Here it is! Thanks to Oliver...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (3)
Wall Street Journal to MA: Freeze to deathSo, the wise men of the Wall Street Journal editorial page (who, wags have said, don't read the actual fine reporting of that paper) have upbraided Rep. William Delahunt and...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
November 30, 2005 | "Give. Me. A. Break."Mike Wallace was on WBUR's On Point this morning. You simply must hear the one question that he would ask George Bush. I won't transcribe it, but start listening to...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (8)
November 29, 2005 | Bush Closes in On One Year OffW., who already holds the record for most vacation days ever taken by a President, is closing on a full year of RR as the death toll in Iraq mounts,...
By Bob | Read Article | Comments (3)
November 26, 2005 | Great! So we're in agreement then!U.S. to draw down troop levels:President Bush will give a major speech Wednesday at the U.S. Naval Academy in which aides say he is expected to proclaim the improved readiness...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
November 25, 2005 | Shorter Dick Cheney:We're fools but not liars. Ha ha, I know, I know... they're...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
November 23, 2005 | Gotta love thisProbably doesn't mean much at this point. But it sure feels good (click to enlarge). The backup is here. Thanks to...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
November 22, 2005 | 2006 and local blogsLinked from Political Wire, Kari Chisholm of Mandate Media has a post about the potential importance of political blogs in the '06 elections. Mandate Media runs the indispensible LeftyBlogs site,...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (2)
The BumblersSome interesting observations from Bill Fisher: 'New Brownies in the Wings?' Years from now, we’re likely to remember two things about Hurricane Katrina: The massive human suffering caused by the...
By Bob | Read Article | Comments (2)
November 21, 2005 | No, this is not Photoshop at workThis, rather, is the leader of the free world attempting to exit a press conference in China. This photograph appeared on the front page of today's NY Times....
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
Osama Still at LargeJust a quick reminder that more than four years after the bloodiest day in U.S. history since Antietam, and the worst attack on our country by foreigners since Pearl Harbor,...
By Bob | Read Article | Comments (2)
November 20, 2005 | Today, RFK would have been 80Wes F. and David Eisenthal have reminded us that today would have been Bobby Kennedy's 80th birthday. Here's a site dedicated to him. I'll just chime in with my thoughts....
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (4)
November 19, 2005 | Get your Lowell onIn the House brouhaha (ballyhoo, balderdash) from yesterday, Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Lowell) reacted to Rep. Jean Schmidt calling a Bronze Star Marine a coward: You guys are pathetic! Pathetic!Now that's...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (3)
November 18, 2005 | Blue.S.A.Disapproval of Bush is as American as apple pie -- make that blueberry: Now, how is it that NY, VT, and RI dislike him even more than eeeevil librul old...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
November 17, 2005 | The brightening skyAre things really starting to look up in Washington? Today, all the House Democrats together with 22 moderate Republicans handed a stunning defeat to the Republican leadership, actually voting down...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
November 16, 2005 | And it's Illinois in the lead ...With today's news that Illinois has just enacted a program that will make affordable health insurance readily available to every child in the state, the pressure is (or should be)...
By David | Read Article | Comments (10)
November 13, 2005 | Slow weekend roundupsco's got the scoop (a week late, but earlier than us = scoop) on the special elections for the the 1st Bristol, 27th Middlesex, and 2nd Worcester state rep districts....
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (1)
November 12, 2005 | CowardSorry, no policy analysis in this post. George W. Bush is a coward. To hide behind the troops to try to deflect criticism from his own dishonesty and lousy judgement,...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (3)
November 10, 2005 | Three cheers for Dems doing the right thing!Largely because congressional Democrats are completely united against it, House Republicans had to cancel a vote today on the hateful screw the poor bill that they are for some reason...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
November 08, 2005 | A pretty good nightAround here, there weren't any bellwether elections - they were important for local communities, but who wins the at-large seats for Boston City Council isn't going to reflect any national...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
To Olver, Delahunt, & Neal: Show upRemember the anti-environment pro-oil bill that MA reps John Olver, William Delahunt and Richard Neal just forgot to show up for, and passed by only two votes? Well, $54 billion...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (4)
November 05, 2005 | "It is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers"Those words are contained in a just-released Defense Intelligence Agency document dating from February 2002 that the NY Times has gotten its hands on. The individual is Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi,...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
November 04, 2005 | Rush notes from conference call with Senator Kennedy this amI listened in on a conference call with Senator Kennedy this morning. Following are my notes from the call -- I apologize if things aren't clear. I didn't get a...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
November 02, 2005 | Daniel Schorr knocks it out of the parkDaniel Schorr, elder statesman of NPR, just had a terrific and necessary commentary on All Things Considered, about the $50 billion of budget cuts about to pass the US House....
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (2)
October 30, 2005 | It's contagious!Good gravy. We're not satisified with our own screwed-up health care system -- now we're actually exporting it:...Experts questioned the priorities of Washington's $1-billion rebuilding plan, which has focused on...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
October 29, 2005 | I get meta: Daily Kos as a public policy engine?Below is a diary I posted on DailyKos. I'm amazed at how much energy goes into the posts, diaries and comments on that site, and yet I feel like it...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
Irve IndictedLet's get the nomenclature straight before we go any further with the Scooter Goes to Jail discussion. I Lewis Libby is not an imperial form of address ala I, Claudius...
By Bob | Read Article | Comments (0)
October 27, 2005 | Health Care: What's your bottom line?So, with health care reform (or reform) apparently barrelling down the pike, we always knew the devil was going to be in the details. And now, all stakeholders will find...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (4)
October 26, 2005 | Republican moral limbo: How low can you go?So, a week after John Edwards begins his national tour for poverty awareness, House Republicans revealed their poverty program: Grind the middle class and poor into dust.Republicans began targeting key...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (3)
Report: Fitzgerald seeks to indict Rove and LibbyAccording to Raw Story, sources close to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation are saying that Fitzgerald has asked his grand jury to indict Karl Rove and Scooter Libby on perjury...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
October 25, 2005 | Nicholas Kristof, meet Senator HutchisonWhat a spectacle. We expect this from the pathetic John Tierney, the NYT's worst op-ed columnist. But now Nicholas Kristof, the usually-sensible NY Times op-ed writer, has lowered himself to...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
October 24, 2005 | RIP Rosa ParksThe woman who spawned the modern civil rights movement by her courageous action 50 years ago on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama has died at the age of 92. From...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
Cheney knewHoly cow. The NY Times, after months of playing catch-up on Novak-Plame-Rove-Libby-gate, has vaulted into first place with a truly blockbuster story: Scooter Libby's own notes show that his boss,...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
Wurmser in the eye of the stormRaw Story, which has been quite reliable in its reporting on Novak-Plame-Rove-Libby-gate, has fingered Cheney and Bolton aide David Wurmser as the one who first brought Valerie Plame's identity into...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
October 21, 2005 | Separated at birth?By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (2)
Fitzgerald goes online; Wilsons go to courtThe indispensable Raw Story points to two remarkable developments in Novak-Plame-Libby-Rove-gate today. First, WaPo's Dan Froomkin notes that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has launched an official web site on the...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
John Edwards and moral leadershipFormer Senator and Vice-Presidential candidate Edwards has taken on the cause that many of us thought would be front-and-center after Hurricane Katrina: systemic poverty. He's currently on a poverty awareness...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (3)
October 20, 2005 | Surprise! Brownie liedThe WaPo reports that, according to a FEMA staffer who was on the ground in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit, Michael heckuva job, Brownie Brown was informed personally, and...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
Blue Mass. Group interviews John EdwardsYes, THAT John Edwards. Charley and I just spent about 15 minutes in a conference room at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government with no one but Senator Edwards and one...
By David | Read Article | Comments (6)
October 19, 2005 | Health Care: All eyes on usHey, this is cool: Joshua Kendall's nifty, elegant article in the Globe on the weird history of our employment-based health care system (Why is healthcare tied to the workplace?) has...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (4)
Novak-Plame-gate updateAs is often the case when an important news story gathers intensity, there are lots of Novak-Plame-gate developments as the grand jury's expiration date of October 28 approaches. Recent stories...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
October 18, 2005 | National disgraceIf you weren't mad enough about our government's response to Katrina or the state of our national health care non-system, see this article from the LA Times (reg. required but...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (3)
The New York Times is sliding into irrelevanceOnce again, Tuesday's New York Times has nothing to say on Novak-Plame-gate (the Cheney Aide story on that page is from Monday, and has no new info), on a day...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
Judith Miller: A Better StoryWhat the NYT should have written Sunday: NEW YORK -- Judith Miller, the Times reporter jailed for 85 days for refusing to testify in the ongoing Valerie Plame investigation, today...
By Bob | Read Article | Comments (2)
October 16, 2005 | Miller fails to answer ANY of the Public Editor's key questionsAs you will recall, the NY Times' public editor, Byron (Barney) Calame, posted some very pointed comments in his web journal earlier this week. He made clear that he had...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
October 15, 2005 | NY Times comes clean in Novak-Plame-gate. Sort of.The NY Times has published its long-awaited here's everything we know articles. Judith Miller's first-person account of her meetings with Dick Cheney's chief of staff Scooter Libby and her grand...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
Scooped again at the NYTAs usual, if you want the best information about what's going on in Novak-Plame-gate, the last place you should look is America's paper of record, the New York Times. The...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
October 13, 2005 | Suckin' windThis short article, set to appear on the front page of Friday's WaPo, lays it all out. In brief: scandals have already hobbled the Bush administration beyond all recognition, Republicans...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
New York Times to come clean... "Now"?Holy smokes. Will the Wilson/Plame/Rove/Miller business take down the top brass of the New York Times too? Here's the NYT's public editor (ombudsman) Byron Calame in his weblog:The lifting of...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
The boy from HolbrookThe folks over at the right-wing blawg called ConfirmThem.com (the name has lately taken on tremendous, if unintentional, irony) really, really don't want Harriet Miers to be confirmed. As part...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
October 12, 2005 | The staffers are revoltingConservative opposition to the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court continues to mount. The NY Times reports that aides to 6 of the 10 Republican Senators on the...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
October 11, 2005 | Scooter Libby's freedom flashing before his eyesThe ever-intrepid Murray Waas has the latest scoop on Novak-Plame-gate. Waas reports today in the National Journal that Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, (1) did not tell special...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
October 08, 2005 | Espionage Act now front and center in Novak-Plame-gateFor the longest time, almost everyone, including people who know a whole lot about Novak-Plame-gate, were assuming that the only criminal statute that might have been violated by outing Valerie...
By David | Read Article | Comments (8)
October 07, 2005 | Murray Waas on Rove and PlameMurray Waas continues to do some of the most interesting reporting on Novak-Plame-gate. Today he reports both in the National Journal and on his own blog that Karl Rove has...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
Hatching new DemocratsThere's already been some response to a new report by Dem analysts William A. Galston and Elaine C. Kamarck (the latter of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government), which says that...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (4)
October 06, 2005 | The Espionage Act - at last!This story in the NY Times is, for the most part, similar to a number of other reports indicating that Karl Rove has been summoned back to the Novak-Plame-gate grand...
By David | Read Article | Comments (3)
"Is she the most qualified person? Clearly, the answer to that is 'no.'"Thus spake Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) of Harriet Miers today. And Lott's direct contradiction of what President Bush said yesterday was, apparently, one of the nicer things that conservatives said...
By David | Read Article | Comments (4)
October 04, 2005 | Bush has lost the trust of the conservative intelligentsiaMaybe they were never really with him. But it's clear that conservative elites are abandoning George W. Bush in droves over the Miers nomination. Two recent examples: Professor Bainbridge, a...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
Will the modern GOP survive this one?Two Three thoughtful and fascinating posts over at Americablog raise the possibility of a wide-scale GOP implosion over the Miers nomination. Conservative disappointment with Bush's choice doesn't seem to have...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
September 30, 2005 | Judith Miller caves; will testify in Novak-Plame-gateAs everyone knows by now, NY Times reporter Judith Miller ended her self-inflicted martyrdom by agreeing to testify before the Novak-Plame-gate grand jury, thereby releasing herself from jail. A lot...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
September 26, 2005 | The appalling hoax of "intelligent design" moves to the courtroomCourtroom proceedings begin today in the challenge to a Dover, PA school committee's misguided decision to require that a disclaimer (along the lines of evolution is theory, not fact) be...
By David | Read Article | Comments (10)
September 22, 2005 | The new InquisitionIt's (almost) official: Pope Benedict XVI is expected to sign a new rule prohibiting any homosexual, even a celibate one, from becoming a priest. The new rule supposedly will apply...
By David | Read Article | Comments (14)
September 21, 2005 | The worst possible strategy on RobertsOK, so it's not looking like the Dems are going to adopt my everyone vote yes, but with a warning strategy. Nor does it look like there will be united...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
Hack AttackLittle Bush has appointed a member of his inner coterie to investigate the blunders of his inner coterie during the Katrina disaster. Homeland Security Advisor Frances Townsend, a lawyer with...
By Bob | Read Article | Comments (0)
September 20, 2005 | Reid's strategy on Roberts: is there a better way?So Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Democratic leader, has announced that he intends to vote against the confirmation of John Roberts for Chief Justice. The liberal interest groups that have...
By David | Read Article | Comments (6)
The Modest Mr. RoveRecent headlines from the Gulf Coast this week have been dominated by a familiar combination: federal fumbling and payoffs to cronies. The incompetence is so stunning that even administration lackeys...
By Bob | Read Article | Comments (0)
September 19, 2005 | "Uninsured in America": Sacrificing the bodyWes of Walk in Brain is doing a book club of the blogs this week on Uninsured in America: by Susan Starr Sered and Rushika Fernandopulle. I thought I'd chime...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (3)
September 17, 2005 | And we should care because ...?In a move sure to dramatically affect John Roberts' prospects of being confirmed by the Senate as the next Chief Justice of the United States - NOT! - New York...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
Cindy Sheehan in CambridgeA report from Cos on Cindy Sheehan's visit to Cambridge this afternoon. Note that she's still in town - as Cos notes at the end of the post, she'll be...
By Cos | Read Article | Comments (8)
September 14, 2005 | It's official: the feds screwed up on KatrinaThanks to Lynne for noting the release of the (nonpartisan) Congressional Research Service's report which concludes that, in fact, Louisiana Governor Blanco did what was required of her to invoke...
By David | Read Article | Comments (4)
More bad designI have written before that the reality of biological systems - in particular, that many if not most of them have significant and obvious design flaws - is compelling evidence...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
Oooh, so close...Turning now to the news that may not directly affect you category, the Democratic primary for the New York City Mayor's race was today. It was a four-way race, winnable...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
September 13, 2005 | The Price of SecrecyAn interesting recent piece by Bill Fisher: By William Fisher. During 2004, the Bush Administration issued more secret court orders, spent $148 creating new classified documents for every $1 spent...
By Bob | Read Article | Comments (0)
September 12, 2005 | NihilismTim Russert had an interesting guest on Meet the Press yesterday: John M. Barry, the author of ''Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America....
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
September 11, 2005 | Katrina: the legal wrangling begins... and it ain't gonna be pretty. The Financial Times reports that losses from the monster hurricane are now estimated to reach $125 billion, with insured losses between $40 billion...
By David | Read Article | Comments (11)
September 10, 2005 | Drip drip drip ...Republicans continue to desert the President. This excellent article by Doug Bandow, a former Reagan aide and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, asks is George W. Bush a serious...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
September 09, 2005 | A nightmare on the dream jobDid you ever have one of those bad dreams, where you show up to an exam, but you haven't taken the class and haven't studied? Or -- I have this...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (13)
September 08, 2005 | Winter of our discontentHeating prices will be nuts. It doesn't take a crystal ball to see that. Many people can drive a little less, but there's only so far you can turn the...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (12)
Jon Stewart: America's best political commentatorIf you don't get Comedy Central, or don't have cable, or don't watch the Daily Show, you need to watch these video clips (these are about Katrina, but what I'm...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
September 07, 2005 | Gay marriage bill terminated in CAArnold vetoes gay marriage bill. That's too bad, and maybe a mistake on his part. The religious right is just not that powerful in CA -- certainly not the tipping-point...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
How zoo animals weathered KatrinaInteresting. Almost no loss of life. I particularly like the comment about the alligator, which is missing but which may simply have...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
Gay weddings from coast to coastThe California Assembly has voted to allow same-sex marriage. This is a hugely important move, not only because California is our most populous state, but also because it is the...
By David | Read Article | Comments (76)
September 06, 2005 | Senator Santorum blames Katrina's victimsA while ago I sent money to Bob Casey, the presumed Democratic opponent of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), during the flap over Santorum's bizarre remarks on the clergy sex abuse...
By David | Read Article | Comments (7)
Barbara AntoinetteEditor Publisher reported yesterday: Accompanying her husband, former President George H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had...
By Bob | Read Article | Comments (5)
September 05, 2005 | Refugees coming to Cape Cod2,500 refugees* coming to the Otis Air Force Base/Camp Edwards on Cape Cod, says wbz4 news. The governor is calling on the people of Massachusetts to help with the operation...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (3)
September 04, 2005 | We are not "playing"So, the Bush administration goes back to the old buck stops somewhere else playbook:NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 3 -- Tens of thousands of people spent a fifth day awaiting evacuation from...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
September 03, 2005 | Bush KnewI don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees, President Bush told Diane Sawyer on Thursday. We've heard this approach to the truth before from this administration. There's no...
By Bob | Read Article | Comments (3)
Boston Herald explains all you need to know about FEMAFound through Talking Points Memo. Link:The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows. And before joining the...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (5)
A blog from New Orleans, in the thick of ithttp://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/, a blog written by a bunch of IT guys holed up in NO with a power generator. They say this about the outrageous FUBAR at the convention center in...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
Indictment and ActionCNN has prepared a compelling indictment of the out of touch Bush administration, and what happens when propaganda and happy talk meet tragic reality: click here. For a wrenching description...
By Bob | Read Article | Comments (3)
September 02, 2005 | In DenialRegressives continue to play dodge ball with responsibility for their Administration's grotesque failures in the Southeast. Rush Limbaugh was whining about high gasoline prices. Free Republic was whining about how...
By Bob | Read Article | Comments (0)
Some of the interview with ChertoffThis is from the interview I was talking about yesterday. From Brad DeLong via ThinkProgress:Robert Siegel: We are hearing from our reporter, he's on another line right now, thousands of...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
The FEMA-Pat Robertson connectionFEMA, the federal agency coordinating relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina, has helpfully posted several charities to which those who want to donate should consider directing their funds. Their suggestions...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)