Categories: CBS, John Roberts, wilderness
Corporate Supreme
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| Categories: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, John McCain, CBS, President Reagan, cabletelevison, Politics, Obama Administration, healthcare policy, government regulation, Hillary Clinton, Supreme court, Roberts court, Samuel Alito, Warren Court, Citizens United v. FEC, campaign finance Years ago, when I was in a quandary about the direction of my career, I got some sound advice: Never fall in love with a corporation, because it’s constitutionally unable to reciprocate.
This week, the Supreme Court created a limited redress to that issue in Citizens United v the Federal Elections Commission, giving corporations unfettered permission to spend their general funds on the campaigns of politicians they favor, and turning them into “a real live boy” as Slate put it. Who says money can’t buy you love? If the Rehnquist court handed Republicans the presidency in 2000, it’s hard to believe the Roberts court hasn’t handed them the Congress in 2010.
The Limits of Narrative
| Categories: Barack Obama, CBS, Talk Radio, foreign policy, Vietnam war, Afghanistan Even before President Obama spoke Tuesday night, the news had leaked that he had authorized 30,000 new troops for Afghanistan.
I didn’t think his speech would reassure me, but it did. A little. What a pleasure it is to hear a president with a sophisticated mind, an ordered thought process and the vocabulary to match them! For people like me, it’s the ultimate seduction.
The Trouble with Bygones
I find it painful to watch House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defend herself. It’s not that I don’t believe that the CIA failed to brief her about waterboarding terrorist suspects. I do, especially now that former Senator Bob Graham has demonstrated that he was no where in the room three of the four times the CIA claimed it briefed him. And he has no memory of discussing waterboarding in the one top-secret hearing he attended (no notes allowed, all aides excluded.)
It’s a nasty business we’ve been involved with since 9/11, and the further we get from that horrific event, the clearer it is that our government behaved badly
Awe and Relief
| Categories: Barack Obama, John McCain, CBS, Abuse of Power, Sarah Palin, George McGovern, fascism, Pennsylvania, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Unitary Executive Tuesday’s election still fills me with awe, and not just for Barack Obama. The American electorate is wiser than I dared hope. Even John McCain, who ran a shoddy campaign, delivered a concession speech that was generous and inspiring. Sarah Palin has flown back to Alaska with new respect, I would hope, for the power of community organizing.
I spent the week prior to the election in a place I’d never known existed—Northeast Philadelphia—with a marvelous group of people, most of whom were volunteers.
Hank and Charlie's Excellent Adventure
| Categories: Jerrold Nadler, CBS, Economics, Henry Paulson, Charles Rangel, Donald Rumsfeld The incredible hulk otherwise known as Henry Paulson has a plan, and it’s a doozy. For a mere $500 billion (and perhaps as much as a trillion) the country can buy its way out of economic disaster. Certainly that ratchets up George W. Bush’s advice to go shopping after the terrorist attacks of 2001.
My congressman, Democrat Charles Rangel, spent two hours on the phone with Paulson talking about legislation that will come before the House Ways and Means Committee, which he chairs. He discusses the conversation in today’s New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/nyregion/20about.html?scp=1&sq=Rangel%20Paulson&st=cse
“It ends up, ‘Trust me, it’s the right thing to do. And if you don’t do it, the economy will melt down. Not only do we have to do this, you have to do this next week,’” Rangel said.
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