The New York Times came up with what I’d call a strange title for this article: Women Are Now Equal as Victims of Poor Economy.  And the key points are oddly framed: [F]or the first time since the women’s movement came to life, an economic recovery has come and gone, and the percentage of women at work has fallen, not risen, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. Each of the seven previous recoveries since 1960 ended with a greater percentage of women at work than when it began… The...

When I was a kid back in the Seventies, a favorite sarcastic phrase used to peers who were getting a bit too full of themselves and getting all entitled and snippy about playing fair was: ‘What do you think you are — some kind of P.C.?’ ‘P.C.’ stood for ‘Privileged Character.’ Dick Cheney is now officially our nation’s most privileged character. It seems that Cheney Branch has thought up another innovative new privilege to protect itself from Congressional...

Who doesn’t love JibJab? This has got something for everyone: Send a JibJab Sendables® eCard Today! People who can bear a trip down nostalgia lane will enjoy the Bush/Kerry version of Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land.’ My favorite line: ‘You can’t say ‘nuclear’/That really scares me…’

‘Nowhere was the anger at the media greater than in the media.’ Stewart eviscerates our reactive and sensation-loving media. He also has a good suggestion for how the Obama campaign should have responded.

Here’s a story of one Guantanamo interrogation.  Here’s the video.  I really couldn’t watch much of it — I admit it.  It’s gut-wrenching.  I’m just warning you. Cernig summarizes it better than I could do. Well now. A tape of a Canadian 16 year old sobbing as he’s interrogated at Gitmo has surfaced after the Canadian Supreme Court ordered it released. The teen was captured in Afghanistan and accused of being a terrorist, alleges torture...

I admit it.   I am afraid I thought the infamous cover was hilarious. It didn’t occur to me till the condemnation started rolling in that it could be detrimental to Obama in the wrong hands.  I can’t imagine that anyone with a sense of context (or humor) could possibly have taken it as anything but a knock at those who buy into attempts to demonize Obama. But I understand the concern of those such as Jesse Taylor at Pandagon who perfectly well understand the intent...

The New York Times has published an op-ed by Barack Obama. It’s good news, isn’t it, he pointedly notes, that our troops’ sacrifices have got the Iraqis to a point when their government might actually be about ready to take off the training wheels and ride off without us holding the handlebars? (NYT)  And whether they are ready are not — see this BBC article clarifying the quote on which Obama relied — isn’t it about as clear as it could possibly be that we can’t go on babysitting...

(I see that Bridget Magnus has just posted a well-informed piece on the evolving crisis. You should most definitely read that first.) Federal regulators seized IndyMac bank, a major player in the housing boom, on Friday (WSJ).  Banking regulators are bracing themselves for ‘a slew’ of such failures (WSJ), which means that ordinary borrowers had better brace themselves as well. ‘The collapse is expected to cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. between $4 billion and $8...

First, see Dorian de Wind’s piece ; it has a bearing on this. Did you know that George W. Bush is still president?  It’s true.  And he’s still got plenty of ways to worsen things before his term is over, leaving us a country discredited in the eyes of our own allies, a more toxic and unstable environment, a military stretched to the breaking point, and an enormous deficit. He merrily signed off at the G8 by saying his ‘"Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter,’...

It seems that even John McCain understands economic reality better than Phil Gramm, who told The Washington Times: “You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession. … We have sort of become a nation of whiners." “You just hear this constant whining, complaining, about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline. … We’ve never been more dominant; we’ve never had more natural advantages than we have today.” McCain at least knows there’s...

At the G8, Bush departs with one of his trademark kidding-on-the-square one liners: President George Bush signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets at his last G8 summit. As he prepared to fly out from Japan, he told his fellow leaders: "Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter." President Bush made the private joke in the summit’s closing session, senior sources said yesterday. His remarks were taken as a two-fingered salute...

This piece of legislation — and what Congress has done to the fourth amendment—which protects the privacy of ordinary citizens from unreasonable invasion by the government —  matters.  Those who defended the telecoms for breaking federal law at the request of the Bush administration kept talking about the telecoms’ subjection to  ‘the heavy hand of government.’  This was always spurious argument in the case of the telecoms, who had no more...

Sometimes you don’t know whether to cry or scream. There are many forms of corruption and waste in the government’s fulfillment of its functions, and most just make me furious. But the story of Katrina’s aftermath is one long chronicle of incompetence piled upon a degree of bureaucratic cluelessness that just boggles the mind.  The waste here is of money and goods designed to alleviate the misery of our own people. First, let’s review recent events.  These illustrate...

Columnist Steven Greenhut writes: Syndicated columnist Bob Novak, writing about the surprising number of conservatives who are backing Democrat Barack Obama rather than Republican John McCain for the presidency, captured their widespread sentiment when he quoted one "Obamacon" with impeccable GOP credentials: "The Republican Party is a dead rotting carcass with a few decrepit old leaders stumbling around like zombies in a horror version of ‘Weekend at Bernie,’ handcuffed...

Reuters explores the glee of coffee drinkers who are glad to learn that Starbucks will be closing 600 ‘underperforming’ locations nationwide.  I cannot condone this. Before Starbucks came to town, where were all these plucky, innovative independent coffee shops that allegedly was keeping out?  Even in my coffee-drinking town, where people will park their laptops for hours, there was a dearth of competition before — and any competitors that Starbucks subsequently put out...

Obama has clarified his supposed opposition to allowing a woman to have a late term abortion in circumstances when the pregnancy causes the mother mental distress. (The Swamp)  He does not think mere ‘mental distress’ is a reason to permit such an exception. According to Linda Douglass, the Obama campaign’s senior spokesperson, the senator from Illinois was making a distinction in the magazine interview between medically diagnosed mental illness and the kind of mental distress...

As I noted yesterday, the Iranians have announced that their policy on uranium enrichment remains unchanged despite attempts by several nations to persuade them to cease and desist. Barring a complete capitulation by the Iranians, which no one really believes is on the cards, is it possible that Bush and Cheney will leave office without opening a third military front in Iran? Is there really any doubt that Bush fully expects the diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to comply with the demands of...

I happen to think the FISA bill is a terrible piece of legislation — and not just because of the telecom issue — but I am pretty sure it’s going to pass.  That’s not what this is about. What this is about is the reasons I’m hearing from various highly-placed public officials why I and America need this so-called compromise. Do they take me for a fool?  Yes, they take me for a fool.  Either that, or they are banking on the entire American public being as...

The other day I posted a piece about the most recent set of negotiations (by the EU and others) with Iran. Lots of incentives were promised….if only Iran would stop its uranium enrichment program (BN-Politics). The Iranians have returned a reply. In the first official comments since Iran submitted its response to the EU, spokesman Gholamhossein Elham said that Iran “will not go back on its rights on the nuclear issue”. “Iran’s stand regarding its peaceful nuclear program...

Certain GOP members think it might be best for everyone if Bush just doesn’t go to the GOP Convention.  Damn, that’s just sad.  As The New York Times poignantly puts it: What if your family was planning a big end-of-summer bash (a Grand Old Party, you might call it) but preferred that you not be seen — or heard?…“I don’t think there are a lot of people who want to see him at the convention,” said [Rep.Dana]  Rohrabacher of California…. No hard feelings,...

WHERE’S FREDO? Join the hunt for Alberto Gonzales. Anyone can play. Condi Rice is proud —PROUD, I TELL YOU — that the US went to war in Iraq. And she’s sure that the world isn’t more dangerous as a consequence. Meanwhile, some Republicans are apparently in a state of alarm and despondency over the President’s current activities. They’re worried about the President, already sufficiently unpopular, is being shown fiddling about while the economy goes...

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen has stated that a strike against Iran would be ‘extremely stressful’ for the US. I’ll say it would — though of course, he’s talking about a different sort of stress. There have been a number of reports lately (and significant evidence) suggesting that Israel is gearing up for a strike against Iran. Just to take one example, more than 100 F-15 and F-16 fighters recently participated in exercises over the Mediterranean...

Yet another point in Obama’s favor: the Christian Conservatives and evangelicals have decided that McCain is, after all, God’s candidate. That is to say, while many of them feel that McCain was most definitely not God’s first choice, God most definitely prefers him to Barack Obama. So even though they — meaning the lead mouthpieces of the Christian Right — said they would never, ever do it, Senator McBack ‘n Fill carefully repudiated his every principled stand...

It seems that under the Bush Administration, Chinese interrogation methods designed to elicit false confessions during the Korean War became the basis for the training of interrogators at Guantanamo (NYT).  It seems there was a certain chart used in training the interrogators came to light during June 17 hearings by the Senate Armed Services committee. The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive...