For a decade, Republicans have been screaming at Americans to “support our troops.” But, they don’t really support our troops. Their constant chanting was originally code to support the Republican administration and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If the Republicans truly wanted to support the troops, they would have demanded—early in the wars—better armament [...]
I must be some kind of masochist because I spend a good deal of my non-writing time watching cable TV. And, with a few notable exceptions, I’m appalled by the relentlessly low journalistic standards I see there every day. Let me give you an example. Earlier this week, three teens attending a summer camp at [...]
Every now and then I’m forcefully reminded of the extent to which Guantánamo is still used by unscrupulous lawmakers as a political plaything, even though it is a place where, by any objective measure, a small number of terrorist suspects are held alongside insignificant Taliban foot soldiers and others unfortunate enough to be in the [...]
The Democratic Party’s embarrassing electoral disaster in Massachusetts, losing a seat held for 46 years by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, provided a clear warning that the party, and President Obama’s presidency, are headed for an epic trouncing this November, when all members of the House and a third of the Senate face reelection.
The media punditry, corn-fed on conventional wisdom, are all atwitter about the looming Democratic debacle in Massachusetts, saying that win or lose, the poor showing by the Democratic candidate for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy’s seat, state Attorney General Martha Coakley, means Democrats in Congress should abandon plans to push through a House-Senate compromise health bill, and instead just go with the Senate’s version of health “reform” legislation, thus circumventing a certain Republican filibuster attempt.
The hope we and this nation had for change we could believe in, and which we still hope will not die, has been diminished by the reality of petty politics, with the “Party of No” and its raucous Teabagger mutation blocking social change for America’s improvement. We really want to be able to write columns about Americans who take care of each other, about leaders who concentrate upon fixing the social problems. But we know that’s only an ethereal ideal. So, we’ll just have to hope that the waters of social justice wear down, however slowly, the jagged rocks of haughty resistance.
President Obama has failed his mandate. It’s not a happy thing to have to say. Many won’t agree, desperately fending off the obvious. The campaign sloganeering, well, it turned out to be just that. All the worse that so many had hoped otherwise. Obama has been embarrassingly supine in dealing with the know-nothings. The end game of which is what, exactly?
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This is a highlight reel of a birther infomercial running on a CBS affiliate in Texas and elsewhere around the country this week. The full video can be viewed HERE.The edited version of the 28-minute “birthermercial” was prepared by TalkingPointsMemo. According to TPM: The program was produced by LivePrayer.com, a website affiliated with Bill Keller, [...]
ACORN, an umbrella organization of community groups that serves poor people in major cities across the country through housing, legal advocacy, family services, and higher wages, has lost all federal funding, after decades of working for low-income, disadvantaged Americans.
