If you read one thing today this is it, “The Women’s Crusade.” No, it’s not about U.S. health care reform. It’s about something even more important, which is close to blasphemy to say these days but it’s true, because it’s about saving the world. …Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are [...]
Archive | August, 2009
Obama and L.B.J.
I’ve been struggling a lot lately with Pres. Obama’s words to the VFW last week. Thinking more and more about Afghanistan as a “war of necessity,” which I believe it was immediately after 9/11. But the new escalation possibilities worry me a lot, even as I think about the women and girls, with the importance [...]
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Obama’s Trouble with Independents Trumped by Base Woes
Trailer to Michael Moore’s new film. Greg Sargent has the nutshell in the Washington Post/ABC poll that should certainly get the White House’s attention. With general economic woes, of which health care reform is a major solution, now a huge political problem. When Obama came into office, what he was handed from Bush-Cheney was frightening. [...]
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The President of Cool
The White House position, though, is vintage Obama: Lay out some broad principles, seek consensus, and try to float above the nitty-gritty details of the argument on the way there. Obama has never claimed he was a doctrinaire liberal; in fact, part of his message last year was that he’d get past the tired debates [...]
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Terry McAuliffe to Fundraise for Dem On Public Option
More than three out of every four Americans feel it is important to have a “choice” between a government-run health care insurance option and private coverage, according to a public opinion poll released on Thursday. A new study by SurveyUSA puts support for a public option at a robust 77 percent, one percentage point higher [...]
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Ridge Bombshell Will Be Forgotten Just Like Lockerbie
A convicted terrorist has been set free. I don’t expect your average American or reader to be at all moved by the events unfolding today. Where Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only man to ever be convicted of the terrorist bombing of PanAm Flight 103, was released from prison on “compassionate grounds.” Al-Megrahi insisting he [...]
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Mortality Impedes Hyannis Port
“I am now writing to you about an issue that concerns me deeply–the continuity of representation of Massachusetts in the United States should a Senate vacancy occur. …” – Senator Edward M. Kennedy, July 2, 2009 The Boston Globe broke the story today. Kennedy advisers were adamant yesterday that the timing of the letter did [...]
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New York Times: CIA Hired Blackwater Contractors
The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials. [...] The fact that the C.I.A. used an outside company for the program was a major reason [...]
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Afghan Election Is On
–updated– Larger map here, via BBC The voting has begun. Terrific post at World Focus by a Marine regarding the elections, but also check out his blog. Found it via Nick Schifrin on Twitter. These latest entries won’t be current long, but it gives you an idea of what’s happening right now, via Twitter: strickvl [...]
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Obama’s ‘Strategy Session’ Day Begins With Smerconish
–Removed from 1:27 pm, after event ended.– Today, Pres. Obama offered Michael Smerconish a first. Obama is quoted as having said: “some folks on the left got a little excited” about the public option. You know, because “it’s just one part” of health care reform. Via Garance Franke-Ruta: President Obama has invited conservative Philadelphia talk [...]
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BIPARTISANSHIP
It’s simply not in the Republican Party’s best interest to help Democrats and Pres. Obama succeed on health care reform. Something that would solidify for all time the irrelevance of the right on social safety net issues, while setting in stone the passion and intent for which progressives stand, which is all about making the [...]
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Sect. Clinton Challenges Status Quo on Women’s Issues
Ritu Sharma, president of the anti-poverty group Women Thrive Worldwide, said she already sees the results of Clinton’s efforts in the bureaucracy. When Sharma’s staff recently attended a meeting about a new agricultural aid program, she said, one State Department official joked, “We have to integrate women — or we’re going to be fired.” – [...]
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Meanwhile, Afghan Election Begins Tonight
The Administration is putting out word that it won’t countenance further troop deployments beyond what it has committed this year. But General Stanley McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan is predicated on safeguarding the civilian population, and that takes boots on the ground. President Obama needs to weigh whether he can afford not to meet his [...]
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Washington Post: ‘Public Option Wasn’t Intended as Major Focus’
–updated below– For the second time in two days, Mr. Obama did not mention health care on Tuesday, a marked departure from the aggressive public relations campaign he mounted in July and early August. The White House is striving to stay out of the fray, aides said, until the president can get away on vacation [...]
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Quiet, You’re Bothering Someone
Lesson #1 (for the gullible and naive): No politician ever did anything difficult without being pressured. That includes Mr. Obama. Lesson #2 (for the sycophantic and fall-in-liners): Whatever the Administration is saying today, whether from Sebelius, Bill Burton or Mr. Gibbs is due to the pressure progressives are putting on them. This group does not [...]
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