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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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 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...
I'm thankful for a lot of things. One of the things I'm thankful for is the Beatles: Happy Thanksgiving....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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:...
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...
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....
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....
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....
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Bruce Fein and John Nichols on why impeachment is necessary:...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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?...
Daniel Schorr - whose voice you'll recognize if you listen to NPR - on why walls are a bad idea....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
