Foreclosure pets are companion animals left behind when their owners leave after losing their homes. I write about it here.

I’m not gay. I did not serve in the military. Therefore, when the discussion focuses on the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy I defer to others more knowledgeable than myself. Rachel Maddow, a proud lesbian who has her own show on MSNBC, may be the most visible proponent of gay rights in our political culture. On her Wednesday night show, she took President Obama to task for foot-dragging...

Via MSNBC: Judge: Calif. gay marriages can resume Aug. 18 Unclear whether there will be a new challenge by opponents before then

A CNN/Opinion Research poll released yesterday shows, for the first time, that a majority of Americans now favor legally recognized gay marriage. While polling has been trending in this direction for years, this is the first poll to show a majority favoring marriage equity. The poll itself was produced by splitting the sample group roughly in two and employing two separate interview procedures, Version A and...

Let ‘Em Eat Soup by Michael Reagan The members of the media who savaged my stepmother Nancy Reagan for buying new china for the White House — dinnerware that will last for decades — have for the most part either ignored the cost and the significance of Michelle Obama’s regal visit to Spain or downplayed it. Those who criticized this display of Mrs. Obama’s royal pretensions — the cartoonish...

I have been one of the most vociferous critics of George W. Bush. Of course, the Iraq war was right at the top of my reasons for criticizing the former president. There were many other reasons. Take for example the former president’s proposal in March 2006 to bend the non-proliferation rules by proposing to allow a nuclear-armed India to import nuclear fuel and technology. His proposal came after a visit...

GOP: Bring Back ‘Corruption of Blood’ by Tina Dupuy It takes a certain kind of fortitude and leadership to take a strong stand against a small group of children. No, I’m not calling Congress “children.” Well, not directly. I’m referring to the barking by Republican leaders to repeal the 14th Amendment, which is interpreted to mean everyone (with few exceptions) born in the U.S. is automatically a...

Momma grizzlies with moola are on the march, as Linda McMahon of Connecticut joins Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman of California in bicoastal bids for a hostile takeover of American government. Since Sarah Palin wowed voters with a wisecrack about hockey moms as pit bulls with lipstick and went on to make a mouthy mint in the media from a lost election and an abandoned governorship, a new kind of political woman...

It often takes many years to accurately decipher the past’s important events and the overall trajectory of history. Singular events must be placed in their proper global and historical context. Then the law of unintended consequences has to play its devious and essential part in history. The September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington DC – originally inspired by Osama Ben Laden and designed,...

Here is the latest example (emphasis is in original):

There are few things that really annoy me in politics anymore. Congratulations, Senator Harry Reid you hit the jackpot! Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made the following statement: “I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, OK?” Reid said. “Do I need to say more?” Why is it that the race / ethnicity card is played by Democrats who...

I have not been posting very much lately. It is not because I am out of ideas–none of us ever are. It may be because just about every subject, every issue I may want to address can be politically viewed, misinterpreted and even at a moderate site such as this one, “vigorously” debated and attacked. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t shrink from a healthy, civil debate or from equally vigorously defending...

While blasting Republicans for blocking immigration reform, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid laid out his perception of where Latino voters should stand, “I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, OK. Do I need to say more?” It’s true that the Republican Party harbors the likes of Tom Tancredo, now running for Colorado Governor as an Independent, and Russell...

You know, I really wonder about people like Judith Warner, how they can look themselves in the mirror every morning and not throw up:

These days rage is all the…er..rage….in political “debate,” many blog posts, talk radio and cable screamfests, on the highways (in California if your middle finger is broken you have a “driving disability”), in airplanes with a new apparent national-hero flight attendents and now: among fast food customers. Let’s call this one McNugget Rage. Just watch this customer’s...

Ross Douthat has an amazingly dumb piece in his New York Times column space today about why all the usual arguments against same-sex marriage are wrong but it shouldn’t be allowed anyway. TBogg has the shorter version.  Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald have the best substantive responses (Andrew’s is more personal and reflective; Glenn’s is the legal analysis of Douthat’s argument)....

Lessons from the Oil Spill by Eugene Robinson Washington Post Writers Group Columnist WASHINGTON — Flying back to Washington from Pensacola, Fla., on June 15, President Obama and the man he put in charge of handling the Gulf oil spill, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, had a come-to-Jesus talk. The administration was getting hammered for a slow and disorganized response to the environmental disaster,...

According to this article from France’s Le Monde praising U.S. lawmakers, the Wall Street reform package recently passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Obama includes elements likely to help people in countries that have great oil and mineral wealth – but equally great corruption – finally reap some of the benefits of mining and oil drilling. For Le Monde, the managing director...

My wife and daughter think I talk to myself when I sit on the patio and they see my lips move from the kitchen table inside. It’s not true of course. I’m talking to the rabbits. In North Scottsdale, housing is constructed to preserve natural habitat for the wild things that preceded human encroachment. The vast washes that run between houses are home to all manner of wildlife. With a half wall topped...

WASHINGTON — When it comes to the role and functioning of the United States Senate, my rather dyspeptic views could not be more at odds with those of Chris Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who is retiring at the end of the year. I’ve reached the point where I’d abolish the Senate if I could. It is more profoundly undemocratic than it was when the Founders created it and less genuinely...

by Walter Brasch The Obama administration is a welcome change from the Bush–Cheney years. Against severe Republican opposition, President Obama has kept campaign promises to reform health care, curb Wall Street excesses, create a federally-funded stimulus program to help bring the nation out of the recession, and to remove American troops from the needless Iraq war, which has already cost Americans more than...

I was doing some research earlier for my next article at Suite 101 — about the economic costs of depression — and I came across some amazing statistics. Even I, who live with depression every day and in fact have lived with it for most of my life — long before I knew what it was — did not know quite how stunningly serious depression is in terms of its effect on society. Here are some...

Andrew McCarthy thinks he knows what Americans think — about everything, really, but in this particular case, about Muslims and the Ground Zero mosque:

There is no way I can improve on Ted Olson’s responses to Chris Wallace here, so I will not even try (via Think Progress):

Richard Nixon’s spirit lives on. Thirty-six years after the only presidential resignation ever, he is still with us as admirers try to hide evidence of his disgrace in the Nixon Library and Museum just as he himself did in the White House. The Watergate room of the memorial is almost as blank as those missing Oval Office tapes in a to-do described by the New York Times after “the Nixon Foundation–a...