The Grand Old White Party Confronts Obama
by Frank Rich
THE curse continues. Regardless of party, it’s hara-kiri for a politician to step into the shadow of even a mediocre speech by Barack Obama.Senator Obama’s televised victory oration celebrating his Chesapeake primary trifecta on Tuesday night was a mechanical rehash. No matter. When the networks cut from the 17,000-plus Obama fans cheering at a Wisconsin arena to John McCain’s victory tableau before a few hundred spectators in the Old Town district of Alexandria, Va., it was a rerun of what happened to Hillary Clinton the night she lost Iowa. Senator McCain, backed by a collection of sallow-faced old Beltway pols, played the past to Mr. Obama’s here and now. Mr. McCain looked like a loser even though he, unlike Senator Clinton, had actually won. |
Are We a Nation of Liars?
by Frank J Ranelli
Within weeks of the nation’s first postal service delivery, somebody must have uttered the now infamous and proverbial lie, “The check is in the mail”. Richard Nixon’s, “I am not a crook”, and Bill Clinton’s, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”, all certainly conjure up images of famous falsehoods. George W. Bush’s, “Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program”, proved to be a toweringly tall tale. |
Thoughts on Blog Amnesty and the Mainstream Media
by Alicia Morgan
I enjoyed last week's Blog Amnesty. I don't get to spend a lot of time reading and commenting on other people's blogs, certainly not as much as I'd like, so it was a great opportunity for me to expand my blog horizons. Like many people, my life is filled up with family, work, friends and obligations, and I always feel 'behind the eight-ball' in regards to keeping up with my favorite bloggers, and discovering new blogs. Having a designated 'Blog Amnesty Day' made it easier to do that. |
Henry Paulsen's Wild Ride on the Hindenberg: "The Worst is Just Beginning"
by Mike Whitney
It's a good thing Henry "Hank" Paulson wasn't around in 1929 or we'd all be hawking apples on a street-corner. Paulson is currently on a losing-streak that would have been the envy of Marvelous "Marv" Thorneberry and the '67 Mets. In the last three months he's put together three new programs to deal with the subprime crisis which have fizzled out in a matter of weeks. First, he tried to entice struggling investment banks to put their mortgage-backed bonds in a Super SIV (structured investment vehicle) to see if it would help off-load billions of dollars of down-graded junk onto unsuspecting investors. |
Harry Reid: Shame or Disgrace?
by Stephen Pizzo
I'm not going to take a lot of your time this morning. Not because I couldn't go on and on about this, I could. But it's not necessary. It's simple. Let's start with this:If you should run into Hillary or Barack on the campaign trail ask them the following question: |
ACLU to take on Marijuana Relegalization
by xxdr_zombiexx
Crossposted from Greenstate ProjectThe ACLU has decided that cannabis laws are not fair and has decided to join in the effort to fix them.I'll try to keep it short and sweet on the flip.The Seattle Times report starts with the necessary reference to the failure of alcohol prohibition and makes a quick jump to the racial issues. Good stuff. |
How Far Will the Clintons Go?
by Robert Parry
Hillary Clinton, who has built her case for the presidency on her superior “ready on Day One” management skills, burned through almost $130 million of campaign money, had to kick in $5 million from her own murky family funds, and is now pressing her chief financial backers to find creative ways to raise more money. |
GM Crop Trial Locations May Be Hidden From Public
by Ian Sample
Genetically modified crops may be grown in hidden locations in Britain amid fears that anti-GM campaigners are winning the battle over the controversial technology, the Guardian has learned.0216 01Officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed they are looking at a range of options to clamp down on vandalism to GM crop trials, after intense lobbying by big crop biotech companies. The firms have warned that trials of GM crops are becoming too expensive to conduct in Britain because of the additional costs of protecting fields from activists. |
Iraq: The Lights Have Gone Out, Who Cares
by Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail
Lack of electricity in Baquba has shattered businesses, and the lives of families. Months of power failures has darkened morale everywhere.0216 04In Diyala province, just north of Baghdad, a generation has grown up in dark. The province, and its capital Baquba 40 km north of Baghdad has lived with intermittent electricity supply since the times of the sanctions under Saddam Hussein in the 1990s. Came the U.S. in 2003, and everyone thought it would get better. |
New details in Marlins stadium deal
by Charles Rabin
Miami-Dade County commissioners received the finalized version of a baseball stadium agreement for the Florida Marlins late Saturday night, leaving the team the closest it has been in its decade-long search for funding -- and the county on the hook for $98 million more than previously reported. |
Gitmo interrogator describes tactics
by Andrew Selsky
Interrogators got intelligence from detainees that helped U.S. troops in Afghanistan attack Taliban fighters last summer — and they did it through casual questioning and not torture, the military's chief interrogator here said.In a rare interview with The Associated Press, veteran interrogator Paul Rester complained that his profession has gotten a bad reputation due to accounts of waterboarding and other rough interrogation tactics used by the CIA at "black sites." |
Homeland Security commissions new human incapacitation device
by Nick Langewis and David Edwards
One company has received an $800,000 contract from the Department of Homeland Security to develop a new "non-lethal" method of human incapacitation for use by law enforcement.By 2010, Intelligent Optical Systems hopes to be selling a sort of high-powered flashlight, the "LED Incapacitator," which would act by not only effectively blinding its target, but overloading his or her brain, with rapidly flashing lights at varying colors and frequencies. In addition to disorientation, headache and nausea are also likely. |
Obama and Edwards meet in NC
by Nedra Pickler
Barack Obama sneaked down to North Carolina Sunday and met with former rival John Edwards, who has yet to make an endorsement in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.Officials at North Carolina television station WTVD said they have video taken from a helicopter of Obama leaving Edwards' home in Chapel Hill. A producer said the station was "tipped off" about the meeting, but said the source was confidential. |
Captive to History’s Caprice
by Maureen Dowd
Maybe we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. Or maybe we are not.Perhaps when Barack Obama uses that trippy line, he is just giving false Hopi, since the saying, which he picked up from Maria Shriver’s New Age-y L.A. endorsement speech, is credited to Hopi Indians. |
Bush's war on American liberty and freedom
by Kerry Sheridan
President George W. Bush lashed out at Democratic lawmakers Friday in a political tug-of-war over a wiretap program that pits US attempts to prevent terror attacks against its duty to protect civil liberties.Bush accused Democrats in the House of Representatives of putting Americans at risk by blocking the Senate-passed legislation and allowing the post-September 11, 2001 measure to expire as they go on vacation. |
Time for a real leader
by Doug Thompson
Hillary Rodham Clinton claims she has “solutions” while Barack Obama only has “speeches.” Obama, she says borrowing an old Texas cliché, is “all hat and no cattle.”From this vantage point, we’ll take Obama’s words over Clinton’s solutions. Given her performance in the last eight Democratic Presidential primaries, we’d also say Hillary is all hat and no delegates. |
USDA orders recall of 143 million pounds of frozen beef
by CNN
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Sunday ordered the recall of 143 million pounds of frozen beef from a Southern California slaughterhouse that is being investigated for mistreating cattle. Officials said it was the largest beef recall in the United States, surpassing a 1999 ban of 35 million pounds of ready-to-eat meats. |
McCain's temper may prove to be a liability
by Libby Quaid
John McCain is known for his temper. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has been dubbed "Senator Hothead" by more than one publication.Even his Republican Senate colleagues have not been spared his sharp tongue. McCain, who had a 22-year career as a naval aviator before launching his political career in 1982, does not delete the expletives when angry. |
Through Error, F.B.I. Gained Unauthorized Access to E-Mail
by Eric Lichtbau
A technical glitch gave the F.B.I. access to the e-mail messages from an entire computer network - perhaps hundreds of accounts or more - instead of simply the lone e-mail address that was approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security investigation, according to an internal report of the 2006 episode. |
Oxnard student declared brain dead
by Catherine Saillant and Gregory W. Griggs
An Oxnard junior high student who was shot in the head by a classmate earlier this week was declared brain dead Wednesday, and the 14-year-old male suspect now faces a first-degree murder charge, authorities said.Lawrence King, 15, was declared brain dead by two neurosurgeons about 2 p.m. at St. John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, said Craig Stevens, senior deputy Ventura County medical examiner. King's body remains on a ventilator for possible organ donation, he said. He was shot early Tuesday in a classroom at E.O. Green Junior High School. |
Rule may offset property tax relief in Florida
by Josh Hafenbrack
Homeowners expecting to pocket an average $240 property tax savings this year might be in for an unwelcome surprise: their tax bills could be cut by a lot less, or might even inch up.The reason: a little-noticed nuance in Florida's Save Our Homes annual cap on tax assessments dubbed the "recapture rule," which mandates that, for many homeowners, their taxable values will rise even if their home's market worth falls. That mechanism kicks in so long as a home's market value remains above its taxable value. |
John McCain sells his soul to the base
by Mary Shaw
I used to hope that John McCain would win the Republican presidential nomination this year, as he is likely to do. Even though McCain wants to keep U.S. troops in Iraq for 100 years, at least he actively opposed torture. So in the horrific event that a Democrat does not win the White House this year, at least we might see an end to the systematic (and illegal) use of torture in our name. |
Republican nut jobs on parade
by Jaime O'Neill
When the crazies take over the asylum, you've got a big problem. In a saner America, nearly all the Republican candidates for president would have been ruled ineligible for high office based on the simple fact that most of them were saying things that would, in other times, have served as justification for having them locked up in rubber rooms. But then, after nearly eight years of George Bush, we're all a little nuts. |
Zoe Lofgren, Closet Impeacher
by David Swanson
Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren wants Cheney and Bush impeached, removed from office, prosecuted, and incarcerated, and she won't admit it. Nine members of the House Judiciary Committee on which she serves want Cheney impeached, or at least want to begin impeachment hearings (which everyone knows comes to the same thing). And once you impeach Cheney, the crimes will be on the table and the rest will almost certainly follow. |
Open Letter to Obama
by Stephen Fleischman
You're rounding the turn, heading down the home stretch, running neck and neck with the lead horse, so don't blow it now.You've got those super-delegates waiting in the paddock ready to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Your jaws. Your victory. This is your big chance, so don't blow it now. |
Harlem Mystery: Did Rangel's District Go for Barack Obama?
by John Nichols
New York Congressman Charlie Rangel was an early and essential backer of Hillary Clinton's campaign for president.The support of the senior House Democrat was required if the senator from New York was to be able to run nationally with the assurance that her home turf was "locked up." And Rangel, as the dean of New York's Democratic House delegation, and a dominant player in the politics of Harlem for four decades, helped to do just that. |
