If you’ve been following the news, you’ve no doubt seen recent reports about the frustrating, and so far unsuccessful, search for six trapped miners at the Crandall Canyon Mine in Huntington, Utah. Rescue teams have been drilling where they hope the miners might be, but it’s largely been guesswork. It’s not a political issue, per […]
Keeping Petraeus under wraps
For weeks, all the talk out of the White House has been focused on Gen. David Petraeus’ report on conditions in Iraq. Petraeus will tell us everything we need to know; his report should be accepted as gospel; he is to Grant as Bush is to Lincoln. Except the narrative is hitting a few speed […]
Wednesday’s Mini-Report
Today’s edition of quick hits. * House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel had a great response to news that the Petraeus/Crocker report would be written by the White House: “After years of slogans and soundbites Americans deserve an even-handed assessment of conditions in Iraq. Sadly, we will only receive a snapshot from the same people […]
So long, Half-Hour News Hour
It seemed like such a good idea. Take The Daily Show, eliminate the quality writing, make it bitterly right-wing, add a laugh track to let the audience know when the content is supposed to be funny, put it on late at night on Fox News, and wait for the viewers to come rolling in. What […]
Conservatives screw up global warming story (again)
Any post that begins, “Far-right blogs were all atwitter the other day…” is bound to end up making conservatives look pretty bad. This is another one of those posts. This time, the topic is global warming. The WaPo noted the bones of the “controversy” today. NASA has slightly revised its record of average annual temperatures […]
How many U.S. Attorneys were fired?
It’s been a little while, but the last time we checked in with the purge scandal, about a month ago, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asked the AG how many U.S. Attorneys he’d fired during his tenure. He said he didn’t know. After acknowledging the nine we know about from the purge, Gonzales said, “I’m not […]
Gingrich sees immigrants as ‘more deadly’ than terrorists
The recent story out of Newark about three college students who were murdered, execution style, in a school playground was painful. Adding a political angle to the horrible crime, one of the suspects is reportedly an immigrant from Peru who entered the country illegally. Another suspect is a legal immigrant from Nicaragua. In light of […]
When religion and politics go horribly awry
As many readers know, I worked at Americans United for Separation of Church and State for several years, and dealt with a lot of controversies dealing with houses of worship intervening in political campaigns, which is prohibited under federal tax law. Yesterday, my former colleagues found a good example — but got an unexpected response. […]
Giuliani makes his case
When it comes to foreign policy and national security, Rudy Giuliani is in an untenable position: he’s inexplicably decided to base his entire presidential campaign on subjects he knows nothing about. At some point over the last six years, Giuliani got it in his head that being the mayor of a city attacked by terrorists […]
Wednesday’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: * In a bit of a surprise, John Edwards’ presidential campaign has decided to move staffers out of Nevada, an early caucus state, to focus on Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. The […]