Michael Sigman: But lest the healthy anger of progressives during the Bush years curdle into full-blown, hide-under-the-covers depression, it’s worth asking: When did Washington work, anyway?
President John McCain’s First 18 Months in Office
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Ted Vaill: President McCain has urged that the United Nations move its headquarters out of the U.S., and he has proposed that the U.S. leave the UN, which he calls “useless and corrupt”. He also has refused to meet with most foreign leaders in the White House, or to travel abroad, except for heavily guarded and secret trips to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Stop Calling Republicans ‘Hypocrites’
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Tina Dupuy: Espousing virtues you don’t personally have to live up to is basically the point of being a Republican.
Political Wrangling Aside, We’re In This Together
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Steve Hochstadt: I believe that as a society we are moving away from a desire to solve problems cooperatively toward a single-minded motivation to defeat opponents. Political conflict has spread into “culture wars,” in which other people’s choice of newspaper or dinner beverage, or their attitude toward recycling or marriage makes them our enemy.
Why Tea Party Chairman Mark Williams Got Kicked Out
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Anthony Samad: Don’t look for Tea Party activists to try to run racists hiding in their ranks out of the movement. For they can no more disavow the racists in their own Party than they could disavow their white grandfathers that raised them but said things that made them “uncomfortable.” They’ll just have to learn to keep their unspoken truths to themselves.
Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance
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Author Alexander Zaitchik sits down with Keith Olbermann to discuss his new book, “Common Nonsense, Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance”. Zaitchik tells Olbermann that we shouldn’t misinterpret Beck’s recent dip in ratings to mean that he is losing popularity.
President Palin? Take the Poll
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Sharon Kyle: Of course, it is possible that Palin’s celebrity will never be more than that – celebrity and she’d be clobbered if she were to actually enter the bid for the presidency. But, so far, things have been working out pretty well for Sarah Palin.
Sarah Running in 2012
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Tom Degan: What if we were to wake up on the morning after the election to find the jackasses on FOX and Friends beside themselves with glee, chanting like rabid little myna birds , “PRESIDENT-ELECT PALIN! PRESIDENT-ELECT PALIN!”
Sarah Palin Tells Bill O’Reilly What She Would Do About Immigration As ‘President Palin’
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Andrea Nill: Palin informed O’Reilly that she would do “whatever it takes” to secure the border, including “militarizing” the border with 10,000-15,000 National Guard troops and building a wall.
The Tea Party and the New Right-Wing Christian Feminism
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Ruth Rosen: Why have American women become so active in the right wing Tea Party movement? Could it be that they are drawn to the new conservative Christian feminism publicized by Sarah Palin? Without its grassroots female supporters, the Tea Party would have far less appeal to voters who are frightened by economic insecurity, threats to moral purity and the gradual disappearance of a national white Christian culture.
Jan Brewer, the Sarah Palin of the Desert
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Mario Solis-Marich: Jan Brewer is a lousy Governor. Any objective view of her performance to date indicates that Jan Brewer is the Sarah Palin of the Desert.
In the Last Decade, Extreme Weather Deaths Outnumbered War Casualties
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Tina Dupuy: And as far as Fiorina’s focus on terrorism killing – well, an average of 42 Americans die from being struck by lightning every year. As opposed to – well, almost none from terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11.
Sarah Palin Chides Students at CSU Stanislaus
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Sharon Kyle: Sarah Palin spoke at California State University Stanislaus in spite of the controversy that arose when her speaking contract at this pubic institution was arranged out of the pubic’s view.
The Republican Party in Disguise
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Steve Hockstadt: The Tea Partiers are not what they seem. They say they’re about freedom, not party, that they just want government off their backs. They appear to attack incumbents of both parties. So why are they all Republicans?
The Teabag Platform – Clear Even in L.A.
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Tom Hall: In the same week that 48 states agreed to a proposal to have national education standards, Chuck Wilkerson said that we should be busting teachers’ unions, slashing teacher salaries and turning education over to private enterprise, to make a profit. 48 States. That’s every state except Alaska and Texas, even the most “red” states want some minimum standards. But the Teabag position is that public education is bad and should be ended.
Is America’s Second “Redemption Period” Coming To Fruition?
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Anthony Samad: With a conservative court, you never know…we just may be witnessing something we never expected to see. Neither did those living during Reconstruction. Somebody is waiting to “redeem” America a second time. It may be the national debate of the 2012 or 2016 Presidential elections. We just need to know what that really means, in terms of the return to yesterday in America. It’s not impossible…
Arizona BUYcott Supporter Says ‘Illegal Criminals’ Will ‘Disappear’ Like ‘Cockroaches’
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Andrea Nill: Tuesday,, the Arizona Republic reported that “the exodus of illegal and legal immigrants predicted by some as a result of Arizona’s tough new immigration law is expected to hurt a variety of businesses that directly and indirectly cater to immigrant populations.” If all of Arizona’s undocumented immigrants “disappeared,” the state could lose $26.4 billion in economic activity, $11.7 billion in gross state product, and approximately 140,324 jobs.
While the Oil Gushes
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Tina Dupuy: The BP spill exposed that we’re still commuting in eight-cylinder singly occupied vehicles, hopped up on plastic goods and scoffing at high-speed rail projects. Our government is representative – we haven’t clamored to get off oil. If anything we’ve threatened to riot for having to pay too much at the pump.
Fey’s Fantastic, But Never The Twain She’ll Meet
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Michael Sigman: Given the commodification of dissent in corporate America, it’s doubtful Fey or anyone else will achieve Twain’s trifecta of talent, courage and mass popularity. But worrying about what we can’t control will only invite the kind of unhappiness that caused the great man himself to reflect that, “My life has been a series of disasters, most of which never happened.”
A Day to Honor All Who Fight to Protect Our Nation
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Tom Hall: This Memorial Day, the head of the Republican Party has called the 13th Amendment a perversion of our Constitution. The Republican members of the Texas School Book Commission have voted to teach that Confederate President Jefferson Davis was the real hero of the Civil War, and that those Union soldiers died in vain. In Tennessee and here in California, Tea Party candidates are campaigning on a platform plank that the 14th Amendment should not apply to brown children whose parents are immigrants.
Glenn Beck: “Historian” for a Troubled America
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Joseph Palermo: The wide dissemination of Beck’s views wouldn’t matter much if the United States were in better shape today. But the status quo that is emerging cannot help but create a highly volatile electorate for years to come. Class lines are hardening, mobility is stifled, unemployment will remain near double digits for many years, there is a sea of angry voters who are susceptible to jingoistic appeals and conspiracy theories (like the ones Beck promotes). The ongoing fiscal crisis at the local, state, and federal levels has led to the heartless rollback of public institutions at exactly the time when they are needed the most.
Gulf Oil Spill: The Importance of Presidential Indignation and Explanation
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Robert Reich: Respectful disagreement is virtuous in a democratic society, but so is appropriate indignation. Indignation signals to the public that social responsibilities have been breached, and thereby lends credence and authority to all those who are working toward them. Franklin D. Roosevelt had no hesitancy blaming the “economic royalists” – the rich bankers and executives who stood in the way of the New Deal.
Jonesing on 24? Try 61 Hours
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Michael Sigman: Reacher fascinates more because his isolation isn’t metaphorical. He has no home, no family, no ongoing relationships, no cell phone and no possessions. He buys a new set of generic clothes every few days, and earns pocket money via odd jobs as he randomly drifts from place to place, encountering more troubles than Job and more liaisons than Ricky Nelson’s Travelin’ Man.
Constitution Contains Not One Commandment
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Tina Dupuy: There are no democratically elected leaders in the Christian Bible. I know – it’s shocking. But, if you catch the rhetoric pertaining to the US Constitution, you’d think the Ten Commandments are its bullet points. They’re not. The whole idea of a representative democracy (a Greek word) comes from Ancient (think then-solvent) Greece. The leaders in the Bible were all kings or tyrants and the Bill of Rights is nowhere in the New or Old Testaments.
How Democrats Are Saving the Party from Itself
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Paul Hogarth: Democrats are not supposed to run primary candidates against incumbents because it is “divisive” – but it was time to hold Senators like Arlen Specter and Blanche Lincoln (who killed the public option) accountable. 2006 and 2008 were the years that voters picked “change,” and both Senators are the reason such change failed to get traction. Joe Sestak and Bill Halter faced huge odds taking on a Senator in their own Party who had the President’s support, but what they had was disenchanted Obama activists who wanted to see change happen.
Watching Conan Twitch
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Mike Price: Listen up, O’Brien’s band of merry suits. Twitching may have killed ‘em at the Hasty Pudding Editorial Planning Brunch, but it won’t fly with people who have grown-up wants, needs, and programming options.
Judging the Judges 2010
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Sharon Kyle: Studies have shown that the average voter goes to the polls with little to no information on judicial races.Every election cycle, we are asked to vote for people few of us have heard of for offices that few of us know very much about. Yet these offices carry tremendous power.
Newsweek Blew It
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Michael Sigman: it was refreshing to hear Washington Post Chairman Donald Graham’s candor about the fate of Newsweek, his company’s iconic money-hemorrhaging magazine, about which he said earlier this month, “If anyone should take the blame for this ending, it is me — for not seeing early enough and reacting in the right way to the changes that have come to our industry.”
Sarah Palin Supports Arizona’s Law? You Betcha!
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Seth Hoy: After weeks of negative press, calls for boycotts, and talk of legal challenges to Arizona’s law, Gov. Brewer is on the defensive—as evidenced by trotting out Sarah Palin to launch a new website. For the most part, Palin used Arizona’s controversy as a soap box for her Tea Party talking points—Washington: broken, President: bad, Sarah: good.
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