 8, 2006 4:48 PM | Permalink
We'd all love to live in a world where every pregnancy was planned and every child wanted. But we don't. And we never will. "There will never be zero abortions," explained Katha Pollitt recently, pointing to the likelihood that accidental pregnancies will probably always occur. Many of the Republican Party leaders and other ideologues who stridently oppose reproductive rights live in a fantasy world that ignores this reality of women's lives. In their world, no one is ever coerced into sex, condoms never break and women can always care for the children they conceive and pay the rent. A new report suggests that politicians are much more likely to reject this fantasy world if they have a daughter in their lives. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, February 8, 2006 2:30 PM | Permalink
Today the liberal senator from Wisconsin issued a powerful statement attacking the Bush administration's deception about its domestic eavesdropping. He upbraided Republicans for cheering the president during the State of the Union when he defended the NSA spying program: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, February 7, 2006 4:56 PM | Permalink
The mainstream commentary about reactions in parts of the Arab world to the Danish cartoon is troubling in its overtones of racism and quick retreat to glib stereotypes—"this confirms it, Muslims and Arabs are hot-tempered, violent people." No reason to probe further to understand the roots of the violent reaction. What other explanation do you need? The street riots confirm what many Americans have been taught to believe about people in the Middle East: They hate freedom. This is what our president tells us on an almost daily basis. And the recent outcry fits nicely into the "clash of civilizations" narrative George W. Bush uses to explain Arab and Muslim antipathy toward the West. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, February 7, 2006 12:50 PM | Permalink
I first read The Feminine Mystique during a break I had between graduate school and my first "real" job, when I was spending a lot of time thinking about my future and about women and work in general. I was transfixed by the book, and kept finding sections I felt compelled to tell my friends and my mother about—though many of them had already read it. If it had that effect on me—a young woman who had grown up enjoying the spoils of feminism's first battles—I can only imagine how profound The Feminine Mystique was in 1963. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Monday, February 6, 2006 11:18 AM | Permalink
When introducing Sen. Evan Bayh, Democrat from Indiana, former deputy secretary of defense and CSIS President John Hamre rightly noted that America is long overdue for an earnest debate on national security. And this quintessential New Democrat did not disappoint — but not in the way even the senator himself intended. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Friday, February 3, 2006 10:17 AM | Permalink
TPM Cafe has a new blog all about that monstrous pharmaceutical industry subsidy known as the Medicare prescription drug bill. And our colleague and Medicare wonk Jeff Cruz is posting. Today he goes against the grain on this topic and writes about something hopeful—signs that some Republicans may be willing to reform the bill. Check it out here.
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, February 2, 2006 6:06 PM | Permalink
Americans' top concerns right now are Iraq and terrorism, according to a recent Washington Post /ABC News poll. Yet the Democratic leadership, represented last night by Tim Kaine, doesn't have a clear answer to either. As David Corn warns in today's column on TomPaine.com, "without a clear position on the war, the Democrats, as a party, will have a hard time using the war to argue that [Bush's] cowboy's posse in Congress ought to be chased out of town." [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, February 1, 2006 11:13 AM | Permalink
This just in: Despite the fact that Samuel Alito was confirmed to the Supreme Court, there is some good news concerning reproductive rights today. The U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, just ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood in the organization's challenge of the federal abortion ban. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Tuesday, January 31, 2006 4:27 PM | Permalink
For those who want to ease the pain of the SOTU with alcohol, here's Wonkette's drinking game: Straight Up-and-Down Vote, No Chaser. For those who enjoy talking back to the television, make sure you've got your facts straight by tuning into the "live-blogging" offered by ThinkProgress "for real-time research-intensive rapid response" to Bush's 38 minutes of doublespeak and deception.
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, January 31, 2006 12:13 PM | Permalink
Last year, Steve Clemons triggered a minor political landslide by giving former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft a platform to express his assessment that Iraq was showing signs of "incipient civil war." This year, Steve, now the director of the American Strategy program at the New America Foundation, expanded breadth of his realist assault on the neoconservative status quo, and the main event was former Supreme Allied Commander-Europe, Wes Clark. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Tuesday, January 31, 2006 11:45 AM | Permalink
Led by sites like Democrats.com and Buzzflash and talk shows like The Young Turks, the Democratic base can claim credit for breathing life back into Senate Democrats. No one knows exactly what led John Kerry to declare his intention to lead a filibuster, but the pressure from Buzzflash and the blogosphere was likely a factor, along with The New York Times editorial board. Track the progress of this grassroots uprising against Samuel Alito at Democrats.com— where Bob Fertik is posting frequently with updates about which senators have declared their positions on a filibuster. Click here to contact senators who haven't declared their intentions.
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, January 30, 2006 11:23 AM | Permalink
The United States and Iran can't seem to agree on nuclear weapons, but they've managed to find common ground on a different issue: disdain for gay and lesbian rights. In a vote at the United Nations on Monday, the U.S. supported an Iranian recommendation to deny "consultative status"—the ability to distribute documents at meetings of the U.N. Economic and Social Council—to two international gay rights groups. [more]
--Conor Clarke | Friday, January 27, 2006 2:29 PM | Permalink
In yesterday's press conference, the president hedged when asked whether he had ever met Jack Abramoff or taken any photos with him. And when asked whether he met with lobbyists, he joked, "I try not to." Bush's evasions aside, the issue underlying the push for the release of any photos of Bush and Abramoff is whether the White House was in cahoots with an unscrupulous lobbyist. We don't need photos to answer that. A new report helps connect the dots. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, January 27, 2006 12:00 PM | Permalink
Blogger Glenn Greenwald, a lawyer with a background in First Amendment challenges, analyzes the latest Bush administration defense—delivered via Gen. Hayden on Tuesday—of its domestic eavesdropping. And finds it sorely lacking: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, January 26, 2006 1:02 PM | Permalink
Throughout the Senate Judiciary Committee's questioning of Judge Samuel Alito during his confirmation hearing, two big issues kept reoccurring. The first was executive power. The second big issue was abortion, and specifically whether Alito believes that Roe v. Wade is settled law. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Wednesday, January 25, 2006 3:15 PM | Permalink
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid delivered his State of the Union "prebuttal" today, which, in keeping with Reid's reputation as a public speaker, was worryingly dry and underwhelming. (Just as worrying are the rumors that today's speech was supposed to dovetail with the launch of a wider, fresher Democratic Party platform—but didn't, simply because the party couldn't get its act together in time.) [more]
--Conor Clarke | Tuesday, January 24, 2006 5:42 PM | Permalink
If you have not yet read former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin's article, "We Must Change Policy Direction" in today's Wall Street Journal , you've missed an important political moment. In the piece, Rubin recognizes many of the economic threats and inequality we have been sounding daily here on TomPaine.com, such as the trade deficit, the coming Medicare crunch, flat or decreasing median income and a national savings rate stuck at zero. Faced with these and other serious problems, Rubin calls for politicians on both sides of the aisle to set aside their orthodoxies and ideologies and change policy direction on many fronts. Finally, this current director of Citigroup outlines a framework of policies he believes is sufficient to anchor that change. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Tuesday, January 24, 2006 4:18 PM | Permalink
Thanks to John Holbo over at Crooked Timber for unearthing a gem from Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson's new book that shows Jack Abramoff's connection to the Medicare fiasco we now have on our hands. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, January 24, 2006 11:24 AM | Permalink
In a column unambiguously titled "Not. Backing. Hillary.", Ivins lets loose on a Democratic Party mired in equivocation and political calculation. She takes the party to task for yielding to the Bush administration's tactic of "playing the patriotic bully card" on the war. It's refreshing spleen-venting in a week where Harry Reid apologized for telling the truth and two leading Democrats—Hillary Clinton and Evan Bayh—tried to out-hawk the White House by calling for a tougher stance on Iran. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, January 20, 2006 4:53 PM | Permalink
I walked over to the Center for American Progress this afternoon to watch Ted Kennedy deliver his statement on Samuel Alito's nomination hearings. (Shocking news: Kennedy will vote no on Alito.) The lion of the Democratic Party did not disappoint: He thundered through a powerful indictment of Judge Alito, and even managed to balance the cliché sports metaphors ("The record demonstrates that we cannot count on Judge Alito to blow the whistle when the President is out of bounds") with substantive case citations.
But what struck me most was what Kennedy didn't say. In particular: He used the word "abortion" a grand total of zero times, and spoke for only a few seconds about "new attempts to limit or even deny a woman's reproductive decisions." (And even then, it was only mentioned in tandem with "the interference with personal medical decisions on how long a loved one should be kept on life support.") Later in the speech, he spent just a few sentences on Alito's threat to Roe v Wade —hardly a significant mention. [more]
--Conor Clarke | Thursday, January 19, 2006 6:19 PM | Permalink
The first time I met Richard Clarke, I was role-playing the president of the United States during a weekend war game hosted by the Security Studies Program at the Fletcher School. That game, held annually and dubbed "SIMULEX," is run by staff from the nation's military graduate schools, such as the National War College and the Army War College. This particular year, 1997, Clarke was observing the progress of the game, as he had a special interest in the scenario. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Thursday, January 19, 2006 12:24 PM | Permalink
When leaders from Planned Parenthood and the National Right to Life Committee both call a Supreme Court abortion decision "good news," you know there's something strange going on. In this case, it's the Supreme Court's decision, announced yesterday, in Ayotte vs. Planned Parenthood. In a wishy-washy, fuzzy, we're-not-really-do-anything-at-all ruling, all nine justices ruled to avoid making any precedent-setting decisions about abortion. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Thursday, January 19, 2006 11:18 AM | Permalink
Now that Tom DeLay is sidelined, will someone start digging into House Speaker Dennis Hastert's dealings with lobbyists? That's the buzz from watchdog groups and echoed in yesterday's Washington Post. Jonathan Weisman's article quotes Republican congressman Jeff "We Simply Have Too Much Power" Flake as musing that—with DeLay gone—"people will start focusing on Hastert now." [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, January 18, 2006 12:51 PM | Permalink
"I hope you guys feel a lot of pressure." Thus spoke Markos Moulitsas, founder and editor of the mega-blog DailyKos.com, to a group of 165 college students—myself included—assembled in the ballroom of the National Education Association's DC headquarters. [more]
--Conor Clarke | Wednesday, January 18, 2006 9:26 AM | Permalink
Finally, some good news to report on the Wal-Mart front. Last week, Maryland became the first state to require that Wal-Mart increase the amount of money it spends on employee health care. Sure, Maryland is one of the smallest states, and only one Wal-Mart store currently has enough employees to fall under the new bill's jurisdiction. But this bill is a good start—and could shame the rest of the nation into action. There are 29 states considering similar bills. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Tuesday, January 17, 2006 10:35 AM | Permalink
Do Americans care whether the government spies on its citizens? A number of polls on Bush's warrantless wiretaps have been published in the past two weeks and, in predictable fashion, proponents of the president's controversial program have trotted them out as evidence of widespread public support. But do the polls actually show us that the American people support the program? Not really. All the polls show is that Americans want a lot of things—protection from terrorism, as well as civil liberties and checks and balances—and their opinions on these subjects are more complex than a simple poll can suggest. [more]
--Conor Clarke | Friday, January 13, 2006 4:49 PM | Permalink
What better to shake Washington out of its strategic tunnel vision than a new alliance over oil between the world's two most populous countries? An article that appeared last night in the Financial Times states that, "China and India, the world’s two fastest-growing energy consumers, on Thursday set aside long-standing rivalries and agreed to co-operate in securing crude oil resources overseas." [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Friday, January 13, 2006 10:41 AM | Permalink
Corn pronounces us "one step closer to a Scalia court." Read his autopsy of the Democrats' performance during the Alito hearings here .
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, January 13, 2006 9:54 AM | Permalink
It was a real pleasure to hear retired Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson speak yesterday at the Center for National Policy , a low-key think-tank led by Leon Panetta and Tim Roemer. Once again, Col. Wilkerson, long-time aide to Colin Powell, delivered a blistering critique of the policies and processes of the Bush administration, offering one of the highest-level windows into the White House since former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill published his book in 2003. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Thursday, January 12, 2006 12:56 PM | Permalink
Duck, dodge, weave. Reporters covering yesterday's questioning of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito got to show off their best boxing terms when describing Alito's responses to questions about Roe v. Wade and reproductive rights. Most of the focus is on whether Alito believes Roe to be "settled law of the land"—that is, a legal precedent so well-established that it can't be overturned. On this point, Alito danced around like Muhammad Ali. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, January 11, 2006 11:59 AM | Permalink
Toward the end of 2005 , it was big news in the liberal U.S. media that George W. Bush may have suggested bombing the Arab satellite network Al Jazeera in 2004 because of its unvarnished reporting on the war in Iraq. Because of the rapid news cycle—including the December revelations over domestic spying—the story was soon buried. It also lost steam because the British government blocked news outlets from publishing a copy of of the top-secret British memo leaked by a British official that allegedly documents Bush's bomb threat. But it's back in the news because, today in London, two men were formally charged with violating the Official Secrets Act for leaking the top-secret memo. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, January 10, 2006 11:49 AM | Permalink
Well, the Alito confirmation hearings are now in full swing, and we can expect days of hopefully vigorous—and rigorous!—questioning from the Senate Judiciary Committee before the full Senate puts Alito's nomination to a vote. And while most of us can't spend all day glued to C-SPAN watching the hearings, it's still important that your senators know you've got their eye on them—and the way they're voting. It's no exaggeration to say that Alito is the most important and potentially most dangerous Surpreme Court nominee of our time, and that his confirmation could have disasterous effects on civil liberties, checks and balances on executive power and the right to choose. So here are a few of our favorite ways to keep tabs on the Alito confirmation hearings. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Tuesday, January 10, 2006 9:32 AM | Permalink
David Corn engages in some juicy speculating about the damage Jackgate could do to the GOP. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, January 9, 2006 12:12 PM | Permalink
It started last night, East Coast time. I was reading the Financial Times website when the headline that should have come last year finally emerged. "China Signals Reserve Switch Away From Dollar." That, friends and countrymen, is a bell that tolls for the American economy. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Friday, January 6, 2006 12:04 PM | Permalink
In yesterday's New York Times , columnist Thomas Friedman helped to mainstream one of the key arguments necessary for overcoming our present strategic nightmare: illuminating the relationship between our domestic economy and our national security strategy. While this is no little feat in an era where the media are painting a more traditional picture of gathering external threats to America, Friedman's analysis still remains incomplete. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Thursday, January 5, 2006 12:00 PM | Permalink
Here's something that slipped past my radar (which was admittedly turned way down) over the holiday break: A list from Ms. magazine of the top 10 news stories of 2005 for women. It's a great summary of some of the past year's victories (two women elected to president/prime minister positions) and greatest shames (still no over-the-counter Plan B here in the United States.) [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Tuesday, January 3, 2006 4:20 PM | Permalink
2006 is getting off to a rousing start, with today's news that Jack Abramoff is going to plead guilty to fraud and corruption charges (it may have already happened by the time you read this). For the legal analysis of Abramoff's deal with federal prosecutors, check out TalkLeft. For an idea of the others Abramoff is going to drag down with him, see the this nifty diagram from Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (although I count fewer than 20 there, so maybe the diagram needs some updating). And to preempt those pundits who will be faithfully sticking to the Republican talking points on corruption—"everyone does it"—it's worth reprising Paul Waldman's recent column on the topic. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, January 3, 2006 11:58 AM | Permalink
At his blog , Jonathan Tasini challenges those who criticize the workers for striking: "For those people here and elsewhere who blame the union, please, get a grip. It can' t be more clear now that the M.T.A. forced a strike over a pittance to its coffers--but a 4 percent cut to workers." [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, December 22, 2005 1:19 PM | Permalink
As 2005 comes to a close, I am struck by the observation that Democrats responded tactically, not strategically, to almost every big news event this year. If that same pattern continues in 2006, I shudder to think what the outcomes of the mid-term elections will be, given the GOP's proven willingness to fix elections, deceive Americans and assassinate the character of opponents. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Wednesday, December 21, 2005 12:29 PM | Permalink
It's good news for the rest of the world, but not for Americans. Dick Cheney is cutting short an overseas diplomatic mission to cast the tie-breaking vote in a Republican spending cuts bill. As TomPaine.com readers well know , this bill accomplishes "savings" for the government by slashing funds for programs serving low-income Americans. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, December 20, 2005 12:12 PM | Permalink
One of the most common justifications that's trotted out every time someone in Congress proposes a tax cut for rich Americans is trickle-down economics . This supposed economic phenomena, around since the Reagan area, posits that when the tiny percentage of very rich Americans receive tax breaks, the tend to use the money for things like investing, charitable giving and opening businesses—all of which produce benefits that trickle down and help middle- and lower-income citizens. But a new study on charitable gifts throws more than a trickle of cold water onto this theory. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Monday, December 19, 2005 11:20 AM | Permalink
When I read Gareth Porter's report, published today here in TomPaine.com and titled, "Victory Is...Negotiable" —I sighed. The thrust of Porter's analysis is that the Bush administration is preparing the table for negotiations with the Sunnis. Ever since the January 30, 2005, elections excluded the Sunni population of Iraq, a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Iraq has required earnest, open-ended negotiations among all the stakeholders in and around Iraq. Indeed, it should have happened in April of 2003. Last month, the Cairo process showed that everyone but the U.S., hardline Iraqi Shiites and Al Qaeda understood this. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Friday, December 16, 2005 12:58 PM | Permalink
First, the background, in case you don't know about this story: Last May, the reactionary American Family Association announced a boycott of Ford vehicles and criticized Ford for making contributions to gay rights groups, offering benefits to same-sex partners and recruiting gay employees. The liberal blogger Americablog was part of a campaign to pressure Ford to ignore AFA's antics. Yesterday, Ford circulated a letter indicating the company was standing for equality against bigotry. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, December 15, 2005 12:08 PM | Permalink
Since September, newspaper headlines have been broadcasting the inner turmoil afflicting the Republican Party over spending issues. It’s very possible Congress will adjourn soon without passing a budget bill because of the controversial cuts to social programs and a provision for drilling in ANWR. Activists from liberal faith groups, unions and anti-poverty groups deserve a lot of credit for making this process a long, hard slog for the GOP. But the battle isn’t won and this week is the final leg in the race to stop Congress from slashing funding for food stamps, student loans and Medicaid. Today, groups like Sojourners, the National Women’s Law Center and the Emergency Campaign For America’s Priorities are urging people to call Congress , hold vigils or participate in an array of other events. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, December 14, 2005 10:58 AM | Permalink
Yesterday, President Bush did something highly out of character for him: He answered a question—from a citizen, no less—directly. In public. Just when we'd all gotten used to Scott McClellan constantly telling us that he can't comment, the president answered lawyer Didi Goldmark's question of how many Iraqis had been killed with, "I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis." [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Tuesday, December 13, 2005 10:06 AM | Permalink
Not surprisingly, last week's meetings in Montreal to look beyond the Kyoto Protocols have produced little tangible progress. Headlines are calling the pace of debate on climate change "glacial." A large part of the reason for this is official American intransigence by the Bush administration. But a good part of the blame can be placed on the shoulders of progressive advocates who have thus far failed to recognize the political power of the issues underlying climate change. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Monday, December 12, 2005 11:28 AM | Permalink
A new poll released today about how voters look at health care issues turned up some interesting tidbits that will likely resonate in next year's mid-term elections. The most important, in my mind, is the finding that health care is not a pocketbook issue for most voters—especially women. When asked what they were most worried about regarding health care, the majority of voters said they were worried the government would fail to address our national health care crisis—not that they were worried their taxes would increase, or that government control would ruin the health care system. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Thursday, December 8, 2005 3:30 PM | Permalink
In Wrong Vouchers, Dr. Friedman , Greg Anrig Jr. of TPM Cafe says what Katrina survivors need most is not vouchers for private school, but public housing. And he chides Friedman for using the Katrina tragedy to push his political agenda of starving public education. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, December 7, 2005 2:13 PM | Permalink
The editors at The Economist got religion this week. The release of a report in the journal Nature , by Harry Bryden of the National Oceanography Centre in Southhampton, Britain, provided the first compelling evidence that global warming threatens more significant near-term effects—the rapid cooling of the British Isles and Northern Europe—than previously thought credible. In short, global warming is melting Arctic ice at such a rate that it has reduced the Atlantic currents that warm Europe—by 30 percent. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Wednesday, December 7, 2005 11:55 AM | Permalink
Longtime readers of TomPaine.com will remember that, for a time, we experimented with a "blog of blogs" and a feature called "The Dreyfuss Report." Both have since gone the way of the Soviet Union and coal-fired stoves, but today is a great day to revive one to announce the reappearance of the other. No, Vladimir Putin is not reviving the Soviet Union (yet). But Bob Dreyfuss got his blog back. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Tuesday, December 6, 2005 12:20 PM | Permalink
It's a trade-off parents of nearly all incomes struggle with: Does it make sense for me to work if I have to pay for someone to watch my children while I'm away? Parents on welfare—now called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)—are in a double bind . The going hourly rate for many jobs is barely more than the hourly rate for decent child care. In a stunning act of hypocrisy, Republicans who rail against low-income parents not working are going to increase the obstacles to work by cutting subsidized child care. The budget bill passed by the House would result in 330,000 fewer children in poor working families receiving child care assistance over the next five years, according the National Women's Law Center. The Senate will soon be faced with whether to maintain these cuts to child care enacted by their colleagues in the House. This week, NWLC is asking you to call your senator while he or she is home and urge them to do the right thing—oppose the child care cuts. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, December 6, 2005 12:13 PM | Permalink
On his blog, TomPaine.com columnist and longtime D.C. journalist David Corn cites "completely trustworthy sources close to Viveca Novak" to explain how Novak #2 got involved in PlameGate. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, December 5, 2005 11:09 AM | Permalink
What’s the proper protocol for protest? If you’re a student at Hampton University, not knowing could get you expelled . [more]
--Danielle Scruggs | Friday, December 2, 2005 4:32 PM | Permalink
Gasp. I’m finding myself agreeing with conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby. And Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. From Boston to Capitol Hill , conservatives are a-flutter about whether evergreen trees erected in public spaces should be called “holiday trees” or “Christmas trees.” They are adamant that these fixtures of the season be declared “Christmas trees.” And I agree. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, December 2, 2005 12:40 PM | Permalink
First of all, let me make it clear that I believe the U.S. objective in Iraq should be peace and that peace will come from negotiations—not military victory or unilateral withdrawal. As President Kennedy said in his inaugural, "Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate." In Iraq, that will mean shifting our political, military, and economic strategy to support a peace process and then to implement it. Regardless of the machinations that led to this war , once we went in, this should always have been our objective. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Thursday, December 1, 2005 12:24 PM | Permalink
All hail EmailNation—The Nation's new e-mail service. When I started subscribing to The Nation, I was in my early 20s. After a college experience where I often bumped up against the rigid boundaries of liberal dogma, reading The Nation was liberating. Katha Pollitt wasn't afraid to take on the feminist orthodoxy in her columns. Alexander Cockburn and Christopher Hitchens—who famously resigned in 2002—were given the freedom to passionately disagree with each other in the same magazine. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, December 1, 2005 12:20 PM | Permalink
So today's the big day—today, the Supreme Court hears arguments for the first abortion case to come before it in five years. There are actually three abortion-related cases up for arguments today: Ayotte vs. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, Scheidler vs. National Organization For Women and Operation Rescue vs. National Organization For Women. The Ayotte case is the one you've probably heard about: It considers whether abortion restrictions must include exception clauses to protect women's health. But there's more than meets the eye about all three cases and the way they've been portrayed in the media. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Wednesday, November 30, 2005 10:37 AM | Permalink
It seems mighty appropriate today that Maine 's state motto is "Dirigo ," or "I lead." The state just joined the small list of U.S. states that have refused federal sex education funding because of strict guidelines on how the money can be spent. The funding—amounting to about $160,000—comes with the requirement that it must be spent on abstinence-only sex ed. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Tuesday, November 29, 2005 10:34 AM | Permalink
Last week I explained that the Cairo Process offers all but Lieberman Democrats and many moderate Republicans a bridge to a united policy on Iraq. That Cairo also represents the only hope we have for avoiding civil war is also compelling. Some Democrats obviously don't understand how serious the situation in Iraq really is. A report in today's Congressional Quarterly reveals that some in the Democratic leadership are resisting any unified strategy on Iraq, believing that it better to let Bush struggle with finding an exit strategy—and fail—than to offer the GOP a target to attack. Here's the quote: [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Monday, November 28, 2005 11:57 AM | Permalink
Despite the war, the ongoing struggle to rebuild the Gulf Coast equitably and the far-right's lock on power in Washington, progressives have plenty to be grateful for. The blog team at the Center for American Progress offers these reasons to give thanks this year: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, November 24, 2005 8:48 AM | Permalink
So there was Amb. Richard Holbrooke talking with Jim Lehrer last night about the success of the Dayton Accords in stopping the war in Bosnia. It's been 10 years since Holbrooke led the negotiations that produced the accords, and yesterday at the White House, the three main parties in Bosnia agreed to break down some of the final barriers to normalization. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Wednesday, November 23, 2005 11:58 AM | Permalink
Who knew Jeff Gannon had a blog? And, really, who cares? It's only interesting because if such a shill for the Bush White House as Gannon is praising the indictment of Jose Padilla as a "gain" in the "war on terror," then you know there's trouble. And there is. The imprisonment for three years without charges of U.S. citizen Jose Padilla stands as one of the most glaring examples of the Bush administration's disregard for the Constitution and the civil liberties it enshrines. Many observers believe Tuesday's indictment was motivated by Bush administration lawyers hoping to squelch Padilla's case in front of the Supreme Court. Balkinization , one of the best blogs on constitutional law issues, had this response to Padilla's indictment: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, November 23, 2005 9:33 AM | Permalink
General Motors workers woke up to the news yesterday that GM will cut up to 30,000 jobs in the next three years and close up to 12 production plants. The cuts could be devastating to towns like Doraville, Ga., where GM employs a significant percent of the population. And while auto giant GM's well-publicized financial and health care woes may be national news, scores of smaller companies are also cutting and exporting jobs without attracting a media frenzy. It's one reason Working America, an AFL-CIO affiliate, has created a new web tool called JobTracker to keep tabs on who's cutting what. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Tuesday, November 22, 2005 11:00 AM | Permalink
The Senate left town on Friday for two weeks. Before disparaging the senators for taking such a long recess, consider that the country is really better off with Congress on vacation or deadlocked. So many of their top agenda items—extending Bush's tax cuts, slashing social spending—at best don't benefit ordinary Americans, and at worst, do them harm. Add to that list the push to renew provisions of the PATRIOT Act without strong assurances that civil liberties will be protected. Thanks to the principled resistance of a bipartisan group of senators, the Senate didn't manage to vote on the controversial legislation before heading home. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, November 21, 2005 11:54 AM | Permalink
As I write this, the House is scrambling to figure out what to do about a cynical GOP maneuver to stem the flood of discontent over Bush's war in Iraq. Rep. Duncan Hunter has sponsored a resolution designed to misrepresent yesterday's brave call by Rep. John Murtha. Murtha called for the termination of the deployment at the earliest practicable time, the redeployment of our forces in the Gulf, and the use of diplomatic efforts to stabilize Iraq. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Friday, November 18, 2005 5:42 PM | Permalink
"You’ve got to be kidding me" is going to become my new catch phrase when it comes to Congress. [more]
--Danielle Scruggs | Friday, November 18, 2005 12:47 PM | Permalink
All too often the distance between reality and politics in this town takes one's breath away. Sometimes that distance is so great that grave unintended consequences result. Yesterday was one of those days. The Senate passed an amendment requiring the administration to present quarterly reports on America's strategy for and progress in Iraq. Their intent is clearly to respond to public attitudes rising against the administration's handling of the war. The Washington Post and the Financial Times then called this weak re-introduction of congressional oversight a "rebuff" of the president's handling of Iraq and that it has "raised pressure" on the White House. In the process, they've reinforced a narrative completely detached from the reality in Iraq. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Wednesday, November 16, 2005 11:23 AM | Permalink
So far, this week has been notable for its two-in-two days release of damning reports about Republican political activities within the federal government. It may be just coincidence that two official reports detailing unsavory political maneuverings by GOPers were released within a day of each other, but the contents of the reports are not coincidence. They demonstrate a too-familiar pattern within the Bush administration and among Bush appointees: elevating politics over function. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Wednesday, November 16, 2005 8:48 AM | Permalink
So the polls have sunk in and now senators from both parties are moving to cut their losses on Iraq. Interestingly, the leaders in this round are not presidential contenders. On the Dem side, there are Reid, Durbin and Levin. On the GOP side there are Graham of South Carolina and Warner of Virginia. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Tuesday, November 15, 2005 12:27 PM | Permalink
Writing for TomPaine.com recently, the head of the Medicare Rights Center called the new prescription drug plan "open season on America's seniors ." He painted a bleak picture of drug companies spending millions to woo seniors to this or that plan and sowing widespread confusion in the process. The worst-case scenario? Older Americans being so confused they don't get the medicines on which their health—or, in some cases, life—depends. Today, some Dems on the Hill are proposing a way to rescue seniors from this predicament. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, November 15, 2005 12:03 PM | Permalink
Congressional Quarterly put it this way: "After a fruitless day of arm-twisting, GOP leaders late Thursday gave up for this week on their effort to push a $50 billion, five-year budget savings bill (HR 4241) through the House." This is good news...probably. TomPaine.com readers know that this budget bill stinks—it makes drastic cuts to safety net programs while preserving tax cuts for the wealthy. The Republican Party base is clamoring for the bill because of its "fiscal conservative" trappings. Over at conservative Redstate.org, there's a campaign to brand Republicans who won't support the bill as "bedwetters:" [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, November 10, 2005 6:39 PM | Permalink
Yes, Tuesday's vote signaled a rejection of Bush, as candidates associated with him fell one by one. Read Ruy Teixeira's newest post on the "End of Bushism" for this kind of post mortem. But another story about Tuesday's elections bears attention: Progressive candidates, not mere Democrats, won big! Progressive Majority—which runs farm teams to recruit and nurture progressive candidates—declared Tuesday a "big win" for progressive values, as 66 percent of their candidates won in Washington state, Colorado and Arizona. And EMILY's List —which supports pro-choice women candidates—reports a record number of victories for EMILY’s List candidates in an off-year election. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, November 10, 2005 10:17 AM | Permalink
I'd say Matt Yglesias sums it up best: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, November 9, 2005 2:50 PM | Permalink
This idea just struck me in corresponding with some of our writers yesterday. The newly invigorated Senate panel on the misuse of the intelligence will have to create a narrative that links the CIA's 1990s certainty on Iraq's WMD and its post-9/11 doubts. Putting it all together for the first time, I think I found something interesting. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Wednesday, November 9, 2005 11:29 AM | Permalink
It was a big weekend for abstinence-only education. The unproven and unscientifically supported education method got its own first-ever national conference—sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services , no less!—in Baltimore to evaluate how it's working. The results were inconclusive—only one study has found that teens exposed to abstinence-only education programs embrace the idea of chastity, and there's no evidence yet that they actually follow through with it—but the conference's main purpose, as I see it, was simply to put a lot of abstinence-only educators together in one room and let them reinforce each other. It's a lot easier to drown out science that way. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Tuesday, November 8, 2005 10:49 AM | Permalink
Newt Gingrich. George Will. The American Enterprise Institute. These are just the latest icons of the right to weigh in on the conventional wisdom of the moment: Voters are not happy with the Republican Party. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, November 7, 2005 11:34 AM | Permalink
On Monday, Judge Samuel Alito, President Bush's latest Supreme Court nominee, attended the Rosa Parks viewing at the Capitol Rotunda. While on the surface this is a sweet gesture, it seems like a purely political ploy to me. [more]
--Danielle Scruggs | Friday, November 4, 2005 10:19 AM | Permalink
In the news today, I found this overlooked article announcing that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District have teamed up to design, test and produce a new generation of American homes that, on balance, require no electricity from the grid. By making homes 70 percent more efficient and adding on-site generation of solar power, the home becomes a 'net zero' consumer of energy. The implications of a net-zero revolution on energy security and economic prosperity are enormous. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Thursday, November 3, 2005 3:31 PM | Permalink
It is time for Democrats to confront one of the third rails remaining in Washington politics: the "American way of life." I'm not talking democracy and apple pie, although Washington could use truckloads more of both. Rather, it's time to mount a frontal assault on the failure of the post-war social experiment called suburbia. The prize is not only peace and prosperity, but a political realignment that staggers the imagination. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Wednesday, November 2, 2005 2:55 PM | Permalink
Sen. Harry Reid's statement, released before taking the Senate into closed session, is published here in full: "This past weekend, we witnessed the indictment of I. Lewis Libby, the Vice President's Chief of Staff and a senior Advisor to President Bush. Libby is the first sitting White House staffer to be indicted in 135 years." [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, November 1, 2005 5:13 PM | Permalink
Wal-Mart's not-so-good streak of publicity continues today, with both a rebuke from the Department of Labor's inspector general and the release of a new movie that shows the downside of Wal-Mart's famously low prices. Add that to the leaked benefits memo from last week, and the reasons that Wal-Mart has felt the need set up its own "war room" become increasingly clear. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Tuesday, November 1, 2005 11:48 AM | Permalink
There's no shortage of backward-looking analysis explaining how the press betrayed the public trust during the run-up to the Iraq war. And such finger-pointing is undeniably important. It helps us understand how so many were misled and hopefully prevents similar duping in the future, as Judith Miller and others are called out for their shoddy journalism. However, It's also refreshing to see someone issue a challenge to the media regarding its present coverage of matters related to Iraq, as Sydney Schanberg does in this week's Village Voice. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, November 1, 2005 11:40 AM | Permalink
It's no secret that Vice President Richard Cheney entered office with quite an agenda. Upon arrival, he and his office focused immediately on two major issues: energy and Iraq. To move these issues forward, Vice President Cheney needed to recapture a considerable amount of power from Congress and the bureaucracy and place it in the hands of his nominal boss, George Bush. Indeed, Adriel Bettleheim, writing in Congressional Quarterly in 2002, reported that Cheney, "considers it the responsibility of the current administration to reclaim those lost powers for the institution of the presidency." Indeed. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Monday, October 31, 2005 3:02 PM | Permalink
Here's what groups concerned about civil rights and social justice are saying about Bush's new nominee. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, October 31, 2005 2:47 PM | Permalink
Everybody's favorite big-box retailer is back in the news—this time, for a secret board memo leaked to Wal-Mart Watch and then reported in The New York Times Wednesday. The memo lays out possible methods by which the giant retailer can cut costs from the employee benefit program (if the current meager health care offerings that force 46 percent of employees' kids to rely on Medicaid—or no insurance—can really be considered "benefits"). [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Friday, October 28, 2005 11:11 AM | Permalink
Alliance for Justice calls the withdrawal of Miers "ominous." Ralph Neas dubs it a victory for the "ultraconservatives." Bottom line: liberal courtwatchers are bracing themselves for a new nominee to pander to Bush's far-right power base. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, October 27, 2005 11:45 AM | Permalink
In the debate over rebuilding the Gulf, liberal groups and Democrats united to fight Bush's outrageous decision to suspend prevailing wage laws . The Campaign for America's Future, along with many other groups, rallied their members to contact Congress. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., pressed the issue in the House, persuading 37 Republicans to join the cause. Now they can savor a well-deserved victory. Miller's office released this statement: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, October 26, 2005 4:22 PM | Permalink
Larry Johnson just alerted me to this incredible scoop. For anyone out there who has ever read Ender's Game, this is a perfect example of Ender's classic decision to focus on the goal, and not on playing the game. For those who haven't had the pleasure of reading Ender's Game, here's the deal: Instead of Fitzgerald focusing on the crime of leaking an undercover operative's name—a task difficult to prove—Fitzgerald may instead be focusing on the goal of that crime: damaging Joe Wilson's career. Since the attack was so over the top, Fitzgerald may be trying to show that the coordinated White House effort was intending to violate a private individual's civil rights. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Wednesday, October 26, 2005 11:14 AM | Permalink
How do you know things are falling apart in Washington? Well, a good indication might be the Bush administration trying to maintain the appearance that it's so in control of things that it can afford to spend time chastising a satirical newspaper. That's right. As a story in The New York Times pointed out yesterday, the White House recently sent a letter to The Onion complaining about the humor publication's use of the presidential seal on its website. "The presidential seal is not to be used in connection with commercial ventures or products in any way that suggests presidential support or endorsement," the complaint read. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Tuesday, October 25, 2005 4:16 PM | Permalink
It's been admirable to see a diverse array of groups—civil rights, legal groups, economic justice , religious groups —all focus on a single issue: the spending cuts Republicans are trying to push through Congress. As TomPaine.com has reported ad nauseum , fiscal conservatives seized on the looming costs of paying for Katrina clean-up to ax programs for low-income Americans like housing assistance, subsidized school lunches and Medicaid. The problem for Republicans is that these programs are popular. Reasonable people may disagree about whether our taxes should cover funding for the arts or for abstinence-only education, but most people believe government should provide citizens with a basic safety net. A new poll reinforces this —showing that a huge majority of Americans support federal programs like Medicaid and Medicare. Which Republicans are trying to cut. This week. Go to the Emergency Campaign for America's Priorities and lend your voice to the groundswell of opposition.
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, October 25, 2005 9:39 AM | Permalink
In today's News Worthy section, we linked to Ron Brownstein's article on Bono's merger of global poverty activism and U2's latest concert tour. The story is one of the few hopeful political tales to come out of Washington. Bono uses his megastar status to lobby George W. Bush in the afternoon, and then in the evening gets his 20,000-person audience to sign onto his One Campaign declaration using cell phones—during the concert. But that convergence of rock star, advocacy and technology has been trumped by a more powerful convergence. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Monday, October 24, 2005 10:57 AM | Permalink
First off, I want to report that the atmosphere here in Washington is electric with the possibility that Fitzgerald is about to indict up to 22 individuals, likely to include Cheney, Rove, Libby, Fleischer, Matalin and Hadley. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Thursday, October 20, 2005 11:41 AM | Permalink
When I attended the Millions More Movement at the National Mall Saturday, I couldn’t help but be reminded of David Corn’s piece “Marching to Irrelevance.” First, let me say that seeing hundreds of thousands of black people as well as white people, Asian people, Latinos and Middle Eastern people willing to promote unity and social justice was an amazing sight. [more]
--Danielle Scruggs | Wednesday, October 19, 2005 12:18 PM | Permalink
Corn writes: "And the pre-indictment fur is flying." And proceeds to share all manner of tips and rumors. Read Corn's latest here. Balance the rumors with the facts, by checking out this new webpage, by ThinkProgress, that offers rebuttals to the leading Republican myths about the Plame investigation.
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, October 19, 2005 11:42 AM | Permalink
David Corn's latest blog begins: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday, October 17, 2005 6:09 PM | Permalink
With the FDA's decision on whether to make emergency contraception (EC) available over the counter now stalled indefinitely, women's health organizations that were lobbying for Plan B came up against an infuriating roadblock. Then, last week, a GAO draft report concluded what they'd already suspected: The decision-making process in the Plan B case was highly unusual and made with atypical involvement of senior FDA officials. So where does this leave us? [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Monday, October 17, 2005 1:28 PM | Permalink
While the television news was focused on Bush's Animal Farm-style teleconference with hand-picked and scripted troops in Iraq, two senior U.S. policy makers were busy ensuring that America's Brave New World is defined by resource wars. In a fascinating split-screen performance yesterday, Treasury Secretary John Snow encouraged China to consume more while Supreme Allied Commander James Jones announced that a major new role for NATO would be industrial security. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Friday, October 14, 2005 1:10 PM | Permalink
Today, E.J. Dionne mourns the sudden death of the national poverty debate that Hurricane Katrina initiated. Dionne places most of the blame on conservatives for changing the subject. But I think Democrats and leading liberal groups bear some responsibility for squandering a golden opportunity to challenge the conservative worldview and clearly describe how their vision is superior. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, October 14, 2005 11:17 AM | Permalink
There may be a female president in primetime, but things look pretty different over at the news networks, where women represent only 14 percent of guests on the influential Sunday morning political talk shows. That's one of the findings of a new report by The White House Project. The study also found that more than half of the talk shows didn't include a single woman. Not one. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Thursday, October 13, 2005 10:47 AM | Permalink
The Times is getting rightfully bludgeoned for its unwillingness to cover a major story involving one of its own. PressThink's Jay Rosen quotes Michael Isikoff of Newsweek magazine on CNN’s Reliable Sources as saying: “I find the Times’ conduct at this point inexplicable.” The Times' journalistic abdication on this story deserves all the attention it's getting. But where the blogosphere is really delivering is in speculation over Karl Rove and Dick Cheney as major players in this investigation. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, October 12, 2005 11:23 AM | Permalink
When I heard about the earthquake in Pakistan, it was immediately clear that there would be a large loss of life. Having worked at Catholic Relief Services during the Turkey and India earthquakes, I know intimately how the poor suffer for the incompetence and corruption of developing world governments. But it was also clear that the earthquake would challenge the existence of Gen. Musharraf's dictatorship. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Tuesday, October 11, 2005 11:54 AM | Permalink
No matter what your political stripes, if you are an American you believe in equal opportunity. That is a bedrock value of our nation. Columnist David Brooks wrote in Thursday's New York Times that equal opportunity does not now exist at the college level, and he is right. He points out many of the barriers lower-income students face in applying to and staying in college. [more]
--Beth Shulman | Friday, October 7, 2005 10:26 AM | Permalink
Talk about turning back the clock for women. A new bill proposed by Indiana state senator Patricia Miller, R-Indianapolis, would ban single women from assisted reproductive procedures. That's right. If this bill passes, then unless you're married, you can't conceive a child through modern medical practices like in-vitro fertilization or egg donation. Forget about a single woman who wants a child having one on her own. And don't even think about gay couples bringing children into their families. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Thursday, October 6, 2005 3:14 PM | Permalink
Corporations have lots of ways to be profitable, and undercutting their workers attempts to organize a union doesn't have to be one of them. A recent report by the non-profit American Rights at Work spotlights successful companies that understand it can be good business to recognize their workers' right to organize. [more]
--Beth Shulman | Thursday, October 6, 2005 9:15 AM | Permalink
One of the first decisions to face new Chief Justice John Roberts will be whether the super-profitable Tyson Foods must pay its poultry processing workers for the time it takes them to walk from putting on their required body-length aprons, work gloves, arm guards and hairnets to the production line. The issue revolves around the definition of the “principal activity” of the workers. Is donning all the protective gear part of what they do to earn their paychecks? [more]
--Beth Shulman | Wednesday, October 5, 2005 9:55 AM | Permalink
The National Guard is trying out a new promotional campaign to attract young recruits: free iTunes downloads. You read right. Visit the National Guard's website, sign up to be contacted by a Guard recruiter and you'll be listening to three free iTunes songs in no time. [more]
--Danielle Scruggs | Wednesday, October 5, 2005 9:47 AM | Permalink
Will Democrats never think long term? I just read the Center for American Progress' latest foreign policy offering, "Strategic Redeployment," and I am simply angry at the shortsightedness and cynicism. Far from being a progressive plan for Iraq, this 10-page report is a masterful revival of the same myopic foreign policy thinking that lost John Kerry the election in 2004. This time, it will be at the cost of a million Iraqi lives and continued GOP dominance in Congress. We must do better and we can. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Tuesday, October 4, 2005 10:14 AM | Permalink
Editor's Note: TomPaine.com is pleased to introduce a special guest blogger this week. While executive editor Alex Walker is away on vacation, Beth Shulman will be blogging in her place. Shulman, a frequent TomPaine.com contributor, is a lawyer and author who is passionate about making the U.S. economy work for working people. Shulman’s book The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans was published in 2003. [more]
--Beth Shulman | Monday, October 3, 2005 9:20 AM | Permalink
Talk about adding fuel to the proverbial fire. In the wake of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy, members of the Bush administration have suspended the Davis-Bacon Act, proposed relaxing environmental regulations and suspended affirmative action for rebuilding contractors. Now, Department of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings and other senators want to waive the McKinney-Vento Act for evacuee children. The McKinney-Vento Act requires equal treatment for homeless students. [more]
--Danielle Scruggs | Friday, September 30, 2005 10:48 AM | Permalink
You've probably heard about the landmark trial taking place this week in Harrisburg, Pa. The Dover, Pa., public school district is the first in the nation to require its schools to teach intelligent design in a science classroom. That's why eight families are suing the Dover School district for violating the separation of church and state. And while Dover, Pa. is the only district currently embroiled in a widely publicized trial, it's certainly not the only one working to undermine science in the classroom. A new report released today identifies the top 10 danger zones in the country where science and science education is under attack. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Thursday, September 29, 2005 2:47 PM | Permalink
The calls for an independent Katrina commission are intensifying—especially after President Bush announced, in his televised speech two weeks ago, his plans to launch an internal congressional investigation instead. (That means more Republicans than Democrats will be asking the hard questions, and that politics may well take precedence over rigorous inquiries.) Yesterday, Louisiana minister Dr. C. Weldon Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance sent a letter to president urging an independent investigation—and taking Bush to task for some faith-based political opportunism: [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Wednesday, September 28, 2005 4:25 PM | Permalink
Nine months have passed since former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft declared he was seeing signs of incipient civil war in Iraq and the announcement last week from Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud that, "'All the dynamics are pulling the country apart...And the main worry of all the neighbors' was that the potential disintegration of Iraq into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish states would 'bring other countries in the region into the conflict.'" [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Tuesday, September 27, 2005 4:28 PM | Permalink
This is one of those decisions that reveals a politician's priorities. When faced with the question of whether to extend emergency health care to survivors of Hurricane Katrina, where do you stand? For all their rhetorical compassion, many Republicans are trying to squirm out of covering essential medical and mental health services for the hurricane's neediest victims. CongressDaily (subscription only) reports this morning that "senators concerned about the cost of expanding Medicaid coverage to Hurricane Katrina victims blocked the chamber from voting Monday on a package that would cover state costs for victims' Medicaid expenses."
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, September 27, 2005 10:59 AM | Permalink
On Friday afternoon, amid the runup to another big hurricane in the Gulf Coast area and a big protest here in D.C., FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford quietly resigned. The surprise announcement—apparently his staff had no idea it was coming—might be a result of the flak the FDA has received lately surrounding its stalling over Plan B, the emergency contraceptive. Or it could be something else entirely: An anonymous government official told The New York Times that the resignation was related to a financial issue Crawford hadn't revealed at his confirmation hearings. Another anonymous source said the White House had asked Crawford to resign. One thing is clear, however: Public health will be in better hands now that Crawford is gone. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Monday, September 26, 2005 9:58 AM | Permalink
Following yesterday's 13-5 vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee in favor of Chief Justice nominee John Roberts, People For the American Way's Ralph Neas accused the Democrats who voted for Roberts of "gambling with Americans’ rights and freedoms." For his part, yes-vote Leahy weakly defended his decision, saying: "I respect those who have come to different conclusions, and I readily acknowledge the unknowable at this moment, that perhaps they are right and I am wrong. Only time will tell." That's exactly what people are worried about, Pat: the major decisions Roberts will be ruling on over the course of his term. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, September 23, 2005 12:18 PM | Permalink
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending the final chapter in the New America Foundation's look at America's policy on counterterrorism, called Beyond Bullets: Economic Strategies In the Fight Against Terrorism . The theme of the event was looking beyond military solutions to terrorism and draining the swamp. The big news coming out of that event was actually from the last speaker, Hernando de Soto. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Thursday, September 22, 2005 11:19 AM | Permalink
Here's yet another indication that no one is running the show in our federal government: A Washington Post article today explains how, last week, the FDA appointed one Dr. Norris Alderson, a veterinarian, to the post of director of the Office of Women's Health (vacated last month by Dr. Susan Wood). Then, a few days later, the FDA announced that a Theresa Toigo would be directing the Women's Health office—and refused to acknowledge that they had, in fact, named Alderson to the post a few days earlier. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Tuesday, September 20, 2005 3:02 PM | Permalink
What do Bill Clinton and Ohio Republican George Voinovich have in common? They alone have the backbone right now to suggest that not only should Congress be repealing Bush's tax cuts in the wake of Katrina, it should consider raising taxes to rescue the nation from the economic mess Bush has created. The Dems will, of course, see this idea as the kiss of political death, so don't expect it go anywhere. But what's amazing is how the proposal to repeal Bush's tax cuts—which to you and I seems like a no-brainer—continues to be treated as too radical for serious discussion by most politicians. To the rescue comes the diligent number-crunching from the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities. Yesterday they released a report showing in black and white that Bush's tax cuts "in a single year exceed the total anticipated costs of all expenses related to the hurricane over the years to come ." [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, September 20, 2005 11:47 AM | Permalink
As Democrats begin to recognize that the devastation from and the response to Hurricane Katrina has exposed the insidious failings in the conservative project, they must do more than revive the post-1964 debate between the left and the right on the role of government and how best to stimulate the economy. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Monday, September 19, 2005 12:43 PM | Permalink
Oh, John Roberts. At least you manage to smile nicely and look pleasant when you refuse, more than 100 times, to give senators any substantive answers on, well, pretty much anything. Privacy? Can't comment. Equal opportunity for women? Rather not say. Civil rights? Can't mention that, either. In case you think I'm exaggerating, watch this very telling video comprising many, many individual clips of Roberts refusing to answer. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Friday, September 16, 2005 10:18 AM | Permalink
As someone who has observed the evolution of today's hearings (which you can watch live here ) from their conception months ago, one thing is vibrantly clear: The progressive wing of the Democratic Caucus is starting to get serious. But don't take my word for it. Look at the actions of two leaders on each side of the action: Tom Hayden and Joe Biden. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Thursday, September 15, 2005 9:23 AM | Permalink
Two weeks after Katrina, the president is supposedly trying to move away from the blame game (he's not playing it because he knows he'd lose). He's focusing on a rebuilding strategy in his address to the nation tomorrow night, which might appoint one person to oversee recovery; call on the nation to rally around victims; or lay out a comprehensive relocation plan. One thing the speech won't do, however, is demand an investigation into why his administration failed New Orleans citizens so terribly. That's up to us—and MoveOn.org is coordinating the action. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Wednesday, September 14, 2005 4:35 PM | Permalink
Those of us non-lawyers listening to yesterday's confirmation hearings on Judge John Roberts or reading about them in today's papers may be understandably confused about where the man stands on reproductive rights. Much of the media coverage of the hearings merely reports Roberts' repeated references to previous rulings on abortion as "settled law." And most articles reference Roberts' affirmation of a general right to privacy. (You can almost hear the implied "phew!") But when Roberts' answers are interpreted by experts on both sides of the abortion debate, a far more troubling picture emerges. Roberts is outlining a roadmap to reversing Roe . [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, September 14, 2005 11:20 AM | Permalink
Todd Gitlin's reaction to Bush taking responsibility contains an important warning: "Journalists who let Bush get away with this glop now would be regressing to the bad old days of flabby deference they purport to be putting behind them. "
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, September 14, 2005 10:10 AM | Permalink
The National Women's Law Center has a good blog written by lawyers and experts on women's issues, NominationWatch, covering the Roberts' hearings: "In the hearing today, Judge Roberts is refusing to give straightforward answers about his views on whether the Constitution protects a woman’s right to choose and whether he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. " [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday, September 13, 2005 6:40 PM | Permalink
For those wondering whether the secretary of state is a loyal ideologue or a policymaker capable of changing her stance in the face of overwhelming evidence, the answer is in. Rice was quoted in this morning's New York Times praising Pakistani President Musharraf for his education and economic policies "to discourage militancy." She went on, "There are parts of Pakistan that are extremely poor where you get breeding grounds for this kind of extremism." [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Tuesday, September 13, 2005 1:10 PM | Permalink
A few commentators have noted the striking resemblance of the Bush administration's self-inflicted disaster in New Orleans to the stated objective of conservative strategist Grover Norquist who wants to shrink the government to a size that he can drown in the bathtub. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Monday, September 12, 2005 12:13 PM | Permalink
It's hard to stay on top of the outrageous things coming out of public officials' mouths lately on Katrina. Just today, the Wall Street Journal reported this: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, September 9, 2005 11:51 AM | Permalink
The one thing that David Brooks got right in his NYT op-ed, "Katrina's Silver Lining ," is that the devastation of New Orleans does offer a unique opportunity—indeed, an obligation—to rebuild this American city in a way that reduces endemic urban poverty. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Thursday, September 8, 2005 11:35 AM | Permalink
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the relief effort, much business has been pushed aside or delayed—the estate tax vote and John Roberts' confirmation hearings come immediately to mind. The other important delay is action on a bill to cut Medicaid by up to $10 billion, which was slated to pass next week. With thousands of victims needing health care aid in the Gulf Coast area, Medicaid beneficiaries are suddenly more visible than ever before—and making cuts now would be a PR disaster for Republican lawmakers. [more]
--Laura Donnelly | Thursday, September 8, 2005 10:21 AM | Permalink
Today I attended the second day of the New America Foundation's conference on Terrorism, Security, & America's Purpose. As I write this, Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state, is being interviewed by CNN's Andrea Koppel. Albright is discussing today's release of the Partnership for A Secure America's Eminent Persons Group "Next Phase" Response to Terrorism. The question now being discussed is whether terrorism should be the sole focus of America's foreign policy. [more]
--Patrick C. Doherty
| Wednesday, September 7, 2005 2:05 PM | Permalink
The Bush administration strategy of referring to legitimate efforts to determine why the feds failed the people of the Gulf Coast so miserably as "the blame game" (see White House Enacts Plan To Ease Political Damage) appears to be working. One thing the administration and its surrogates cannot escape are the idiotic things they said or did in the aftermath of the hurricane. And DailyKos is compiling a running list, including such gems as: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." --President Bush (9/2/05). Add yours now!
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday, September 7, 2005 11:16 AM | Permalink
Today I'm attending the New America Foundation's Terrorism, Security & America's Purpose conference at the Capitol Hilton. It's Steve Clemons' show and a fitting beginning to the fall season here in Washington. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Tuesday, September 6, 2005 10:23 AM | Permalink
There's something comforting about the conservative worldview that sees every tragedy through the lens of personal responsibility. It insulates us privileged folk from wondering whether we might be participating in a system that perpetuates injustice. Listen to the conservatives and you are absolved of all responsibility for the welfare of others. After all, the poor choose not to work. The homeless are choosing to live an "alternative lifestyle." And now, the refugees in New Orleans are described as "choosing not to evacuate" by the primary person in the U.S. government who is responsible for their protection. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Friday, September 2, 2005 12:45 PM | Permalink
Good idea. Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Rep. Mel Watt, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee announced Thursday that they will introduce legislation to protect the thousands of people left financially devastated by Hurricane Katrina from being penalized by anti-debtor provisions contained in the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, scheduled to take effect on October 17, 2005: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday, September 1, 2005 6:35 PM | Permalink
