Category Archives: Progressive Politics

What’s Wrong with Miss California’s Answer

The Miss USA pageant isn’t something I generally find myself tuning into, but my DVR recorded it last night due to Kings moving to Saturday night. Out of morbid curiosity, I skipped around the recording until I got to the question and answer section. Miss California, or Carrie Prejean, was asked by pageant judge Perez [...]

Scalia On Torture

I like Lesley Stahl, but I wish she would have presented Justice Scalia with a better argument on why torture could be considered “cruel and unusual punishment.” Isn’t the obvious argument that it’s punishment for not giving the torturer the information he or she seeks? Either in the case that the person tortured has the information [...]

Martin Luther King Day

A selection from Martin Luther King’s Letter from the Birmingham Jail: I had hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: “All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal [...]

DailyKos Scares Me

I mean that in the best possibly way though. I’ve posted my first substantive diary there this evening. In two short hours my thoughts on skepticism and Kucinich’s recount of the 2008 New Hampshire presidential primary generated 80 comments and 19 people voted to put it on the recommended diary list. That’s a lot of [...]

McCain Tries to Scare Up Some Votes

McCain has a web-only ad that uses footage of a terrorist bombing to scare people into voting for him in the Republican primaries. Tim Russert confronted him about it on this morning’s Meet The Press: Despicable.

Bring Out Your Base!

Looks like this is what the Arizona GOP is planning to bring their xenophobic base out to the polls in 2008: Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, says he is introducing measures this legislative session to: Deny regular birth certificates to babies born in Arizona unless at least one parent proves citizenship. Expand the state crime of [...]

Southwest Flippancy

John Gruber had this to say about Southwest Airlines’ new boarding pass information site: The numbered boarding passes are a fair change, and should eliminate the silly lines at the gate. But it’s hard to believe a major airline produced something designed like this. It looks like the rules for a Girl Scouts troop. The [...]

Obama Rejects Government Secrecy

I’ll be casting my Democratic primary ballot for Barack Obama. I can only hope that enough Democrats in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina do the same. I’ll turn the page on a growing empire of classified information, and restore the balance we’ve lost between the necessarily secret and the necessity of openness in a [...]

The Most Chilling Movie-Plot Threat Imaginable

From today’s Newsday: When U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf described the alleged terror plot to blow up Kennedy Airport as “one of the most chilling plots imaginable,” which might have caused “unthinkable” devastation, one law enforcement official said he cringed. The plot, he knew, was never operational. The public had never been at risk. And the [...]

Arizona Legislature Unanimously Passes Unconstitutional Law

From today’s Star: State lawmakers voted Monday to approve a law blocking the sale of anti-war T-shirts with the names of dead soldiers on them — a measure one media lawyer says is “unconstitutional about three or four different ways.” The Senate agreed to make it punishable by up to a year in jail to [...]