So, how’d things turn out in the Ames Straw Poll? The final tally was delayed after a voting-machine error (insert sly joke here), but here are the results, by way of IowaPolitics.com: 1. Mitt Romney 2. Mike Huckabee 3. Sam Brownback 4. Tom Tancredo 5. Ron Paul 6. Tommy Thompson 7. Fred Thompson 8. Rudy […]
Given his track record, Alberto Gonzales probably isn’t the best person to be giving anyone, better yet Iraqis, advice about the rule of law. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, under fire at home with calls for his resignation, is spending some time in Iraq. The Justice Department said that Gonzales arrived in Baghdad on Saturday for […]
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) recently told Glenn Greenwald that the United States’ legal system — with its respect for the rule of law and citizens’ civil liberties — has been the envy of the world for years. But as we’ve departed from our principles, others are following suit. “[T]here has been an erosion in the […]
The Ames Straw Poll is a pretty big deal, with the potential to shake up the GOP race quite a bit. With that in mind, it’s worth taking a closer look at. With McCain, Giuliani, and Fred Thompson sitting this one out, the results of Straw Poll are fairly predictable — Romney’s going to come […]
Wayne Barrett has done the political world a great service with a devastating piece in the Village Voice on Rudy Giuliani and the “five big lies” surrounding the former mayor’s claim to fame: his performance on 9/11. The entire piece — which, if read, should effectively end Giuliani’s presidential ambitions — is important, but there’s […]
Last weekend, during a GOP debate in Iowa, George Stephanopoulos noted that Bush’s alleged democracy-spreading foreign policy hasn’t exactly worked out well: “There have been free elections in Gaza; they elected Hamas. There have been free elections in Lebanon; they empowered Hezbollah. There have been free elections in Iran; they elected President Ahmadinejad.” Asked about […]
Thanks to the efforts of Rep. Frank Wolf, a conservative Republican from Virginia, the Justice Department spends $150,000 a year to pay a handful of people to spend their afternoons reviewing sexual websites, to see whether they qualify as obscene material whose purveyors should be prosecuted. How’s that working out for the Bush administration? Not […]
The Philadelphia Daily News’ Stu Bykofsky, one of the city’s most widely-read columnists, caused a bit of a stir with his latest column, which posited a provocative idea: another 9/11-style attack to “help” America. As Bykofsky sees it, “we have forgotten who the enemy is,” and the murder of thousands of Americans would help us […]
First up from The God Machine this week is an issue that I’ve been following for a while: asking voters to cast ballots in local churches. Frequently, it’s about logistical convenience — in many parts of the country, a local church is the only public facility big enough to accommodate the community’s voters. But that […]
I should know better than to be surprised, but when anti-gay animus is this ugly, it’s almost painful. Relatives of a gay Navy veteran who died say they are upset that a megachurch led by Joel Osteen’s brother-in-law canceled his memorial service 24 hours before it was to start. Officials at the nondenominational High Point […]