Politics
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Health Care I (Updated)
Mr. Baucus says his group will produce the bill that best meets Mr. Obama’s top priorities, broadly expanding coverage to the uninsured and curtailing the steep rise in health care spending over the long term, what policy makers call “bending the cost curve.” Still, if the three Democrats and three Republicans can pull off a
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Quote of the Day: Sullivan
In reference to NYT article on Saturday What Cheney was doing here was making a point: that he believes that the president can impose the equivalent of martial law inside the country at any moment he feels it's necessary, even if it isn't. What Cheney was about was making a point about his own untouchable
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Sanity about the Gates Incident (Updated)
Is it possible? Obama takes a shot at it: Does any sensible person really believe that Gates was arrested for any reason other than that Crowley wanted to teach this uppity guy a lesson? It's pretty clear that the issue was Gates's verbal abuse of Crowley, and human nature being what it is, and given
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Greenwald/Todd Post Postscript
(h/t Matt Z.) The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c The Word – A Perfect World www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Mark Sanford The lesson, of course to be drawn from this, if you are a Beltway media person, is never ever talk to Glenn Greenwald on his radio blog. You'll
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Media Neutrality = Media Nihilism (Postscript added)
I like Chuck Todd, and I admire that he has enough integrity to submit to aggressive questioning by Glenn Greenwald about comments he made on "Morning Joe" earlier in the week regarding whether Bush administration war crimes ought to be investigated and prosecuted. But his answers to GG's questions reveal the underlying nihilism of the
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Quote of the Day: Sullivan
I'm getting lots of emails telling me to move on. I will. But I want to explain why I think the Palin drama is actually important. It's not because of her: she's a delusional, narcissistic and disturbed person who would be voted off a reality show in the first rounds. It's because of John McCain,
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Maintaining Bush’s Authoritarian Infrastructure
Is that what Obama's doing? It would appear so. Charlie Savage: You know, I had this interesting conversation when I was working on this article that came out this morning with Jack Balkin at Yale Law School, and he compares this moment to when Dwight Eisenhower took over, in 1953, and after FDR and then
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Change Can We Believe In?
This blog's primary mission has been to make the attempt to understand the nature of cultural change and its political effects. My basic premise has been that we are in the midst of dizzying changes that we mostly don't understand, that our politics has been several years behind the curve because of its principals' commitment
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Prolonged/Preventive Detention: Questions (Updated)
There are lots of unanswered questions. I'm just trying to think this through as it evolves. I hear what the civil libertarians are saying, and I understand their concerns, but I'm willing to cut Obama some slack until these questions get answered. The problem, as I understand it, is to define what a combatant is
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Obama’s Gitmo/Torture Speech (Updated)
Some quick thoughts before reading anybody else's take. My concern all along has been that what happened during the last eight years be repudiated and that the quasi-authoritarian infrastructure Bush/Cheney put in place be dismantled. Obama's speech was directed toward people with my concerns, and it was a very strong indicator that he shares those