After spending 16 years in Mississippi jails for “their alleged role in a robbery in 1993 in which no one was hurt and $11 supposedly was taken,” the Scott sisters left prison yesterday. Their freedom, however, comes at a price: Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour agreed to the release of the sisters on the condition that Gladys Scott donate her kidney to her sister, Jamie, within one year. That condition has...

Some news about legislative activity out West, via Ezra Klein:

Is repealing health care worth $230 billion? The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says repealing health care reform would add $230 billion to the deficit. Of course the idea could not go anywhere since Barack Obama has now talked about reigning in the deficit and Republicans are adamant about not adding anything to the deficit (OOPS! They’re the ones trying to repeal it.) But the question lingers:...

Republicans made a new budget rule that all legislation must be paid for, and one of the first things they did in the new session was break their own rule:

There is really nothing, beyond the title, that I can add to this:

WASHINGTON — Edmund Burke, one of history’s greatest conservatives, warned that abstractions are the enemy of responsible government. “I never govern myself, no rational man ever did govern himself, by abstractions and universals,” Burke wrote. “A statesman differs from a professor in a university; the latter has only the general view of society; the former, the statesman,...

Remember how, during the past few years, Republicans repeatedly accused the Democrats of a lack of “openness and transparency” in the legislative process, of not allowing adequate time to either review proposed legislation or to debate it and—in particular in the case of the health care bill—of ramming it down the throat of the GOP and of the American people without going through the bipartisan...

Last week, I wrote on the suspension of the consecutive life sentences of Jamie Scott and Gladys Scott by Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. Part of the post was on how and why the Scott sisters received such severe sentences for “their alleged role in a robbery in 1993 in which no one was hurt and $11 supposedly was taken.” The remainder of the post focused on a New York Times column by Bob Herbert bemoaning...

There are numerous social, political and economic events and accomplishments that will make 2010 go down in history as a very remarkable year. When it comes to equal rights in the military, of course the repeal of “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” will rank as one of the most significant achievements in that area in decades. But we shouldn’t forget that 2010 also marked the year when the Navy decided...

The big news as America gets ready to zip it of the traditionally slow news weekend called New Year’s Eve weekend to another full-fledged news cycle is that the Republicans have made it clear that they will vote to repeal President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform program before he delivers his State of the Union address. And GOPers are also sending out the word that they will find ways to defund...

Every New Year most of us make good faith resolutions—some of us keep them. Every New Year most of us have hopes for the coming year—some of us will realize some of those hopes. One of my hopes is that there will better justice in our nation, in our world. On this first day of the New Year, I have come across some indications—albeit “mixed” ones—that, at least in one case, we may...

WASHINGTON — Was 2010 American liberalism’s Waterloo? How are we to square the achievement of so many goals that have long been on progressive wish lists with the resounding defeat suffered by supporters of these measures in November? Let’s begin with what is a most painful fact for liberals: Conservatism, a doctrine that seemed moribund on election night in 2008, enjoyed a far more rapid...

Predictions of 2012 success for Obama by Prairie Weather Don’t be too optimistic, too complacent, says Nate Silver. Silver is probably the most reliable and certainly the most interesting numbers cruncher around. How about these predictions? The Washington Examiner’s Michael Barone, in a careful analysis, suggests that Mr. Obama won’t be easy to defeat. Karl Rove, meanwhile, recently made comments...

Get ready to hear talk show hosts and others charge the Obama administration with ushering in “death panels.” You betchya: When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1. Under the...

Peace: the best definition of Peace I know is Live and Let Live. For, as we say, in this time of year…the Child of Love is born on a silent night, a holy night… a Child of Love who is the Master of Peace, who ever teaches those who ‘are as lonely as an owl on the ridgepole’ with no one to speak to. We are learning too, via science, what the old women have always said is so: Peacefulness,...

Back in May, I wrote here at TMV about a Roman Catholic nun who was excommunicated for approving an abortion that was necessary to save the life of the mother.

Recently, an MIT researcher named David House interviewed Army PFC Bradley Manning at the Quantico, Virginia, brig where he has been detained for five months, following two months of confinement in Kuwait. The interview (conducted under severely restrictive conditions, which House describes at the end of the article), contradicts in many important respects the account given by officials at the Pentagon and at...

WASHINGTON — At the beginning of 2009, the choice before Democrats who controlled the 111th Congress was whether they would enact historic legislation, even at the risk of their majority, or whether they would play it safe. They gave the safe option a pass, with two results: This will go down as the most productive Congress since the 89th, which was even more Democratic because of Lyndon Johnson’s...

Sen. Coburn is the one who was threatening to put a hold on the bill so it could not come to a vote. So how does the Senate’s passage of the bill become a win for Coburn? Here’s how:

Out here in the warm, desert sun, it is quite possible to visualize the original setting of the birth of Jesus Christ. It can get uncomfortably cold at night in the desert but the days are replete with sun and relative warmth in comparison to much of the Northern Hemisphere. Considering the three great monotheistic global religions all originated in the desert, the modern-day geographic and climatic equivalent...

“Health services.”

Blessed holidays… the daylight will soon stay longer… the pelts on the horses grow thicker now… the rabbits are wearing their white fur coats… the red tails can be more easily seen against the snow… the red foxes show themselves in daylight trotting across the open fields, the night sky is deep blue velvet, there are sheep in the shelter side of the wind, and the ranchers are...

The bill does not have anything to do with abortion and does not appropriate any new funding, but House Republicans used both of those boogeymen to ensure its failure to pass in the House (h/t Echidne):

If the Senate passes the 9/11 first responders bill in this lame duck session of congress, it proves several things. One, Republicans can be shamed into doing the right thing, and two, Jon Stewart deserves Emmy, Peabody and Pulitzer awards. First, read this account of a successful Republican attempt to block the necessary legislation last week. Now read and view Stewart’s epic Thursday night. If the Republicans...

As more and more states adopt medical marijuana laws, employers increasingly face the question of addressing marijuana use for medicinal purposes within the context of zero tolerance, drug free workplace policies. Complicating the picture is the difficulty in testing whether an employee is “under the influence” at work. With time and dilution, alcohol dissipates in the bloodstream in relatively short order,...