The Big Tent Democrat says that Barack Obama "needs to apologize for this remark": I understand that Senator Clinton, periodically when she’s feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal. What on Earth for? Is the word "periodically" to be stricken from the vocabularies of Hillary’s opponents now? Ridiculous. I…
Author: marc
Marc is a software developer, writer, and part-time political know-it-all who currently resides in Texas in the good ol' U.S.A.
Of Criminals & Presidents
Dave Winer wonders: What if you were a criminal President? President Bush wants to give the phone companies immunity. Who would you like to give immunity to? What crimes are you willing to excuse? Interesting question. Here’s one answer: If I were a criminal president, my wife might be running to be the Democratic party’s…
Medical Discrimination
Wisconsin Congressman Steve Kagen has what he thinks is a noble goal in mind: ending price discrimination in the medical insurance marketplace. Why? As Kagen writes at the Huffington Post, charging people different prices for health insurance is unconstitutional. Kagen uses some strong rhetoric in attacking insurance companies: That’s why I’ve introduced the No Discrimination…
Freshman and Pork
Most of us know about the “Freshman 15“, a colloquialism that refers to the amount of weight many college freshmen gain during their first year in college as a result of not exercising proper dietary discipline (and gaining easy access to beer, no doubt). Given that Congress typically lacks even the most rudimentary sense of…
Switching Sides
Pete Abel says: Last week, I crossed party lines to vote for Obama in the Missouri primary. Last night, I noted that I’m increasingly likely to do the same in November. … Challenge me. Rebuke me. Never let me off the hook. Make me work for what I am starting to believe. Well, here goes,…
Sammenhold
Thanks, Michelle. Update Per CNN, newspapers in Denmark, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands have reprinted this and other Mohammed cartoons today. Berlingske Tidende, was one of the newspapers involved in the republication by newspapers in Denmark. It said: "We are doing this to document what is at stake in this case, and to unambiguously back…
Senate Votes for Telecom Amnesty
Glen Greenwald writes: The Senate today — led by Jay Rockefeller, enabled by Harry Reid, and with the active support of at least 12 (and probably more) Democrats, in conjunction with an as-always lockstep GOP caucus — will vote to legalize warrantless spying on the telephone calls and emails of Americans, and will also provide…
Deciding to Die
From the NY Times: Modern medicine can keep people alive into their 9th and 10th decades, when in years past they would have succumbed to any number of conditions. Now a small but growing number of these people are asking why. What is the point of living so long if you can no longer enjoy…
Obama at Risk?
Doris Lessing, the winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature, made what I consider an ill-advised statement today: If Barack Obama becomes the next US president he will surely be assassinated, British Nobel literature laureate Doris Lessing predicted in a newspaper interview published here Saturday. Obama, who is vying to become the first black…
Toledo Mayor Boots Marines
Here’s more evidence that democracy can yield piss-poor leaders. Happily, the process is self-correcting. Carty Finkbeiner, the mayor of Toledo, Ohio – you know, that eminent American city in the heart of the midwest that’s known for producing the Mud Hens of M*A*S*H fame and very little else – has kicked the United States Marines…