Politics
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You Got a Better Explanation?
The Owners are like monkeys whose hand gets stuck in the jar because it won’t let go of the banana. Iraq and Afghanistan are the jar. No way the owners are letting go of that banana, and this refusal to be sane will–already has–hurt us more than the attack on the twin towers ever did.…
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Gay Marriage vs. Civil Unions (Updated)
Maine got all the attention, but It's interesting to me that Washington State voters supported a bill popularly known as the "Everything but Marriage Act" that gives gay couples all the civil rights of marriage without calling it marriage. Maybe there's a lesson in that. Maybe gay activists should let conservatives have the word 'marriage'
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Quick Election Take
I'm pleasantly surprised by Owens taking the NY 23. The undecideds decided it, and their doing so supports the idea that there is a sane middle in the American electorate, and the ones in upstate NY, even though they lean conservative, were not going to be manipulated by the Palins, Becks, and Armeys. It's more
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NY 23: Signs of the Times
The right’s embrace of Hoffman is a double-barreled suicide for the G.O.P. On Saturday, the battered Scozzafava suspended her campaign, further scrambling the race. It’s still conceivable that the Democratic candidate could capture a seat the Republicans should own. But it’s even better for Democrats if Hoffman wins. Punch-drunk with this triumph, the right will
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Quote of the Day: Yglesias (Updated)
The Senate Republican caucus is organized, like the House caucuses of both parties, like a partisan political organization whose objective is to advance the shared policy objectives of the party. The Senate Democratic caucus, by contrast, is organized like a fun country club trying to recruit members. Join Team Democrat and Vote However You Want
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Fighting for Healthcare Update
For many years, it's been centrist and conservative-leaning senators who have been scoring legislative victories by digging in their heels, so this represented a quite dramatic turnabout. It is difficult to remember the last time that progressives won a legislative victory by laying down firm demands and sticking to them. In the House, the Congressional
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Obama Coverup
I just came from reading Greenwald's piece this morning about the NYT editorial taking Obama to task for covering up the Bush era war crimes and for embracing Bush abuses of power. The comments after the post voice a lot of impotent rage, and I sympathize. But while it's disturbing, it is only baffling to
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The FOX Brouhaha
I'm just trying to understand the administration's calculation in using this attack tactic to deal with right-wing media. Clearly right wing media are never going away. Clearly, while they get a big media share of the news pie, they still only reach a relatively small number of people. And the number of people who identify
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You Gotta Dance with Them that Bought You (Updated)
"Can I speak freely about the liberal whiners?" asks a well-connected Democratic strategist. "These are the same people who have never participated in, much less won, a campaign, who have no idea what it takes to maintain a majority and keep a speaker of our party, who want Obama to kowtow to the loony Left,
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Fighting for Healthcare Update
I'm feeling pretty good about getting a decent bill. We've come a long way from where we were in August. The insurance industry and its shills on the hill have overreached and have no credibility, and a broad consensus has developed that the Public Option is the only way to keep down costs. There are