As someone who takes church-state separation seriously, I’ve never cared much for the legislative practice of official invocations. If lawmakers are inviting local religious leaders, faith groups are inevitably left out. If the reverend uses a faith-specific prayer, public officials of different faiths are offended. If a pastor uses a watered-down, generic prayer, officials who […]
This is probably a day late, but I had one final thought in reaction to Bush’s prime-time press conference on Tuesday. I’ve already written about my general reaction to the event and why it was so disappointing, but something else occurred to me last night. The whole press conference may have been a disjointed mess, […]
I’m sure this wasn’t easy for them. White House officials tend to insist that all Bush statements are inherently right, even when they’re wrong, by virtue of Bush saying them. Fortunately, however, the White House admitted yesterday that Bush was wrong about mustard gas found in Libya when he spoke on the issue during this […]
Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A GOP lawmaker in the 90s said he loves term limits and wants to make Congress a “citizen legislature” that will somehow return political power “to the people” by having less-experienced officials serving them in public office. Said lawmaker gets elected and realizes that lawmakers actually learn things […]
If you want to get a disturbing look at the role the Bush administration is willing to give its industrial allies, there’s a must-read article in the Washington Post today about rat poison. Over the past six years, the pesticide industry has fought off or stalled two regulatory initiatives designed to protect children and wildlife […]
Everyone’s favorite theocrat, Alabama’s Roy Moore, wasted a lot of time and energy abusing his power and launching a crusade to advance his theocratic agenda. His drive to use his office to promote the Ten Commandments was obviously an unconstitutional effort and Moore lost at every level and before every court in which his case […]
It’s April 15, so I thought it appropriate to share a few tax-related items for your viewing pleasure. Although, in this instance, I’m not sure how pleasurable they’ll really be. First, you might find it interesting that taxes on U.S. corporations are shrinking dramatically. In fact, as the Wall Street Journal noted this week, “it […]
Attorney General John Ashcroft’s testimony to the 9/11 Commission was obviously overshadowed by Bush’s press conference last night. That’s a shame. Ashcroft’s disingenuous buck-passing and revisionist history-telling warrants plenty of attention of its own. As head of the Justice Department, Ashcroft has plenty of explaining to do. After all, Ashcroft was cutting funding for counterterrorism […]
When Dick Cheney was on Meet the Press last fall, he categorically denied having ties to Halliburton, the company he led before becoming vice president. “[S]ince I left Halliburton to become George Bush’s vice president, I’ve severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interests,” Cheney said. “I have no […]
There’s been plenty of debate over the text of the President’s Daily Brief from Aug. 6, 2001, and whether it was just “historical information” about Osama bin Laden or whether the memo raised new the specter of a present threat describing bin Laden’s desire to “retaliate in Washington,” make “preparations for hijackings,” and look at […]