Yesterday, the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins blamed the “secular media” for Matthew Murray’s shooting rampage in Colorado on Sunday, which left five dead, including the gunman. Murray, 24, had been raised in “a deeply religious Christian household,” but apparently overcome by mental illness, he snapped and gunned down innocent people — a tragedy Perkins […]
Over the last couple of months, conservatives’ rhetoric when it comes to torture-by-waterboarding has taken a turn for the worse. Not too long ago, the right argued that waterboarding is a necessary evil — torture is wrong, they’d say, but in extreme, Jack-Bauer-like circumstances, maybe the nation should tolerate waterboarding for the worst of the […]
Clearly, the big news from Zev Chafets’ NYT piece on Mike Huckabee, to be published on Sunday in the Times’ Magazine, was the former governor’s suggestion that Mormons believe Jesus and the devil are brothers. But that’s not the only noteworthy tidbit in the article. A friend of mine emailed me about this interesting tidbit: […]
The story is familiar enough to be mind-numbing: Congress takes up an important policy issue; the House passes a popular bill, a majority of the Senate wants to pass the bill but Republicans won’t let the legislation come to the floor. The bill gets pulled, Congress’ approval ratings fall a little further, and everyone wonders […]
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * After the GOP invested far more time and effort than it wanted to, Republicans won two special election House races yesterday. State Rep. Bob Latta (R) held off a challenge in Ohio’s […]
It was supposed to be the bridge that no Republican presidential hopeful crossed — attacking Mormon beliefs. Candidates are certainly free to go after one another on their beliefs, record, and agenda, but going after the religious tenets of a rival’s faith tradition is too low a blow, even by the GOP’s standards. And yet, […]
Much to my dismay, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan remains a respected figure in financial and political circles. Today, the man once labeled the “Maestro,” offers his take on the ongoing mortgage crisis in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. On Aug. 9, 2007, and the days immediately following, financial markets in much […]
Maybe it was the Shag Fund scandal. Perhaps it was all the lying. It very would could have been the Republican activists suddenly waking up recently and discovering, en masse, that he disagreed with them on the domestic policy issues they care about most, including abortion, gays, marriage, immigration, stem-cell research, and gun control. Whatever […]
Between CIA revelations, months of reports, detainee testimony, and John Kiriakou’s very public comments, there is no longer a question as to whether Bush administration officials used waterboarding to torture suspects. But the White House can’t concede reality because a) the Bush gang has to maintain the fiction that it opposes torture; and b) torture […]
The CBS Evening News has come up with an interesting little feature. Katie Couric’s show, as part of its “Primary Questions: Character, Leadership & The Candidates” series, comes up with a simple, straightforward question, and then asks the 10 leading presidential candidates from both parties to offer a short, straightforward answer. Last week, for example, […]