Not My Mother’s Blog

Sometimes I just gotta laugh, and this is one of those times. Look, these are serious times. I know that. And it’s showing in the Senate and the strain that shows on the Senate floor. Yesterday, OMG, Al Franken did the absolutely unthinkable and – are you ready for this? – told Joe Lieberman that [...]

…with the oddest people. Donnie Deutsch may be a plastic-coifed Barbie’s Ken wannabe, but every once in a while he says or does something that makes me want to kiss him. He did one of those things this morning on Morning Joe (without Joe, who is, according to Mike, very very sick).
The tele’d in guest [...]

Color me amused.
About a year and a half ago, I watched in rather unbelieving amusement as a bunch of Republican congressmen turned Congress into more of a sideshow than usual when they  “occupied the House floor” after Nancy Pelosi dismissed the chamber for the August recess. Frankly, it was hilarious watching a bunch of rich, [...]

Mike Barnicle has been making this argument about getting health care reform done now:
This summer, all over the country families are sitting down to decide what they want to do on vacation – maybe they want to go out to dinner once a week, or spend a weekend at the water park. And they have [...]

Written in response to the Worcester City Council meeting held last night – read the Worcester city live blog at Worceteria for a quick overview of the night and why this letter was written. It has been sent to every member of the Worcester City Council. For the record, Kate Toomey emailed me back immediately [...]

There’s a lot of talk flying out there about what the president needs to say tomorrow night in order to appease the right, soothe the left, keep the Democratic majority safe and get re-elected in 2012. Frankly, not one of those things is a good goal for a presidential speech – the ONLY goal on [...]

Or –
It’s OKAY When THEY Do It!
If you point out the fact that there are more people of color in prison than white people, you are not a racist, because you are simply stating a fact.

For those who are just hearing about the whole Obama birth certificate lunacy, it must be confusing as all hell. I mean, after all, Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii to a mother who was a United States citizen. Based on what most people understand about citizenship and the law, that makes him a natural born citizen two times over – he was born on U.S. soil and his mother is a natural born citizen. Therefore, really, it shouldn’t matter where he was born, right?

photo
credit: Hamed Saber

For the past week, I, like many others, have found myself returning time after time to Nico Pitney’s live-blogging of the Iranian protests. Pitney’s aggregation of coverage from all the corners of the web – from Twitter to email to blogs to news – has an immediacy to it that can [...]

Arlen Specter Defends Stimulus Vote
The news is just now breaking that Senator Arlen Specter has decided to switch to the Democratic party – and this bit of video from early February just might explain why, especially if you’re the least bit cynical. Which I’ve never denied – but I’ve also never denied that I try [...]

I will admit that I have not been one of those stumping for prosecuting everyone connected with torturing detainees – and can we stop using that stupid word and call them what they really were prisoners. I actually think I would have been content to “move toward tomorrow” – at least in theory. But then [...]