Just a couple of hours after I wrote about the ridiculous provisions House Republicans were adding to a bill intended to cut taxes for soldiers overseas, House GOP leaders pulled the bill. Apparently embarrassed by the negative press coverage, House leaders, who had hoped to pass the bill today, pulled the tax legislation from the […]
Charlie Cook, a terrific non-partisan election analyst for the National Journal, wrote a column this week that’s been getting lots of attention, and for good reason. (I can’t offer a link because it’s not online. Sorry.) Cook’s column was in depth look at “Electoral College math.” If this isn’t an issue that interests you, you […]
It would be naive to think that special interest concerns don’t way heavily on the minds of politicians in Washington, and it would be equally naive to underestimate the importance placed on “pork” that lawmakers squeeze into legislation all the time. But given the issue and the timing, I couldn’t help but find the GOP’s […]
I’m not an expert in health care policy, so it’s difficult for me to critique the specifics of Bush’s latest Medicare proposal and its impact on senior citizens. But from a political angle, it looks like another domestic policy mess for the White House. In January, the administration unveiled a vague outline of a proposal […]
Shifting gears from partisan politics to educational policy for a moment, the New York Times ran an item this morning on charter schools that warrants attention. For those not familiar with the charter school phenomenon, many reform-minded educational professionals began touting a new approach to public schooling in the early 1990s. The idea would be […]
After reviewing Howard Dean’s remarks on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, I’m finding myself increasingly confused about the governor’s opposition to war in Iraq. Then again, maybe it’s Dean who’s confused. Bob Schieffer was commenting on how Dean had “set himself apart” from other top tier candidates by opposing Bush’s plans for war. Dean […]
Forgive me for being a tad obsessed with this, but one really has to wonder what North Korea has to do before the Bush administration will pay attention to the crisis on the peninsula. As Carpetbagger has reported a few times, North Korea, which is already believed to already have a couple of nuclear weapons, […]
AP political reporter Will Lester uncovered today what is easily the worst election news Carpetbagger can contemplate: The Nader 2004 Draft Committee has opened offices in New York and San Francisco with plans under way for offices in Washington, New Hampshire and Iowa. Beating Bush will be a daunting challenge in 2004, despite his fiscal […]
Just days after imploring the Dean campaign to stop using Paul Wellstone’s famous applause line (“I represent the Democratic Party wing of the Democratic Party”) without attribution, Carpetbagger has learned from two sources that the good doctor has finally told an audience the source of the remark. In speaking at a Capitol Hill fundraiser this […]
With Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) announcing yesterday that he would not seek the Democratic nomination for president, the field remains at nine, at least for the immediate future. The announcement, however, led one of Carpetbagger’s loyal readers to send an email inquiring if the 2004 field of Dems is the largest group ever. As I […]