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June 21, 2008

Sealing the Deal

The Obama campaign's new logo, which bears a striking resemblance to the Seal of the President of the United States, has raised the ire of many people on the right. CNN.com ran this piece describing the new logo on Friday,...

March 29, 2008

Why the Mainstream Media is Wrong on Wright

I half-watched MSNBC this morning as I sipped my coffee. Tim Russert had Tucker Carlson (sans bowtie) and Ryan Lizza on his show. The three of them devoted a sizeable portion of the show to dissecting the relevance of Barack...

February 28, 2008

What are You Sayin' When You're Sayin' "Hussein?"

Many on the Right, particularly Christian fundamentalist types, make it a point to use Barack Obama's full name, Barack Hussein Obama, when they discuss the Democratic presidential hopeful in the hopes that they will reinforce the idea among their fundamentalist...

February 18, 2008

Global Warming, Part Duh

I have been having an ongoing discussion regarding Global Warming-related issues with a conservative lot at LibertyPundit.com. The discussion was sparked by commentary on the Politics Junky Global Dumbing? article, which was inspired by the Politics Junky Barack Obama on...

February 16, 2008

Reich: The rich need to pay higher taxes

Over at Robert Reich's Blog, Reich argues that by getting out of Iraq, letting the Bush tax cuts expire, and increasing taxes on the very rich, we can get rid of the budget deficit, pay down some national debt, and...

February 12, 2008

Is Reagan-Worship Worth It for Conservatives?

Almost every speech delivered by Republican candidates for the presidency has evoked a yearning to return the party to the glory of the Reagan years. While Reagan has virtually been declared a saint by the Republicans, I wonder how wise...

February 8, 2008

Global Dumbing ?

This shit pisses me off. This piece is inspired in part by PolJunk commenter Nikki and partly by the morons at LibertyPundit.com. To give you an idea of what kind of brain power is poised to select, presumably, the Republican...

January 28, 2008

Hillary '0H8! (Why all the Hate?)

Are the reasons people dislike Hillary Clinton also reasons to vote for her? I will openly admit that I am no big fan of Hillary Clinton, nor do I despise her. I find her to be very clever and calculating...

January 23, 2008

The Great Ownership Society (or the Savings and Loan Crisis, Redux?)

As all Americans suffer the fallout of the sub-prime mortgage disaster in one way or another, our nation's leaders in Washington, D.C. are all atwitter as to what should be done about it. Democrats in Congress will be quick to...

January 16, 2008

Are You Experienced?

One of the most common charges levied against Barack Obama and, sometimes, Hillary Clinton as they seek the Democratic nomination for the presidency is that they lack experience. On the one hand, it is perfectly fair to demand to know...

January 15, 2008

Vivi il Fascisimo!

Alex Koppelman posted an interesting interview over at Salon.com with conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg. The piece is very much worth reading because it sheds some light on the inner workings of one of the Right's most influential minds. The interview...

January 6, 2008

McGovern: Bush and Cheney should be impeached

In a Washington Post op-ed - Why I believe Bush must go - George McGovern argues that Bush and Cheney should be impeached. It's a powerful piece, neatly condensing the arguments for impeachment. A must read: As we enter the...

January 3, 2008

Militant gays and their agenda for world domination

Those gays... why do they hate America so much? Why do they want to fundamentally alter the American way of life with their crazy alternative lifestyles? That was me channeling Jim Talent, former Senator from Missouri. He got his ass...

January 2, 2008

One Voice Can Change the World: Yours

Anyone still on the fence regarding Barack Obama should watch this clip. It takes his outstanding Jefferson-Jackson speech and couples it with video footage of the excitement his campaign stops evoke. It's stirring and it's salient. Obama: One Voice...

January 1, 2008

NYT looks back: where's our America?

Yesterday, The New York Times editorial board published a year end editorial - Looking at America - that reflects on the crimes of the Bush administration that came to light in the past year. It's not a pretty picture: There...

From Best of Salon 2007: Repeal Second Amendment

Salon is listing what they think are their best pieces from 2007. This Walter Shapiro piece from April - Repeal the Second Amendment - caught my eye: ... [L]iberals should look at the firearms issue from a long-term perspective, instead...

December 27, 2007

Hilton patriach to donate bulk of fortune

Barron Hilton, grandfather of Paris Hilton, said this week that he plans to donate 97% of his fortune to charity when he dies. 97% of $2.8 billion dollars. That would leave about $84 million after the charitable donations. Which is...

December 7, 2007

Celebrate Jesus: buy more useless shit

Here's your Friday video fun. A new documentary by Morgan Spurlock - of Supersize Me fame - chronicles the efforts of Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping to bring American consumers to their senses in a new documentary,...

November 29, 2007

Oh, the Hypocrisy!

It isn't often that I read Tammy Bruce's right-leaning blog, but Salon.com's link to her site on Tuesday caught my attention. Tammy, to her credit, took the Bush Administration, and Condi Rice in particular, to task over the meeting of...

November 24, 2007

Joy in mudville: Howard is gone

Nobody I read seems to be sad to see John Howard go in Australia. In fact, some seem to be near gleeful - at least pleased. That includes Andrew Sullivan, Joe Romm, and Glenn Greenwald. And Kyoto Protocol supporters everywhere....

Good news: Howard out in Australia

Good news for people who care about the future of the planet: John Howard is no longer Prime Minister in Australia. Labor is in, and the Liberal Party is out. Kevin Rudd, the new Prime Minister, promised to take global...

November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm thankful for a lot of things. One of the things I'm thankful for is the Beatles: Happy Thanksgiving....

November 20, 2007

Who does Tom Delay want to "bitch-slap"?

If you guessed Dennis Hastert, you'd be close, but wrong. The Hammer would like to bitch-slap none other than New York Times columnist and Princeton economics professor Paul Krugman. Probably because Krugman insists on brandishing facts and logic when he...

Buffett: Don't be stupid. Keep the estate tax.

Last Wednesday, Warren Buffett testified in front of the Senate Finance Committee. He's still on his pro-taxes on the rich crusade. This time, he's advising the finance committee to retain the estate tax: The resources of society I don't think...

November 19, 2007

Conservative Movie

While perusing the Right side of the blogosphere recently, I encountered the usual smattering of declarations that the Main Stream Media has a leftist agenda. I traded comments with some tool on a conservative website where I tried to explain...

November 16, 2007

Progressives: hating America, one issue at a time

As far as conservatives are concerned, progressives hate America. I prefer the term liberal, but progressive is what we are apparently calling ourselves these days, since Republican propaganda has succeeded in associating the term liberal with child molesters and mass...

November 12, 2007

Olbermann on Torture

Originally posted on our parent site's message board, Keith Olbermann takes it to Bush on torture and how this administration has devolved into a pathetic machine for cover-your-ass. We post Olbermann's Special Commentary from time to time and this one...

Reich: Raising taxes is the only solution

In his Trickle Down or Bottom Up post, Robert Reich writes that the only way to solve our budget and debt woes is to raise taxes on the rich: The only way is to stop obsessing about balancing the budget...

November 11, 2007

Kucinich on Cheney: Impeach the bastard!

The Kucinich sponsored bill that calls for impeaching Vice President Cheney was referred to the Judiciary Committee last week, where it will likely die. On Friday, Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) sent a letter to Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chair of the...

November 3, 2007

The Alternative Minimum Tax: Coming your way soon?

The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) was originally intended to make sure a handful of rich people - 155 families - weren't able to almost avoid paying federal income taxes entirely. That was in 1969. Now, because the AMT isn't indexed...

November 2, 2007

Your kid got ADHD? Get him some weed!

Reason.tv is also highlighting this gem: A Keith Olbermann interview from 2006 with Dr. Claudia Jensen, who advocates for using cannabis as a treatment for ADD and ADHD instead of Ritalin, which is basically speed. And she has some credibility:...

Drew Carey: America's most lovable pothead

Drew Carey is doing a series of public service messages on Reason.tv. It's called the Drew Carey Project. Episode 2 is all about medical marijuana. Best line? "Smell that smell? That's the smell of freedom." I bet you can guess...

November 1, 2007

More on U.S. guns in Mexico

The recent Washington Post piece on U.S. guns arming Mexican drug gangs reminded me: I never did go back and read that 2nd piece in the Christian Science Monitor series I blogged on before. This quote from the CSM article...

October 31, 2007

Did Al Qaeda cause San Francisco earthquake?

When I heard about the earthquake out in San Francisco this morning, the first thing I thought was "What role did Al Qaeda play in triggering the earthquake?" In their coverage of the SoCal wildfires, our good friends at Fox...

October 30, 2007

Harold Ford Proves He's a Loser

There's a lot in this Harold Ford interview that drives me insane, but I am going to focus on Ford's answer to the very first question and how it is an abject lesson in how NOT to respond to a...

October 27, 2007

The Monitor on a carbon tax

They'd rather see a carbon tax than a cap and trade system: Economists agree that the real cost of burning fossil fuels – damage to the environment and health, not to mention the cost of replacing them as they run...

October 25, 2007

Fukuyama: Bush administration has bred anti-Americanism

On "Comment is free", the Guardian's new "group blog", Francis Fukuyama has posted A self-defeating hegemony, on the topic of anti-Americanism around the world. Fukuyama once was a beacon among neoconservatives, and urged both Clinton and Bush to invade Iraq...

October 18, 2007

Mitch McConnell is a liar, and his pants are on fire

Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the Republican Minority Leader in the Senate, has stepped in it this time. Remember the S-CHIP bill that passed the Senate and House with substantial majorities? The one that the monkey in the White House vetoed, even...

October 16, 2007

Institute draft, or get out of Iraq now

12 former U.S. Army captains - all of whom did tours of duty in Iraq - argue in today's Washington Post that unless the country is willing to support a draft, it's time to get out of Iraq. Now: There...

First they dissed MLK, now they're dissing Gore

When Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last week (along with the IPCC), I knew conservatives wouldn't be dancing in the street and sending fruit baskets to the Vice President. But I'll have to admit, I was a bit...

October 13, 2007

Rice Putin

According to a recent Associated Press article, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were in Russia on Friday to discuss a missile defense system in eastern Europe. The Americans received a less-than-warm welcome since the...

October 12, 2007

The real legacy of Reaganomics: $9 trillion in debt

While the Republican candidates for president trip all over themselves trying to demonstrate who is more Reaganesque, I think it's worth noting one of the major legacies of the Reagan era: almost $9 trillion dollars in national debt. Before Mr....

"We just want Jews to be perfected, as they say"

The best thing to do with people like Ann Coulter is to ignore them and not give them any credibility by repeating the ignorant blather that they projectile vomit over the airwaves. But sometimes, these comments are just too rich...

October 11, 2007

Jimmy Carter: The U.S. "certainly" tortures

Jimmy Carter was on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer last night. He did not shirk his responsibility to condemn the use of torture by the Bush administration, nor was he afraid to call President Bush a liar: BLITZER: President...

October 10, 2007

Bruce Fein: The Constitution is our birth certificate

Keith Olbermann continues to doggedly pursue the lawlessness of the Bush administration on his show. Countdown is generally a great show, and I hope i's nightly viewer ship will grow well past a million (currently an average of 750,000). Last...

October 9, 2007

Reich: Kill those farm subsidies

Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, agrees with us on the need to eliminate farm subsidies: I've got a way to reduce global poverty, decrease the number of workers crossing our borders illegally, save American taxpayers money, and...

Neal Katyal on the secret torture memos

You may not know who Neal Katyal is, but any lawyer worth his or her salt should. A Yale Law graduate who once clerked for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, he is a professor at Georgetown Law, and last year...

Pay for war? With new taxes? How dare you!

Great commentary from Thomas Friedman this past Sunday on the White House response to a Democrat's suggestion that a tax be levied to pay for the Iraq War: Every so often a quote comes out of the Bush administration that...

October 3, 2007

Wheeee!!! (Look, Mom, I'm a Blackwater Pilot!)

If you haven't heard by now, the Bush Administration has been outsourcing work that used to be performed by uniformed American military personnel to a private outfit called Blackwater. It is important to note that, as a private company, Blackwater's...

Witness the Specularium...

Can I speculate for a minute here? I think you'll find this Daily Show clip a tad bit funny... or, your head might explode, raining down flecks of brain matter on your fellow cube mates. You decide:...

Countrywide: Doing Satan's work

This summer has been filled with news about the subprime meltdown, the resulting market movements, and the inevitable recession that will result from the disintegration of the housing boom. We're seeing the country's housing stock drop in total value for...

September 28, 2007

What you need is a good tasering...

There's nothing more exciting than watching a good, old fashioned tasering. It builds character, and strengthens stomach muscles. So here's your Friday video fun: A woman tasered repeatedly by an overweight Ohio cop: Reasonable commentary from CNN on the topic....

September 26, 2007

Katrina Cottages – A Solution for New Orleans?

I watched the New Orleans Saints lose at home in the Superdome to the Tennessee Titans in the Monday night game. For a minute, I though Rex Grossman had donned a Saints jersey, as the Titans nabbed four interceptions....

September 24, 2007

Hitchens: Gore will get the Nobel

From a Christopher Hitchens piece - Run, Al, Run - in Slate today: On Oct. 12, we shall hear again from Oslo, and I will be very surprised indeed if the peace prize is not awarded to Albert Gore Jr....

Moving On to the Champagne

Resident Bush and his Republican friends are disgusted with the advertisement that MoveOn.org placed in last week's New York Times that suggested General Petraeus might be better called General Betray Us. As Salon's Tim Grieve reports, a total of 72...

Bush simply an embarrassment on global warming

In an attempt to jumpstart negotiations on what will replace the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations is holding "high level" meetings today on addressing climate change. Over 80 heads of state will be attending. True to form, though, President Bush...

September 23, 2007

Private equity managers pay only 15% of their income in taxes

Even though they make millions - even billions - of dollars a year, private equity managers pay only 15% of their income in taxes. By comparison, if you're a single person who makes a bit more than $31,000 dollars this...

September 21, 2007

Happy Birthday, Constitution! We miss you...

It's been a rough week here at POLJUNK. We had some technical difficulties that blocked access to the site, and stopped us from posting new stuff until yesterday. But it's been an even rougher 6 1/2 years for the Constitution....

September 20, 2007

Krugman's got a blog now, too.

From Paul Krugman's new blog, Conscience of a Liberal: It's just one election, and may not represent a trend (although I think it does.) But the 2006 election was, in fact, a progressive landslide. That's from the second post, The...

September 8, 2007

Housing crash: there will be no soft landing

Foreclosures are at an all time record high, the real estate industry is shedding agents, and the mortgage banking industry has announced plans to let more than 15,000 employees go in the coming months. Oh, and one of the largest...

September 3, 2007

Fein: The time for a Bush impeachment trial is now

Bruce Fein, conservative constitutional scholar and ex-Reagan Justice official, says the time for impeachment is now: Impeachment precedents fortified by the original intent of the Constitution's makers provide ample justification for a House judiciary committee impeachment inquiry targeting President Bush...

August 30, 2007

Rich making more than ever, taxes lower than ever

Yep, that's right. I'm posting again on the disparity between rich and poor in this country, and the ignoble fact that the rich don't pay anything near their fair share of taxes. It all started this past weekend when I...

August 21, 2007

When everything started to go wrong in this country...?

I've been taking a bit of break from the relentlessly depressing news cycle recently. Instead, I've been reading the relentlessly depressing prognostications of James Howard Kunstler in his 2005 book The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First...

August 19, 2007

"You're going to look super in a burka!"

Remember that Cheney video from 1994 we posted last Sunday? It's been the talk of the town the past few days, and Chris Matthews took the topic up on Hardball this past Friday. This woman Melanie Morgan was on the...

August 9, 2007

Raise taxes, cut social security benefits?

In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post last week, Robert Samuelson - he of the tremendously bushy mustache - attacks Washington think tanks for not proposing bold solutions to solving the impending baby boomer entitlement crisis. A boomer himself,...

August 1, 2007

Funky Town

I'm usually not home in time to catch "Lou Dobbs Tonight" on CNN, but I had called in sick to work on Monday (July 30) and I found myself watching more television than usual. Watching Dobbs get upset can be...

July 19, 2007

Billionaires should pay more taxes

Writing in the Washington Post, David Ignatius suggests the tide may be turning against the rich paying too small a percentage in their taxes: Even the wealthy -- at least those with social consciences -- seem to share the new...

July 17, 2007

Government revenue, taxes, and the rich

After reading the Gilded Age article that appeared in this past Sunday's New York Times, a friend of mine posed the question "are we really living in a new Gilded Age?" I think there are definitely parallels, but there are...

July 14, 2007

Stop calling it a "war on terror"

Looking for a succinct description of why "war on terror" is a terrible label? Check out David Bromwich on the Huffington Post. He does it in less than 120 words: Acceptance of the phrase "war on terror" is an implicit...

Fein and Nichols on impeachment

Bruce Fein and John Nichols on why impeachment is necessary:...

H. Res. 333: 14 sponsors of Cheney Impeachment measure

From The Nation's John Nichols: Also on board are three members of the House Judiciary Committee, California's Waters, Georgia's Hank Johnson and Minnesota's Keith Ellison. It is the Judiciary Committee that would take up the issue of impeachment, under the...

July 10, 2007

Letter to the Editor re: Live Earth

We don't get a lot of these, but here's a recent letter we recieved regarding Live Earth from Paul Ebner in Indiana: I am appalled by Live Earth. I am so appalled and for such obvious reasons that a part...

July 9, 2007

Of Men and Laws

Given the actual looming constitutional crisis at hand—you know, the one where the president and vice president are claiming executive privilege in the face of congressional oversight of the US Attorney firings—I have to wonder what the normally strict constructionist...

July 7, 2007

Support the troops by bringing them home

Lieutenant General William E. Odom was the head of the National Security Agency during the latter half of Reagan's presidency, and was the Army's most senior intelligence officer before that. On the Neiman Watchdog site this week, he calls for...

July 5, 2007

Bush, the Great Commuter

Virtually everyone has an opinion on President Bush's decision to commute the 30-month prison sentence of Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Libby was convicted on March 6, 2007 of perjury for his questionable testimony in the Valerie Plame identity leak case. As...

July 4, 2007

Some other goodness about America

Oh, to be back in the land of coca-cola!

Today, Andrew Sullivan has been doing a lot of posts under the theme of "Things We Love About America." That, and the fact that I've been listening to The Band a lot lately, got me to thinking about one of...

July 3, 2007

Papers roundly condemn Bush on Libby

As has been noted here on POLJUNK and elsewhere, most of the country is responding to Bush's commutation of the Libby sentence with dismay and condemnation. This morning, the editorial boards at many of the country's papers take the president...

July 1, 2007

Al Gore for president

In advance of the upcoming Live Earth concerts, Al Gore contributes an op-ed to The New York Times - Moving Beyond Kyoto. Some short excerpts: This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue, one that affects the...

June 29, 2007

Who's Been Doing Bong Hits for Jesus?

So, if you haven't heard by now, the majority-Republican-appointee Supreme Court of the United States recently ruled that a high school student had no right to display a banner that read, "Bong Hits for Jesus" at his high school....

June 27, 2007

Tearing Down the Wall

Since the earliest days of the United States of America, the idea that religion should be separate from the state has been a cornerstone of American society. Indeed, it is what allows true freedom of religion; that is, the freedom...

June 7, 2007

Libby deserves to serve

General Pace doesn't think Scooter Libby should do time for his crimes. So do some other conservative apologists. But if you take a look at the editorial pages around the country, they disagree. Mr. Libby should do his time. That's...

June 5, 2007

Use Rove's evil genius for... good?

Dare I say it? Could the Rovian grab bag of deceits, tricks, and spins be used to help America rather than destroy it? If op-ed columnist David McGrath, writing in the Daily Southtown, could have his way, the answer is...

June 4, 2007

Bush's Legacy, or the White Man's Burden?

I've often wondered if an unpublicized aspect of President Bush's Iraq strategy has been to ensure that the war in Iraq does not end. I've thought this for a couple of reasons: 1) In the run-up to the 2004 presidential...

May 28, 2007

Illegal immigration: really a priority?

Over at the Washington Post, Sebastian Mallaby asks the question: why is the Congress considering spending billions on the supposed risk illegal immigration poses, when there isn't enough money to fund all our other homeland security needs?...

May 27, 2007

Daniel Schorr agrees: walls are stupid

Daniel Schorr - whose voice you'll recognize if you listen to NPR - on why walls are a bad idea....

May 19, 2007

Robinson on Gonzales

Eugene Robinson is the one of the best, most insightful contributors to the Washington Post op-ed section. Today's piece by Robinson is a case in point. He takes Gonzales to task for his many sins, and marvels at the fact...

Survey says: Goodbye, Mr. Gonzales

While the President continues to have "full confidence" in Alberto Gonzales as his Attorney General, op-ed pages around the country disagree. Dallas Morning News, May 17, 2007: If you had any doubts about whether Alberto Gonzales has the professional judgment...

May 15, 2007

New Directions, For All of Us

Okay, I'll admit it. I once voted for a Republican. That would have been a vote for Fred Upton, a Congressional representative from southwestern Michigan's 6th District, in 1992. Mr. Upton was a Republican in the classic sense. He was...

May 14, 2007

Giuliani and Ground Zero workers

A New York Times piece today, entitled Ground Zero Illnesses Clouding Giuliani's Legacy, delves into the Giuliani administration's culpability for the health problems thousands of Ground Zero workers are now experiencing. Over 8,000 city workers - police, firemen and others...

May 13, 2007

Why you should read Frank Rich

I like the New York Times editorial pages. Good editorials, and good writers. I look forward to reading Frank Rich every week on Sunday, in particular. He is an insightful critic of the Bush administration. And he knows his facts....

April 26, 2007

Another Brick in the Wall?

In August of 1961, the East German government, with the backing of the Soviet Union, erected a wall around the American, English, and French sectors of Berlin. This was done to stop the exodus of professionals and intellectuals from...

Republicans: Just plain bad at government

If 6 years of a Republican controlled federal government has taught us anything, it's that Republicans have absolutely no ability to effectively lead and run the country. And why would they? Grover Norquist, a guiding light in the Republican ranks...

April 12, 2007

Commandeerin' a Chief

According to a recent article in the Washington Post, the Bush Administration is searching for someone they can appoint to manage the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is really odd to me, particularly since our Republican friends constantly remind...

April 3, 2007

A Cult of Personality, In Living Colour

Back in the late '80's, Living Colour had a hit with their song, "Cult of Personality." The song included a litany of figures who have enjoyed personality cult status: Mussolini, Kennedy, Stalin, Ghandi, God, and Lennon. If an artist...

March 12, 2007

My Favorite Con

Andrew Sullivan nails it again with his response to a reader who paints the Iraq War as a Western film in which the US is sheriff and needed to go into the Mideast "to knock heads," the risk being what...

February 2, 2007