Since today is the two-year anniversary of Bush sending his first batch of judicial nominees to the Senate for approval, the White House is marking the occasion with a new round of political events aimed at pressuring Senate Dems to either drop the filibusters of Bush’s most extreme nominees, agree to permanent changes to Senate […]
Quick quiz. A major American political figure was at an important campaign event last week. This person first spoke about the American military victory over Iraq, saying, “Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States and most particularly to his neighbors…. We did the right thing, and we gave him 12 years, and tried […]
Just to follow up, I wanted to mention that the Workforce Investment Act that I wrote about yesterday, the one that includes provisions to allow for publicly-funded employment discrimination at religious ministries, passed the House yesterday. In case you were curious, the final vote was 220-204, largely along party lines. The House Clerk’s office has […]
Two weeks ago, on this very weblog, I noted how furious religious right groups were when they learned that Republican National Committee chairman Marc Racicot had spoken to a national gay rights group, at which time he emphasized the GOP’s commitment to “inclusion.” I proposed, jokingly, that the aggrieved groups “break off from the GOP […]
During the 2000 campaign, Bob Jones University in South Carolina became a lightening rod for controversy when George W. Bush kicked off his campaign in the state by visiting the campus and delivering a speech to the student body. Bush’s appearance became extremely contentious because BJU, a rigidly Christian fundamentalist school, has a record for […]
A month or so ago, I mentioned that the Senate had passed a radically scaled-back version of the Bush faith-based initiative, essentially passing legislation that alters the tax code to spur charitable donations but failing to give Bush what he really wanted — federal funds going directly to religious ministries. The broader faith-based initiative may […]
While I realize there are significant differences between American and British law, I have to admit I was taken aback by word that the British Independent Television Commission is investigating the rabidly right wing Fox News Channel for violating England’s “media impartiality” rules. In the U.S., of course, we know full well that the FNC […]
The fight between Senate Democrats, the White House, and Senate Republicans over Bush’s most conservative judicial nominees is making the GOP, well, a little nutty. If you’re just joining us, Bush has worked diligently to nominate several right-wing conservatives to the federal bench. Democrats, during their brief tenure in the majority in 2002, blocked many […]
Once in a great while, an internal strategy memo or top-secret email will come to public light and give everyone a behind-the-scenes look at how political insiders operate. Recently, staffers for Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) uncovered just such a document prepared by Washington GOP operatives planning to “destroy” the mild-mannered lawmaker in […]
I really wasn’t going to mention this anymore after writing about it twice last week, but if the White House is still talking about it, I figure I can too. To review, Bush took a Navy fighter jet to the USS Abraham Lincoln to deliver a speech from the aircraft carrier’s flight deck about the […]