Uncategorized
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Court invites meddling in judicial elections
The perverse consequences of judicial elections mount. The Supreme Court has ruled that “[e]lected judges must disqualify themselves from cases involving people who spent exceptionally large sums to put them on the bench.” That may not sound so bad, but the decision appears to create an ill-defined standard of “disproportionate influence” that could actually encourage
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Overreacting to Holocaust Museum shooting
At the gym yesterday I saw this inane exchange between CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Brian Todd about security at the Holocaust Museum: TODD: …CNN’s security analyst, Mike Brooks, says his law enforcement colleagues in Washington are telling him this space — in here and in there, where you can enter again unchecked before you hit
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Gaffney suggests Obama is a Muslim
The misperception that Barack Obama is a Muslim will not go away. Frank Gaffney, the right-wing apparatchik last seen suggesting that President Obama’s apparent bow to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was “code” telling “our Muslim enemies that you are willing to submit to them,” has written an entire column for the Washington Times arguing
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The puzzling conservative GM boycott
I don’t understand the idea of a conservative boycott of GM. To the extent that it works, it will increase the odds that the firm will need more government cash and decrease the likelihood of the government quickly selling its stake back into the private sector — precisely the opposite of what conservatives would presumably
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Political games with fiscal stimulus lags
There’s more than a little irony in Republicans asking “WHERE ARE THE JOBS?” just a few months after the stimulus bill was enacted (via Paul Krugman). Remember, President Bush’s 2001 tax cut was sold as a recession-fighter, but payroll jobs declined steadily until mid-2003 (partly as a result of the economic shock associated with the
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Today Show interviews fake teleprompter
The Today Show story mocking Barack Obama’s teleprompter use really jumps the shark at the end: Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy Nothing says action like a news correspondent reading the emails she is laboriously typing into the computer (“We … are … getting … some … feedback …
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Inhofe latest to suggest Obama is disloyal
Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) is the latest conservative to smear President Obama as sympathetic to terrorists or disloyal to the United States, a claim that builds on the misperception that Obama is a Muslim. As Think Progress points out, Inhofe called Obama’s statements in his Cairo speech “un-American” and suggested he might be on the
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Obama’s hollow bipartisan rhetoric
President Obama is once again suggesting that he’s seeking a bipartisan compromise on a major policy issue: Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, recalled how Mr. Obama made a personal pledge of bipartisanship when he and Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the committee’s Democratic chairman, joined the president
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The slippery slope of MA state holidays
A proposal to eliminate Bunker Hill Day and Evacuation Day in Massachusetts prompted this hilariously absurd slippery slope argment from one state legislator: Many Suffolk County lawmakers, who represent Chelsea, Revere, Winthrop and Boston, disagree. Senator Jack Hart, a Democrat from South Boston, warned last month of setting a precedent. “If we eliminate these holidays
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Gaming the US News rankings
An administrator describes the tactics Clemson is using to try to game the US News rankings — it’s as corrupt and depressing as you might expect.