tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-92939852024-03-13T17:10:28.703-04:00The Intolerable Banality of EvilAn uncomfortably close look at the Human Condition by an unrepentant Liberal.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger66125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-69299394353501461702007-12-08T12:58:00.000-05:002007-12-08T14:35:52.200-05:00Tortured Justice - Further Tales of Crimes of the Bush Adminstration[CIA Director Gen. Michael] Hayden told agency employees Thursday that the recordings were destroyed out of fear the tapes would leak and reveal the identities of interrogators. He said the sessions were videotaped to provide an added layer of legal protection for interrogators using new, harsh methods. President Bush had just authorized those methods as a way to break down the defenses of Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-6655242814939761122007-12-06T22:40:00.000-05:002007-12-06T23:39:12.912-05:00Governor, You're No Jack KennedyI believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote, where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-43073817071018081632007-12-04T20:33:00.000-05:002007-12-04T22:03:13.283-05:00Bush: I'm Not Corrupt, Just Dangerously IncompetentDemocrats incredulous over Bush's account of Iran reportDemocratic presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden on Tuesday said he can't believe President Bush hasn't known for months about a recent intelligence estimate that downplays the nuclear threat from Iran.Joe Biden says "he refuses to believe" that Bush didn't know about a new assessment of Iran's nuclear program.Other Democratic candidates Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-67672628243893576662007-12-02T09:42:00.000-05:002007-12-02T10:52:58.045-05:00Ending Famine, Simply by Ignoring the ExpertsEnding Famine, Simply by Ignoring the ExpertsMalawi hovered for years at the brink of famine. After a disastrous corn harvest in 2005, almost five million of its 13 million people needed emergency food aid.But this year, a nation that has perennially extended a begging bowl to the world is instead feeding its hungry neighbors. It is selling more corn to the World Food Program of the United Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-77305797961894660592007-11-25T16:49:00.000-05:002007-12-04T22:06:15.240-05:00Pottery Barn Rule: Iraq's isn't the only government the war has broken.For their current cover story Mother Jones Magazine has invited 50 experts from generals to antiwar activists to comment on questions of when and how to exit Iraq. The results are interesting largely because there is no clear consensus. The people asked had opinions ranging from 'get out now' to 'we can never leave'. Predictions about what would happen when we exited ranged from 'they'll work Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-53851498562720786622007-11-23T11:06:00.001-05:002007-11-23T13:33:59.393-05:00McClellan and the Government-Media Echo ChamberThe most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and ScooterUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-35706145437484951152007-11-18T20:38:00.000-05:002007-11-23T13:34:40.691-05:00Conservatives Seek Government Intervention to Correct Market FailureOR - Sweet Delicious IronyFive authors have sued the parent company of Regnery Publishing, a Washington imprint of conservative books, charging that the company deprives its writers of royalties by selling their books at a steep discount to book clubs and other organizations owned by the same parent company.In a suit filed in United States District Court in Washington yesterday, the authors ... Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-24165176152560922002007-03-17T18:43:00.000-04:002007-03-17T18:56:52.613-04:00Fundamentals of Micro-Management - Or, How to Lose the War by Not Really TryingNext week, the House will begin debate on an emergency war spending bill. Some in the Congress are using this bill as an opportunity to micro-manage our military commanders, or to force a precipitous withdrawal in Iraq, or threaten vital funding for Iraqi security forces, and fund projects that have nothing to do with the war on terror. I believe the members of Congress are sincere when they Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-74203902271918306052007-03-16T18:04:00.000-04:002007-03-17T14:57:50.257-04:00Children of the Corn Subsidies: Maybe Bush Has a Good SolutionThe New York Times has editorialized that Bush's proposal for reforming our farm policies is A Bill Democrats Should Like. On the surface, it seems like they are correct that this is "one of the more sensible pieces of legislation to emerge from this administration in quite a while."It proposes a strict cap on payments to individual farmers as part of a larger effort to hold down traditional Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-29873142365119221432007-03-13T13:33:00.000-04:002007-03-17T13:42:02.184-04:00The Intolerable Pace of BigotryThe chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, is facing some tough questions this morning about controversial comments he made about homosexuality and gays serving in the military during a newspaper interview.Pace was asked about his view on gays in the military by the Chicago Tribune. His answer was carefully worded, but his meaning was unmistakable."My upbringing is such that I Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-74006152778415033882007-03-12T15:47:00.000-04:002007-03-17T15:50:39.074-04:00Coulter and the F-Word ReduxSorry to come late to the party, but a dust-up by Glenn Greenwald in Salon on Ann Coulter's latest attention grabbing device deserves to be picked up on and amplified.He argues that the importance of Coulter's use of the "F-Word" to describe John Edwards lies more in what it says about Republicans than Coulter or Edwards. Greenwald goes beyond the standard observations that this is scarcely the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-28154222603640749222007-03-09T17:59:00.000-05:002007-03-09T18:05:08.800-05:00Too.Many.Metaphors: Swiftboating the GOPWhat goes around comes around.He who lives by the sword...Payback's a bitch.Hoisted on their own petard.There are just too many metaphors.As new groups form to attack John McCain and Mitt Romney.In 2004 it was Swiftboat Veterans for Truth and Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry smearing the service of John Kerry.And John McCain continued to campaign for the man responsible.Now a man named: Jerry Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-34516367670313957822007-03-08T12:21:00.000-05:002007-03-09T16:47:59.263-05:00Sacrificial Lambs: Ritual Justice in the 'Global War on Terrorism'In the terror related cases of Lynn Stewart, Jose Padilla, Sami al-Arian and others, it's clear in each case that the prosecution of each person was out of scale with what they were being charged with and that, more importantly to my point, their treatment was not only not necessary to seek justice, but counterproductive.It's tempting to take these cases and try to make some case about the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-62544236771040636062007-03-07T15:23:00.000-05:002007-03-09T11:40:50.449-05:00Politicizing Crime: The WSJ and the Politics of LibbyFirst, let's flashback to October of 2005. A brash young intrepid journalist named Robert Novak penned an op-ed called Criminalizing Politics.In today's polarized climate, both parties have contributed to the criminalization of politics. But Democrats, losers in both elections and the world of ideas, have turned to using the criminal process over the last two decades. That means depicting DeLay Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-1132681368139451492005-11-22T12:34:00.000-05:002007-02-12T10:48:19.122-05:00Man on Dog: Is Massachusetts Sinking Into Moral Decay?There is some low level clucking and hand wringing going on in Right Wing circles over a new law proposed by four liberal Democratic state senators in Massachusetts. Cynthia S. Creem, Robert A. O'Leary, Michael E. Festa, and David P. Linsky have introduced Senate Bill 938 to take a series of archaic laws off the books. These are all sections of Massachusetts Chapter 272.The stricken sections Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-1132259488332044862005-11-17T15:25:00.000-05:002007-11-23T13:35:07.603-05:00Iraq WMDs Revisited: Absence of Evidence Offered as Evidence of ExistenceExpect the Right to be agog about this interview in Frontpage entitled Where the WMDs Went with “Bill Tierney, a former military intelligence officer and Arabic speaker who worked at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 and as a counter-infiltration operator in Baghdad in 2004.”I read it, so you don’t have to. Although, you’re certainly free to.Tierney clearly has an axe to grind.This conclusion is the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-1132119785214387392005-11-16T00:31:00.000-05:002005-11-17T15:36:05.886-05:00The Supreme Court Case You’re Not Paying Attention To, But ShouldLast June 20th, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal of Illinois Tool Works v. Independent Ink. Trident, Inc., a subsidiary of Illinois Tool Works, holds a patent for a printhead that prints barcodes on boxes. Its standard form licensing agreement requires customers to purchase their ink for the Trident printhead exclusively from Trident. Trident’s website states, “Trident's inks meet all Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-1131568492246303802005-11-09T15:23:00.000-05:002005-11-16T00:44:56.090-05:00The Federal Marriage Amendment and its Path of DestructionDuring the 2004 Presidential election, there was the unspoken, but likely oft thought, question of Mary - Mary Cheney that is. How does she do it? How can she do it? How does an out lesbian work for the reelection of a party and candidate committed to carving second class citizenship for gays and lesbians into the Constitution? And what about Dick (Cheney)? How can he look his daughter in the eyeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-1131397237306457792005-11-07T15:56:00.000-05:002005-11-09T15:51:51.536-05:00The Tamiflu Paradox: Your Markets or Your LifeSebastian Mallaby poses an interesting dilemma in today’s Washington Post.Consider one piece of the avian flu mess: the challenge of stockpiling the potentially lifesaving drug Tamiflu. The challenge presents the standard intellectual-property dilemma: Should we respect the patent rights of Roche, Tamiflu's maker, thereby strengthening incentives for companies to develop tomorrow's cures? Or Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-1131117882311286742005-11-04T10:12:00.000-05:002005-11-07T16:04:54.553-05:00TaBOR: Colorado Learns a Valuable Lesson in ResponsibilityRecently, I wrote about the reaction of the Kansas legislature to a court ruling striking down a law as unconstitutional that punished a gay man for 17 years for a crime that straight people could receive a maximum sentence of 15 months for.Said one member of the legislature, “You have the court substituting its moral judgment for the moral judgment of the people, as expressed through the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-1130785792856746932005-10-31T14:03:00.000-05:002005-11-04T13:45:24.866-05:00Supreme Injustice - And the Need to Push BackLet me write the Generic Conservative Op-Ed on the nomination of Third Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court.Hypocritical liberals, who previously decried the use of ideology in selecting nominees to the Supreme Court, are aghast that President Bush has - gasp - chosen a conservative. Judge Alito is a solid, well-respected legal scholar and liberals have Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-1130608246327608482005-10-29T12:44:00.000-05:002005-10-31T14:11:38.346-05:00Schadenfreude: Delay, Libby, Rove and Republicans Eating Their Young – or – Taking Lessons From Ann CoulterI understand the desire to see those smug, self-righteous SOB’s get their comeuppance. Flaunting the laws, lying to the public, abandoning all but the sheerest pretense of interest in good governance – these guys have it coming.Nevertheless, my discomfiture with the celebratory atmosphere among my fellow liberals continued to grow as callers to Air America wished the hosts a Merry Fitzmas in Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-1130288481322702792005-10-26T07:55:00.000-05:002005-10-31T14:10:20.846-05:00First, They Came for the Queers: Now What's the Matter with Kansas?"You have the court substituting its moral judgment for the moral judgment of the people, as expressed through the legislative body. I think it's making a bold statement about judicial power." Question: If a 18 year boy has consensual sex with a 14 year old girl and receives a maximum of 15 months in prison, what should the sentence be if a 18 year old boy has consensual sex with a 14 year old Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-1130275130877934322005-10-25T16:17:00.000-05:002005-10-25T16:34:54.840-05:00Miered: The Trouble with HarrietPerhaps, ultimately, the trouble with Harriet is that she and Bush are too close, the issue is too personal and each of them just forgot in their own way that this is not a private matter, but one of great and lasting public importance.I’m certain Ms Miers is a fine person, a deeply religious person and fun at parties. But she’s transparently not qualified to be on the Supreme Court, or at least Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9293985.post-1129665742476069342005-10-19T06:59:00.000-05:002005-10-19T13:40:05.966-05:00Judy, Judy, Judy: The Fascination with Judith MillerI wasn’t going to do another Judith Miller post. But this is just too easy.Howard Kurtz ponders the fallout in the Washington Post in The Judy War. I've been trying to figure out why the Judy Miller saga has become so all-consuming for so many people.After cycling through some possible explanations which all miss the point he reaches a conclusion.It's the war, of course. We're re-fighting the warUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0