"Don't talk about clothes. Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean was a momentous event .... So what did some prominent commentators write about? Why, the fact that both men wore blue suits. This was not, alas, unusual. I don't know why some journalists seem so concerned about politicians' clothes as opposed to, say, their policy proposals.

"Actually look at the candidates' policy proposals. One key proposal in the State of the Union address will, we hear, be the creation of new types of tax-exempt savings accounts .... But serious journalists should tell us how the plan would work, who would benefit and who would lose. An early version of the plan was floated almost a year ago, and carefully analyzed in the journal Tax Notes. So there's no excuse for failing to report that the plan would probably reduce, not increase, national savings ..."

"Don't fall for political histrionics. I couldn't believe how much ink was spilled after the Gore-Dean event over Joe Lieberman's hurt feelings. Folks, we're talking about war, peace and the future of U.S. democracy — not about who takes whom to the prom."

It's not about you. We learn from The Washington Post that reporters covering Mr. Dean are surprised — and, it's implied, miffed — that 'he never asks a single question about them.' The mind reels.

"I don't really expect my journalistic colleagues to follow these rules. No doubt I myself, in moments of weakness, will break one or more of them. But history will not forgive us if we allow laziness and personal pettiness to shape this crucial election."

The Environmental Protection Agency expressed disappointment with the court's decision but did not say whether it would be appealed. The court order, while only two pages in length, was a strong statement in one of the most contentious environmental and public health battles of the last several years — whether aging coal-fired power plants must install controls as they increase their pollution emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that full enforcement of existing rules on power plant pollution would save 19,000 lives per year.

"(Former Prime Minister Jean) Chretien, who dominated Canadian politics for 10 years, appeared to delight in antagonizing the United States with proposals such as bills to decriminalize marijuana and allow gay couples to marry. In his last days in office, Chretien said he was most proud of his decision not to join the war in Iraq. 'I think it was, for Canada, the best move,' he told reporters."

"Between 1982 and 2002, a total of 2,197 workers were killed on the job because their employers 'willfully' violated safety laws. With full knowledge of their responsibilities, they ignored accepted safety precautions, removed safety devices to speed up production or denied workers protective gear.

Nevertheless, in 93 percent of the 1,242 cases investigated by OSHA — there were multiple deaths in some cases, and state agencies investigated others — the agency declined to seek prosecution. Employers paid fines but only rarely did the government press criminal charges, even with repeat offenders. There were many reasons for this .... But one factor dominates: a cultural resistance by not only the agency but also society as a whole to the idea that workplace deaths can in fact be criminal acts."

At a time when he was planning his politically risky switch to the Republican Party, Sen. Strom Thurmond wrote in response to a request for financial aid from his mixed-race daughter that he was "pressed for money" and believed she had not yet repaid an earlier "loan," according to papers found in a voluminous archive of Thurmond's Senate years.

The July 28, 1964, letter to Essie Mae Washington-Williams suggests that Thurmond, who died in June at 100, was less compliant in making financial payments to his secret offspring than Williams has suggested in a whirlwind of national media interviews over the past few weeks.

Williams, a retired 78-year-old teacher who lives in Los Angeles, publicly declared herself as Thurmond's daughter in an article published on Dec. 14 in The Washington Post, saying the senator supported her financially over the years, particularly in times of dire need. Her mother, who gave birth to her in 1925 at age 16, was a domestic in the Thurmond home and died at a young age. She introduced Williams to Thurmond when the girl was 16 years old and living with an aunt in Coatesville, Pa.

A handful of communications found in Thurmond's archives at Clemson University's Strom Thurmond Institute suggest his reluctance to provide money, particularly in 1964, the year that Williams's husband, Julius, died of heart problems and left her a widow with four children.

"I want to be invisible. I do guerilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag."
— Ralph Reed, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 11/9/91

He maintains that those who focus on his lightning rod years as the voice and face of the religious right miss the true thread that runs through his political career: grass-roots organizing, the creation of precinct-by-precinct networks that spew out voters on Election Day.

After an overwhelming reader response, conservative syndicated columnist Ann Coulter will become a weekly regular on the Erie Times-News opinion page. Starting Monday, Jan. 12, Coulter's column will appear with that of liberal columnist Molly Ivins, packaged in a concise "from-the-left/from-the-right format." Why Ivins? Because many readers compared Coulter's passionate conservatism to Ivins' equal from-the-gut liberalism.

Often I hear equally from readers on both sides: "You're too far to the left!" or "You're too far to the right!" Coulter gives readers the balance they seek, the balance we strive to provide.

"Justice Souter, Justice O'Connor, they could've overturned Roe v. Wade three times in the last ten years," Nader told Donaldson. "They didn't do it. This is a scare tactic that's going on here. When George W. Bush was asked by Tim Russert, is he going to push to reverse Roe v. Wade, George Bush said, well, not unless a lot of people in this country change their mind."

"Even if Roe v. Wade is reversed, that doesn't end it; it just reverts it back to the states."

If we don't use cows for hamburger and we don't use their milk, what do we do with all the cows?

Can't you see all those emancipated cows roaming around, wandering in and out of our yards, leaving their droppings on our sidewalks and playgrounds and tying up traffic on our streets? That is utterly ridiculous!

You never hear them [animal rights activists] moaning about all the smaller animals that are torn to shreds and eaten by foxes, but we humans are immoral for killing foxes, even if it is done more humanely.

"... this primary-color collage resonates only because it turns up the contrast. Given that more than 40 percent of voters in the blue states backed Bush and more than 40 percent of voters in the red states backed Gore, doesn't the red vs. blue model seem, well, a bit black-and-white?"

Every one of their deaths was a potential crime. Workers decapitated on assembly lines, shredded in machinery, burned beyond recognition, electrocuted, buried alive — all of them killed, investigators concluded, because their employers willfully violated workplace safety laws.

These deaths represent the very worst in the American workplace, acts of intentional wrongdoing or plain indifference that kill about 100 workers each year. They were not accidents. They happened because a boss removed a safety device to speed up production, or because a company ignored explicit safety warnings, or because a worker was denied proper protective gear.

And for years, in news releases and Congressional testimony, senior officials at the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration have described these cases as intolerable outrages, "horror stories" that demanded the agency's strongest response. They have repeatedly pledged to press wherever possible for criminal charges against those responsible.

These promises have not been kept.

Over a span of two decades, from 1982 to 2002, OSHA investigated 1,242 of these horror stories — instances in which the agency itself concluded that workers had died because of their employer's "willful" safety violations. Yet in 93 percent of those cases, OSHA declined to seek prosecution, an eight-month examination of workplace deaths by The New York Times has found.

What is more, having avoided prosecution once, at least 70 employers willfully violated safety laws again, resulting in scores of additional deaths. Even these repeat violators were rarely prosecuted.

[edit]

In fact, OSHA has increasingly helped employers, particularly large corporations, avoid the threat of prosecution altogether. Since 1990, the agency has quietly downgraded 202 fatality cases from "willful" to "unclassified," a vague term favored by defense lawyers in part because it virtually forecloses the possibility of prosecution.

Moments after praising his opponents in the Democratic presidential race as worthy running mates, Wesley Clark said, in no uncertain terms, how he would respond if they or anyone else criticized his patriotism or military record.

"I'll beat the s--- out of them," Clark told a questioner as he walked through the crowd after a town hall meeting Saturday.

"I hope that's not on television," he added.

It was, live, on C-SPAN.

The campaign's traveling press secretary, Jamal Simmons, was with Clark at the time.

"If anyone tries to question Wes Clark's character, integrity or his commitment to this country or its security, they're going to be in the biggest fight they've ever had," Simmons said.

Nearly half the electorate -- people who chose Democrats to represent them in Congress -- are, to an increasing degree, disenfranchised. Their representatives aren't simply outvoted on the House and Senate floors, they're not even present when key legislation is discussed and refined.