Month: February 2006
-
Ken Mehlman claims the GOP doesn’t question Democrats’ patriotism
This statement from GOP chairman Ken Mehlman is just ridiculous. Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, declared Friday that Democrats who have condemned the Bush administration’s controversial eavesdropping program may not be suited to safeguard Americans against terror attacks. “We do not and we never should question these Democrat leaders’ patriotism, but we
-
Columbus Dispatch cites my Tim Kaine eyebrow post
Upholding this site’s reputation for substantive commentary and insightful analysis, I’m quoted in the Columbus Dispatch discussing Tim Kaine’s crazy eyebrow: Blogger notes overarching concern about Kaine’s brow Just to support the theory that there’s a blog for almost anything these days, check out www.brendan-nyhan.com/ blog/2006/02/tim_kaines_ craz.html. That’s the site for chatter about “Tim Kaine’s
-
Joe Biden claims he changed public opinion on Iraq
During an appearance on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” Senator Joe Biden, a possible Democratic presidential contender, claimed that the Senate committee hearings he chaired dramatically changed public opinion about war with Iraq (go to 31:17 in the Real Player clip): [T]here’s a reason why Democrats are so frustrated. We have no organ of government we control,
-
A staggering statistic from Christopher Caldwell
Christopher Caldwell’s thoughtful article on the status of Muslim immigrants in Sweden includes a staggering statistic: In 2004, there were only 329 people serving sentences of more than five years in all of Sweden. By contrast, the United States has approximately 132,000 prisoners serving life sentences and sentenced 430,000 individuals to state prisons for a
-
More useless govt. websites for kids
Last week I discussed the useless children’s websites from the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA. Today Wonkette brings news of another useless government website for kids – NRO Junior, the children’s website of the National Reconnaissance Office, which features useful content such as this: And the article in The Nation that inspired the Wonkette
-
George Allen is impressive
Commenter Rick points me to an item on Republican presidential front-runner George Allen from Al Kamen’s Washington Post column: Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer yesterday asked Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) about the “visible anger we saw on the face of Zawahiri ” — al Qaeda number two Ayman — on the latest videotape. “And I
-
The Bush tax and budget clown show
The New York Times points out that President Bush is once again peddling the supply side myth that cutting taxes increases revenue: One of the interesting things that I hope you realize when it comes to cutting taxes is this tax relief not only has helped our economy, but it’s helped the federal budget. In
-
Pete Hoekstra: Still looking for Iraq’s WMDs
Like creationists searching for evidence that the Earth is 6000 years old, Republicans are still trying to try to find some basis for their belief that Saddam hid WMDs before the invasion: The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has turned over to intelligence agencies 12 hours of audio recordings of Saddam Hussein meeting with
-
Andrew Gelman on “red states” and “blue states”
Andrew Gelman, a statistics and political science professor at Columbia, presented his co-authored paper “Rich state, poor state, red state, blue state: What’s the matter with Connecticut?” (PDF) on Friday, and it’s well worth a read. The key point is that the pattern of poorer Republicans “red states” and richer Democratic “blue states” is a
-
New York Times: Headline versus article
Print headline: “Bush to Propose Vast Cost Savings in Medicare Plan.” From the fourth paragraph of the article: Administration officials, Congressional aides and lobbyists said the president was contemplating a package of proposals that would cut the projected growth in Medicare spending by $30 billion to $35 billion in the next five years. That represents