Evolution: Don’t even talk about it in Texas

Guest Post by Morbo Here’s how much officials at the Texas Education Agency (TEA) hate evolution: They hate it so much that TEA staff members can now be forced out of their jobs merely for telling people about a speech by a noted opponent of “intelligent design” (ID). Chris Comer, for example, the state director […]

Supreme Court refuses to make more trouble at the ranch

Guest Post by Morbo When the Supreme Court decides not to hear a case, it’s not usually considered big news. It might get a few lines the newspaper. But often the high court’s refusal of a case is good news and should not be overlooked. That happened on Monday when the court said it would […]

Friday’s Mini-Report

Today’s edition of quick hits. * As of the latest report, it looks like the hostages in a New Hampshire Clinton campaign office have been released: “A deranged man wearing what appeared to be a bomb strapped to his chest walked into a Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign office Friday, took several hostages and demanded to […]

The Bush administration and the fine art of planted questions

If a Democrat asks a question at a debate for Republican presidential candidates, far-right activists reflexively (and incoherently) define this as a “planted” question. But, of course, given the meaning of the word, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. To really appreciate what a “plant” looks like, you’ll have to turn to the Bush […]

Conservatives (still) love torture

At Wednesday’s night debate for Republican presidential candidates, one of the more notable exchanges pitted Mitt Romney and John McCain on the issue of torture. Romney, flustered, struggled to explain his position on waterboarding. McCain, confident, claimed the high ground. “I would hope that we would understand, my friends, that life is not 24 and […]

Hostages taken at Clinton headquarters in New Hampshire

Details are still very sketchy, but Reuters notes stunning developments at Hillary Clinton’s New Hampshire headquarters. An armed man took people hostage at a New Hampshire campaign office for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton Friday, New Hampshire’s WMUR TV reported. Clinton, who was scheduled to campaign in Virginia on Friday, was not present at […]

On stem cells, the right shouldn’t be pleased with itself

Recent scientific breakthroughs on stem-cell research are so promising, some of the right’s less-informed pundits, such as the WaPo’s Charles Krauthammer, have decided to take a victory lap. A decade ago, [James] Thomson was the first to isolate human embryonic stem cells. Last week, he (and Japan’s Shinya Yamanaka) announced one of the great scientific […]

New York Times notices the serial exaggerator

As regular readers know, I’ve been pushing Rudy Giuliani’s serial exaggerations pretty hard, hoping against hope that traditional news outlets would notice the same trend. I started making the connection in July, but reporters said we’d have to wait until the new year before news outlets showed any interest. With that in mind, seeing this […]

Friday’s political round-up

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: * Barack Obama has been trading shots for a few weeks with the Clintons, but that doesn’t mean the senator has any ill will towards the former president. In an interview with Time […]

Did Mark Halperin follow through on his mea culpa?

Less than a week ago, Time magazine’s Mark Halperin raised a quite a few eyebrows in the world of political journalism with a startling NYT op-ed. Halperin, best known for his work at ABC News (“The Note” was his creation) before becoming a senior political analyst for Time, argued that there are fundamental problems with […]