Rall Is Wrong

I like Ted Rall's work. Like not a few others, I think some of the stuff he's done recently has been in questionable taste at best, and he's perhaps "crossed the line," whatever the hell that means. I certainly don't agree with everything he says; again in company with quite of few other liberals, I don't agree with his views on the war in Afghanistan. But I do agree with a lot of what he says, and the rage he shows in his cartoons is often the most appropriate response to reality.I like the concept behind the current cartoon....

Taking the Hatchet to Hagel

Much to the dismay of Christian conservatives, Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) hasn't been willing to sing from their sanctimonious songbook. Up to now, this seemed to have earned Hagel little more than these groups' quiet scorn. But now that Hagel has voiced some presidential ambitions, these cultural conservatives are looking to "Ground Chuck" -- at least that's the headline of this pissy, hatchet job by George Neumayr in the American Spectator:... (Senator Jim) Jeffords switched parties, and Hagel proceeded to blast the GOP...

Tutors in Calcutta

Think the offshoring of jobs is just a private-sector phenomenon? Guess again. The American Federation of Teachers reports:American companies that move jobs offshore have been harshly criticized, so it's surprising to learn that the U.S. government itself, through a little-known provision of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), is providing a taxpayer-funded windfall for tutoring companies in India.NCLB requires school districts to offer tutoring to some students in schools that fail to meet the law's flawed adequate yearly...

Let Go of the Bitterness

I should get over it like a 14-year-old rape victim, but stuff like this just gnaws at me.Now that Bush has almost unveiled an actual plan to "reform" Social Security, the public seems to be catching on to the fact that you can't divert revenue from SS into something else--private accounts, say--without cutting future benefits.Of course, Al Gore made precisely this point in 2000, while Bush repeatedly pretended that he could give the same dollar to two different people. And Bush also screwed around with mathematical reality...

Spoken Like a True Fascist

"When uniformity is compromised, then authority no longer holds."This is what a local Florida woman said in support of the local high school banning a year book picture of a female student because she was wearing "boys clothes." The story is that the school principal pulled the pictures of the young woman-- who was wearing a tuxedo in the picture-- then the school board and superintendent unanimously support the decision. Even the school openly admits that the young woman broke no actual rules but an attorney for the school...

So Much for Those Rosy Assessments

The New York Times reports:A suicide car bomber drove into a line of about 400 volunteers for the Iraqi National Guard and police force today in Hilla, south of Baghdad, killing at least 122 people and wounding at least 170, an official at the Interior Ministry said.It was the deadliest single attack since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.Over the past few months, Americans have heard a steady stream of reports about how the security situation in Iraq has improved. That message quickly wilts when insurgents are able...

Keyes Interview

Gay.com has posted this interview with Alan Keyes' daughter in which she confirms that her parents have withdrawn financial support for her college education solely because she happens to be a lesbian. There was also this exchange:QUESTION: Last year, your father called Mary Cheney a "selfish hedonist" because she is a lesbian. How do you feel about that remark?MAYA MARCEL-KEYES: It was a bit of a shock to see that as front-page news, but it wasn't anything I hadn't heard before. I already knew what he thought of homosexuality,...

"I'm Just a Girl From a Trailer Park Who ..."

The complete sentence from last night's Oscars ceremony was this:"I'm just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream."This line was delivered by actress Hilary Swank, but I confess I wasn't paying close attention last night. So when I heard this statement, I suddenly glanced up at the TV, half-expecting to see Katherine Harris at the podi...

So How Did I Miss This?

This news has been floating around for a few years on the Web, the mainstream press and the blogosphere. But, somehow, it was news to me -- conservative commentator-for-hire Armstrong Williams settled a sexual harassment lawsuit in 1999 that had been filed by a former male employee, Stephen Gregory.The 1997 accused Armstrong of more than 50 incidents of sexual harassment, alleging that Williams grabbed his buttocks and genitals on business trips. Soon after he rejected Williams' sexual advances, Gregory charged that Williams...

Shameless Government Propaganda

From Joe Conason at Salon:The dimensions of the conservative campaign to destroy Social Security -- and dismantle the New Deal -- are now heaving into view. Determined to achieve the victory that has eluded them for more than 70 years, George W. Bush's aides and allies are building a very big, very ugly propaganda juggernaut. ...Exactly what Bush's minions at the SSA have been up to, aside from writing strategy plans, isn't clear yet. To find out, Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal...

Tearing Michael Crichton a New One

Courtesy of Professor Michael B. McElroy. A sample: Crichton's main character, the ubiquitous Professor Kenner, singles out James E. Hansen, long-time director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), a scientist with many years of distinguished contributions to earth and planetary science, for particular attack. In testimony to Congress in 1988, Hansen offered projections of how global temperature might increase through the end of the twentieth century....To project climate's future requires an assumption about...

Spinmeister of the Week (February 20-26)

At a time when public schools are frequently under attack, this is not the way to win back the public's affection.On Monday, school district officials in Washington, D.C., canceled classes at Eaton Elementary School so that cleaning crews would have ample time to disinfect the building. The decision was made after it was learned that school officials had permitted the elementary school's cafeteria to be used to sterilize and vaccinate more than 500 cats over the previous weekend.Needless to say, the school's parents were royally...

This Never Used to Happen on "ER"

ABC News reports:A woman who had suffered a massive heart attack died after hospital personnel moved her out of a trauma room to accommodate a flu-stricken Michael Jackson, the patient's family said.... the pop star was taken to Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria, Calif. (Feb. 15), complaining of flu-like symptoms. Manuela Gomez Ruiz, a 74-year-old grandmother, was moved from the primary trauma room and taken off the machine ventilator, with her breathing instead assisted manually by hand pump, until she was relocated to a...

Canada,Oh Canada!

Just today... The provincial government of Ontario, Canada's largest province in population and second only to Quebec in land mass, voted Thursday to revise its laws to reflect the equality of same-sex marriage.The proposal to revise the language in some 73 laws passed easily by voice vote. From now on, laws that mention "husband" and "widow," among other terms, will be gender-neutral....

DeLay's Teflon May be Wearing Thin

Apparently there is this silly rule in the House that stipulates that members can't have lobbyists pay for their travel expenses. Allegedly DeLay, his wife and some of his friends got their $13,000+ bill at the Four Seasons in London paid for by a lobbyist-- Jack Abramoff-- the very same Texas lobbyist that is under investigation for his lobbying efforts in Texas and his cozy relationship with Tom DeLay. Plus, there's more.The Journal will also report that a little known conservative thinktank on whose board Abramoff served...

Former Professor Eyes Santorum's Seat

Chuck Pennacchio is running ads on several progressive blogs to get the word out -- he's running for the Pennsylvania Senate seat held now by Rick Santorum. The seat is up in November '06.I don't know how serious Pennacchio is, and I don't know enough about him to endorse his candidacy, but there are at least four good things I can say about him.First, Pennacchio has experience in running an effective political campaign (which, hopefully, means he'll understand that the candidate shouldn't try to micro-manage the day-to-day...

Connecticut Rocks!

This latest development could really change the dynamics of the brewing gay marriage/civil unions debate-- by removing it from the jurisdiction of "activist judges."Connecticut's legislature moved closer to legalizing civil unions for same-sex couples, as a key panel approved a measure that could make it the first state in the country to recognize gay unions through legislative action rather than court order. The legislature's Joint Judiciary Committee voted 25-13 to pass a bill Wednesday that would give gay and lesbian couples...

Not Exactly a Lullaby for Seniors

Last night, Senator Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) hosted a townhall meeting to promote the president's proposal to allow some Social Security payroll taxes to be diverted to "private accounts."But while Santorum was inside calling for "a Republican solution to Social Security," a group of GOP activists was outside offering its own message. More from MoveOn.org: We couldn't believe our ears when we heard a group of Republicans chanting, "Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Social Security has got to go" on CNN last night. But that is what they did,...

What Would Faulkner Do?

What if the man who penned "The Sound and the Fury" were alive today and tried to write a novel about the characters and events that unfold at the Bush White House?It's debatable whether Slate's Sam Apple has done justice to William Faulkner's writing style, but this is seriously funny stuff. Enj...

Specter Gets It

It is stuff like this that makes the Right hate Arlen Specter Speaking of the impasse over judges, Specter said that "if you trace it back historically, both parties are at fault." A Democratic-controlled Senate held up many of President Ronald Reagan's nominees, he said, and a GOP-controlled Senate used stalling tactics to block many of President Bill Clinton's nominees. "We exacerbated the problem," Specter said. True Dat! (as they say)Anyway, you have to appreciate the fact that the Democrats have managed to successfully...

SS Trust Fund May Be the Least of Our Worries

Those of us who have followed the debate over Social Security reform know that the year 2048 is noteworthy. If there are no increases in payroll tax rates or no cuts in SS benefits between now and then, 2048 is the year when many experts project that the SS trust fund will start running a deficit.Definitely something to be concerned about. But the United Nations hopes Americans think about what they may face two years thereafter -- in the year 2050. According to the Associated Press: The world’s population will increase by 40...

Daily Darfur

It has now been one year since Eric Reeves' "Unnoticed Genocide" op-ed appeared in the Washington Post There can be no reasonable skepticism about Khartoum's use of these militias to "destroy, in whole or in part, ethnic or racial groups" -- in short, to commit genocide. Khartoum has so far refused to rein in its Arab militias; has refused to enter into meaningful peace talks with the insurgency groups; and, most disturbingly, has refused to grant unrestricted humanitarian access. The international community has been slow to...

President Bono

Would he go by Bono or Paul Hewson if he were President of the World Bank?I guess any liberal who could make Jesse Helms cry over African poverty can do pretty much anything.Go Bo...

Man Bites Dog

No, real...

This Just Gets Weirder

The headline is strange enough: Court: Man Can Sue Over Surprise Pregnancy. Of course, the suit is about the man's surprise at a woman's preganancy, but I have to admit that on my first glance, it seemed that the man himself had gotten pregnant. That would be surprising.OK, so maybe the headline could have been better. But how surprised could a guy be that a woman got pregnant after they had sex? I'll bet you're thinking, as I was, that he claims the woman told him she was on the pill, or had had a hysterectomy, or some...

Good News ... Well, Sort Of

Pardon me for viewing the glass as "half empty" rather than "half full," but I wondered if I was the only person slightly depressed by a new poll for Hearst Newspapers. On his Donkey Rising blog, Ruy Teixeira gives the poll this headline: "Poll Says America Is Ready for Woman President."Yes, a clear majority of the nation is willing to elect a female president. But it's sad to know that roughly 1 in 5 Americans (19%) are unwilling to vote for a woman.Am I just a pessimist? If I am, so is Matthew Yglesi...

Full Staff Examination?

From Talon News:Talon News will be offline while we redesign the web site, perform a top-to-bottom review of staff and volunteer contributors, and address future operational procedures.They are taking a break to review their staff from top-to-bottom? (excuse me, my inner 7th grader is having a laughing f...

Like Neil Bush, "Bucky" Can Smell an Opportunity

It must have been a testament to Neil Bush's tenacious work ethic that he managed to find a Colorado millionaire who was willing to give him $100,000 to gamble in the commodities market with no worry of paying it back.Yes, indeed, the Bush family has a knack for recognizing a business opportunity. Take "Bucky" Bush, for example. Never heard of him? Neither had I until I read this article from Thursday's edition of the London-based Independent newspaper: The Iraq war has produced many winners and many losers. And one small but...

Blogging - Fox News Style

By now you have probably seen this Media Matters piece on how Fox News has been changing quotes and AP reports on "suicide bombers" to reflect the Fox and White House preferred term "homicide bombers." In honor of this, I offer you a recent Bruce Fein column on judicial nominations, edited to reflect Demagogue's preferred use of language President George W. Bush's judicial agenda is sinking because of his refusal to seek genuinely bipartisan nominees or apologize to the Democrats for the GOP's poor treatment of dozens of President...

Wal-Mart's Feeble Effort to Airbrush Its Image

In a speech yesterday in Los Angeles, Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott argued that the mega-retailer gets a bad rap. Thanks to Slate's Timothy Noah, we can add something else to Wal-Mart's rap: distortion of reality.Noah cites arguments from Scott's speech and then promptly exposes the quicksand they are based upon. For example: SCOTT: "Wal-Mart's average wage is around $10 an hour, nearly double the federal minimum wage."Noah writes: "... the relevant number isn't the average, which would be skewed upwards by the large salaries of...

Cannon Fodder

Matthew Yglesias highlights this Max Boot piece calling for the creation of a "Freedom Legion" The simplest thing to do would be to sign up foreigners for the regular U.S. military, but it would also make sense to create a unit whose enlisted ranks would be composed entirely of non-Americans, led by U.S. officers and NCOs. Call it the Freedom Legion. As its name implies, this unit would be modeled on the French Foreign Legion, except, again, U.S. citizenship would be part of the "pay." And rather than fighting for U.S. security...

Why I Like Russ Feingold

I've made no secret of my admiration for Sen. Feingold. Like most politicians, he occasionally does things with which I disagree, but I believe that he has a genuine integrity that is sorely lacking in much of Washington. He was interviewed not to long ago on C-SPAN and I think this exchange serves as a pretty good example of what I am talking about LAMB: On the pay raise thing, as you know all too well, the way it's done now is that there's an automatic increase in the salaries. And it's been every two years at the rate...

Tbogg's Loss is Our Gain

Tbogg threatened us all that if he didn't win a Koufax Award this year, he was going to start posting nothing but Sausage-Neck Goldberg Fan Fiction.Well, he didn't win and is now making good on his threat "Look, lady," Jonah said to her, "is there anything here besides yourself, the Stargate and the sarcophagus and those donuts on that table over there? Because we're tired, we're hungry and I left my asthma puffer in my other pants" It might be a little early, but I think we've already got an entry for next year's Koufax "Most...

Daily Darfur

Eric Reeves says that Khartoum has engineered a famine and that "catastrophic food shortfalls in Darfur can no longer be avoided."The Washington Times has more on the looming famine If the food situation deteriorates further, the first victims will be children such as 16-month-old Mohammed. The staff at Muhajeria's feeding center bandaged his hands as a precaution, but he is too weak to pull the feeding tube from his nose. His eyes are closed to ward off the flies, and the skin on his stomach is wrinkled like an old man's,...

Upping the Stakes

Get ready for another blockbuster on marriage equality from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The decision won't come down before late 2005, and (I would guess) will more likely arrive about a year from now. But it's the next big shoe to drop in the Hate Amendment debate.Opponents of marriage equality obviously don't want same-sex marriage to be legal anywhere. But even if it is legalized in Massachusetts, they want to draw the line at that state's borders: they don't want other states to have to recognize same-sex marriages...

News from Tom Paine

TomPaine.com's daily "Newsworthy" page is an excellent source of leads to information that is often not reported nearly as widely as it should be. Often, the links are to major media outside the U.S., particularly in the U.K. You can sign up for daily e-mails.Yesterday's installment was a particular gold mine of interesting stories, including one that has the potential to cause enough headaches for Tony Blair that it might just get some publicity in the U.S. (or at least among lefty U.S. bloggers). Yesterday's headlines:Amnesty...

Cal's Suspicions Stoked by TV Drama

I'm no intelligence analyst. So I don't know what level of fear or concern is justified in the post 9/11 era. There may be legitimate reasons to worry about so-called "sleeper cells" of Islamic terrorists, but conservative columnist Cal Thomas has come up with a bizarre, new reason to hype fears about al Qaeda-inspired cells plotting within the U.S.In today's Washington Times, Thomas writes:As we saw with the September 11 hijackers, modern sleeper cells are ad hoc entities and one cell knows little about other cells.... Sleeper...

Ice Cube vs. Rwanda

Just out of curiosity, I took a look at the weekend box office totals and learned something interesting Ice Cube's "Are We There Yet?" has raked in more than $71 million in five weeks of release."Hotel Rwanda," on the other hand, has taken in a total of $17 million in nine weeks....

Not In Our Hemisphere

Apparently lots of American right-wingers don't think it's enough to stick their noses into the lives of their fellow Americans, but are now feeling obligated to harass our neighbors to the north. Canadian MPs offices are being deluged with email and phone calls from Americans to let them know that they really don't like the idea of legallly married gay people living right next door.Focus on the Family's Canadian operation is pushing hard against it and are even looking for a new Executive Director, a job that pays $100,000...

Get Yer "I Support the F-16s" Ribbons Here!

Seriously fun...

"Captivating ... A Must Read!" -- DaimlerChrysler

From today's Washington Post:In Sicily, a reception was held recently to launch the Italian translation of a controversial book written by Saparmurad Niyazov, dictator and "president for life" of Turkmenistan. In Amsterdam, a Dutch translation of the book was unveiled at a party in a historic 17th-century house.The various releases this month of the two-volume "Book of Spirit" -- "Ruhnama" in Turkmen -- are part of an international drive to boost the book's circulation as well as what the government-controlled Turkmen media...

The Pope Pontificates

Heh. In his new book the Pope has declared that same-sex marriage is evil.Dude, what exactly do you know about marriage anyways? Or sex? Or pregnancy? Or birth control? Or abortion? Or anything about real life for that matt...

Read It

Nicholas Kristof on the genocide in Darfur.Complete with photosThis key passage was sort of buried near the bottom The archive also includes an extraordinary document seized from a janjaweed official that apparently outlines genocidal policies. Dated last August, the document calls for the "execution of all directives from the president of the republic" and is directed to regional commanders and security officials."Change the demography of Darfur and make it void of African tribes," the document urges. It encourages "killing,...

Doggedly "Pro-Life"

In Florida, court appeals continue over whether a man can remove the feeding tube from his wife, Terri Schiavo, who is severely brain-damaged and in a vegetative state. Troy Newman of Operation Rescue is part of the "pro-life" contingent watching events in Florida, and he made this statement yesterday: "We're not going to stand idly by while she is starved to death. This wouldn't happen to a dog; you wouldn't do it to your pet."Yes, you're right, Mr. Newman -- this wouldn't happen to a dog. To my knowledge, there's no dog in...

Ignorance is Bliss

Via the Carpetbagger we get this new Harris Poll 64 percent believe that Saddam Hussein had strong links to Al Qaeda (up slightly from 62% in November). 47 percent believe that Saddam Hussein helped plan and support the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001 (up six percentage points from November). 44 percent actually believe that several of the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11 were Iraqis (up significantly from 37% in November). 36 percent believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when...

Rove for Chief

One of the games we judicial nerds play from time to time is guessing who's on the "short list" for the next Supreme Court vacancy. The reason I call it a game is that the various speculation that you read and hear is usually uninformed, and anyway who knows what the political exigencies will be when the next appointment is made. I remember that after Clinton appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the "smart money" the next time around said that Stephen Breyer was no longer in the running because he had "flunked lunch" (i.e., failed...

Daily Darfur

The World Food Program says Sudan is facing a food emergency WFP's Emergency Operation in southern and eastern Sudan has so far received only $22 million, leaving a shortage of more than 92 percent, or $279 million. Stocks carried over from 2004 which are currently being distributed will run out by April, precisely when food distributions normally would be scaling up to meet food requirements in the hungry season, which runs from May and June to August or September, said the agency.This emergency operation targets 3.2 million...

Somebody Brief Dubya, Quickly

I hope Bush's handlers have noticed these remarks by Dutch Prime Minister Jan Balkenende (one of the NATO leaders most friendly toward Dubya).Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende believes that US President George W. Bush was expressing concern about the murder of Theo van Gogh when he referred to the Netherlands on Monday.Why does it say "believes?" You'd think Bush either did or did not express concern about the van Gogh murder. Turns out Bush didn't actually mention van Gogh:"We must reject anti-Semitism in all forms and we...

A Window for Murder?

In an article about a call to reinstitute the death penalty in the Netherlands, I found this sentence puzzling: The Netherlands abolished the death penalty from criminal law in 1870 and introduced a life sentence in 1878.So what was the maximum penalty from 1871 to 1877? If you had been around back then and wanted to knock someone off, it seems like that would have been your opportunity.Returning to modern times, it's also interesting that the political party whose think-tank director made the call to reinstate capital punishment...

"Simply Ridiculous" Notion Remains on the Table

Amid growing European speculation that the U.S. is preparing to attack Iran, President Bush forcefully spoke these words in Brussels on Tuesday: "This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. Having said that, all options are on the table."Or, to put it another way: "All options are on the table, including the simply ridiculous on...

How Europe Translates Bush's "Democracy" Talk

President Bush is urging European leaders to back his campaign to spread democracy abroad, but a new Associated Press poll found that a majority of people in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain said that it should not be the U.S. role to spread democracy.My initial reaction was one of disappointment because I firmly believe the Middle East and other regions could benefit from greater democracy (by that, I don't simply mean "majority rule"). But, as I began to consider why Europeans might have reacted so negatively to...

Is Canada Part of the Star Wars Shield or Not?

Two and a half months ago, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin was noncommital when asked if his nation would be part of the Star Wars-style, missile defense system that the U.S. was attempting to build. But today Canada's next ambassador to the U.S. surprised many of his fellow Canadians when he announced that Canada is already part of the controversial program.More from one of Canada's largest daily newspapers, the Globe and Mail:Frank McKenna said that Canadian participation is such that he does not know what more could...

Late to the Game

I was gone for much of last week, so you may have seen this already - but I hadn't, so I'm posting it 'cause it is new to me (via the Liquid List) Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge met privately with Republican pollsters twice in a 10-day span last spring as he embarked on more than a dozen trips to presidential battleground states.Ridge's get-togethers with Republican strategists Frank Luntz and Bill McInturff during a period the secretary was saying his agency was playing no role in Bush's re-election campaign...

Santorum Tries to Calm the Restless Natives

Reporting on a 10-stop tour of his state by Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette notes that one of the tour's main goals "is to soothe anxiety about President Bush's proposal to allow workers younger than 55 to divert a portion of their payroll taxes into personal retirement accounts ..."But based on the newspaper's descriptions, Santorum's pro-private accounts sales pitch soothed only some of his constituents:At one point, when [Santorum] showed charts illustrating the causes of the nation's rising...

Among the Cheese Eaters

I'm sure everyone noticed that I hadn't posted for a week and a half, and I hope that no one suffered too much withdrawal. I was on vacation and chose a destination that I figured would be very welcoming to an American Jew: Morocco.It was my first trip to an Arab country (though I've spent a lot of time in Muslim countries) and my first time in Africa. But it turned out that as an American, I had more to fear from other tourists: the place is overrun with Frenchmen.Apart from retarding my progress in Dutch--after speaking French...

Which European Leaders Are Saying That?

During Sunday's "Meet the Press," host Tim Russert had this exchange with the BBC's Katty Kay:KAY: "... The success of the elections in Iraq, frankly, chastened many of the war critics in France. They now feel that this extraordinary thing happened in Iraq, and they had not been leading the push to have change in Iraq ... Fundamentally, the way Europeans feel that we should deal with the Middle East is very different from the way America feels we should deal with the Middle East ..."(moments later)... whether this warmth in...

Daily Darfur

Rwandan President Paul Kagame is scheduled to visit Darfur where Rwandan troops are serving in the AU force. Peace talks are scheduled to resume this week. Eric Reeves offers his latest analysis: "Darfur Genocide and the Current Faces of International Failure."The Carpetbagger alerted me to this Add President Bush, the first lady, and the cabinet to the fans of Hotel Rwanda, the film about how hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina housed over a thousand Tutsi refugees during their struggle with Hutu militia killers. Bush saw it twice...