June 13, 2008
Tim Russert, dead at fifty eight , after collapsing at work today. Russert's been hosting Meet The Press as long as I've been following politics. He was an aggressive interview to almost anyone. Almost all of the big figures of the pre-24 hour cable news era are off-air now.
June 12, 2008
May 31, 2008
fivethirtyeight.com - if you've ever wished for a Baseball Prospectus for politics.
May 13, 2008
Bill O'Reilly isn't very nice to people. You already knew him as a stretchmark-loofaing sexual predator and a sanctimonious, hypocritical coward. Did you know he is also a bully? You will be as shocked by this video as I.
May 10, 2008
House Republicans vote against Motherhood -- no, seriously, they voted against a bill "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day." Article also includes other recent shenanigans.
May 09, 2008
I don't like holding compaines when they buy apartment complexes. This practice of buying up complexes, making them more "profitable" and then selling them off really hurts people. I never thought about how the particular circumstances of NYC would make this a much easier thing for them to do.
40% increase in TX concealed handgun permit applications. "Handgun instructors point to factors [including] the looming presidential election." What? [Via] [more inside]
May 04, 2008
An interesting policy proposal for CA's budget shortfall. Do you think Texas could pull something like this off to fund our public schools? [more inside]
April 12, 2008
Bush admits to approving torture. Here's your motherfucking smoking gun, guys. Case closed. 'Bad apples' theory debunked. The President approved the violation of the Geneva convention:
"Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people." Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. "And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."
[snip]
The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.
What the hell is it going to take to get some oversight on this shit? I really can't believe that Bush has just come out and admitted to this. Read the whole thing. My favorite part:
Ashcroft was troubled by the discussions. He agreed with the general policy decision to allow aggressive tactics and had repeatedly advised that they were legal. But he argued that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations, sources said.
According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."
Ashcroft is slowly turning into the voice of moderation and sanity in the first Bush administration. And nothing terrifies me about this country more than that.
Texas Polygamy Raid Poses Risk - Remind me again how the Gays are the ones threatening the "institution of marriage"?
April 09, 2008
Bush at 61% in recent poll -- In a Pew Research Center poll of professional historians, Bush earned an approval rating of 61%, inasmuch as 61% approved of certifying him the "worst president ever". Another 35% withheld their full approval, choosing only to place him in the bottom ten, aside Buchanan (shattered the union, financial panics), Pierce (Bleeding Kansas) and Harding (Teapot Dome corruption, sex scandals).
“No individual president can compare to the second Bush,” wrote one. “Glib, contemptuous, ignorant, incurious, a dupe of anyone who humors his deluded belief in his heroic self, he has bankrupted the country with his disastrous war and his tax breaks for the rich, trampled on the Bill of Rights, appointed foxes in every henhouse, compounded the terrorist threat, turned a blind eye to torture and corruption and a looming ecological disaster, and squandered the rest of the world’s goodwill. In short, no other president’s faults have had so deleterious an effect on not only the country but the world at large.”
April 02, 2008
Nicholas Kristof's Challenge to Bill O’Reilly - "do some real reporting. I’m planning another trip to the Darfur area later this spring, and I’d love to take him along to cover something that would really merit his trademark outrage: genocide."
March 31, 2008
Comparison of British and American Political Beliefs - surprising how much we disagree (and how much more I agree with them). See especially their detailed breakdown of specific political questions, or browse the whole thing.
March 30, 2008
Transexual man becomes pregnant reports The Advocate. Cue a long series of Republican scare tactics.
March 28, 2008
I don't know if you guys are completely bored to death with my foreign policy posts, but here's another one. I've become increasingly interested in Russia recently, which has been quietly reasserting it's diplomatic muscle around the world.
Vladimir Putin's switch to becoming Prime Minister of the Duma (Russian Parliament),his replacement as president by his handpicked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, and the transition of the country to what is essentially one-party rule has been pretty well documented. But that's not what I'm talking about today. [more inside]
March 23, 2008
Obama's Speech on Race - in Gen-X-attention-span friendly format. [more inside]
March 10, 2008
Goddammit, Eliot Spitzer, what the fuck is wrong with you? Politics continues to be 99.9% disappointment.
February 27, 2008
The Prarie View A&M Satyagraha -
Texas Republicans have worked overtime to make it harder for key Democratic voting groups to vote and be represented fairly. The redistricting games they’ve played are infamous. And for the Prairie View A&M University precincts, they put the early-polling place more than seven miles from the school.
So what did the students in this video do? They shut down the highway as they marched seven miles to cast their votes on the first day of early voting.
February 08, 2008
Political propaganda dumping ground - we have a long and active discussion about the election thread (aka 'Valatan explains the electoral process') for the apathetic and the outraged to route around. As we gear up for the general election, though, we need a place for things that are less "here's how I/we see things" and more "here's how you/the rest of the world should see things, dammit".
So, here it is. Flames and propaganda here; thoughts and news there, both stickied on the sidebar at top right.
January 25, 2008
An illuminating examination of Bush's favorite painting - If someone knows where an "N days left in the Bush Presidency" banner is we can add it to the homepage. [thx, kottke] [more inside]
January 07, 2008
“From 1989 to the end of 1991, while I worked the night shift covering the D.C. police and crime beat, I was an active crack addict and alcoholic. My use was not recreational. I was not a dilettante.
“To feed my addiction, I routinely ventured into some of the same drug-plagued neighborhoods where I covered nighttime murders and nonfatal shootings — violence that was usually fueled, directly or otherwise, by the crack trade. I made buys in dark crack houses and dangerous back alleys. I smoked my way to the edge of financial ruin. At the same time, I helped chronicle the bloody toll the drug was exacting on the street.”
January 03, 2008
Well, today is the stupid date set by the Iowa legislature for the insane Iowa caucuses. The candidates have been campaigning for insane marathon closing periods. The most recent polling has Obama gaining momentum, Clinton losing it, and Edwards holding stead, but pretty much with the three of them in a statistical tie.
On the Republican side, there is a statistical tie between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, with John McCain and Ron Paul making strong late surges in the battle for third place.
Edwards needs a win to stay alive, and McCain needs Romney to lose in order to stay alive. More about the caucus process in the extended for those that care. [more inside]
December 17, 2007
If you don't read Paul Krugman's twice a week column, you should. His distrust of Obama mirrors mine, but he articulates why in a way better than I could.
I'm not particularly enamored of John Edwards, but he really does seem the best realistic option at this point, though it's anybne's guess whether a win in Iowa is enough to recussitate his campaign.
In other news, Chris Dodd is going to filibuster the bullshit warrantless wiretapping law that our lovely Democratic Senate majority wants passed. Russ Feingold is going to support him. Fire Dog Lake, who have several lawyers writing for them, is following the story.