Just last week we learned that the White House is not only strongly resisting a bipartisan congressional effort to expand the Children’s Health Insurance Plan to include 4 million uninsured kids in the U.S., but our “compassionate conservative” president is also forcing states to limit access for children, too. Bush’s timing couldn’t be much worse. […]
So, where are we this hour on the scandal d’jour? Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) is the fourth GOP lawmaker to call on Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) to resign, and there will surely be plenty more as the day goes on. According to one theory, congressional Republicans have quickly unsheathed the long knives as part of […]
In May, the president signed legislation that funded the war in Iraq, and included a mandate that the administration report by Sept. 15 on whether Iraq is “achieving progress” toward 18 specific benchmarks. It was about establishing some measurable standards of success — meeting the benchmarks would reflect actual progress, falling short would reflect failure. […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * With Larry Craig having blamed The Idaho Statesman for his troubles, the paper offered a response in the form on an editorial today: “During a brief — and largely defiant — public appearance Tuesday afternoon, Sen. Larry Craig apologized for bringing ‘a cloud over Idaho.’ We’re sorry, senator. This […]
I guess yesterday’s speech from Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) wasn’t persuasive; the long knives are out. Idaho Sen. Larry Craig’s political support eroded significantly Wednesday when three fellow Republicans in Congress called for his resignation and party leaders pushed him from senior committee posts in the Senate. The White House expressed disappointment — and no […]
This has been making the rounds today, and it’s just too odd to ignore. On the August 28 edition of MSBNC Live, hosted by MSNBC general manager Dan Abrams, Tucker Carlson, host of MSNBC’s Tucker, asserted, “Having sex in a public men’s room is outrageous. It’s also really common. I’ve been bothered in men’s rooms.” […]
Yesterday, the NYT and the LAT ran news-analysis pieces suggesting that the president will finally have a “fresh start” at governing now that Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove have resigned. The argument doesn’t make a lot of sense — it’s not as if there’s a sensible, reasonable president, waiting with baited breath to start governing […]
The NYT’s headline makes it sound like the latest data is encouraging: “Census Shows a Modest Rise in U.S. Income.” The article reflects a more dispiriting reality. The nation’s median household income grew modestly in 2006, the Census Bureau reported yesterday, even as the percentage of people without health insurance hit a high. Experts said […]
I know I mentioned this earlier, but let’s take a moment to consider the Idaho Values Alliance’s statement on the Larry Craig sex scandal in a little more detail. The IVA is considered a fairly major player in Idaho Republican politics — it’s the state’s largest religious right group — and its decision to call […]
A few weeks ago, I noticed a few bloggers debating which Wall Street Journal editorial was the most fundamentally dishonest. There are almost too many pieces to choose from, but I’d argue that today’s gem on global warming is at least as bad as anything I’ve ever seen the paper run. You know the story: […]