Categories: Politics, Sex on the Hill, voting rights
What I'd Tweet For
Who knew that the key to a functioning, effective Congress would be revealed in the scandal surrounding Representative Anthony Weiner? Yet, there it was in the Sunday Times in a piece by Sheryl Gay Stolberg explaining why sex scandals are rarely initiated by female politicians:
“The shorthand of it is that women run because there is some public issue that they care about, some change they want to make, some issue that is a priority for them, and men tend to run for office because they see this as a career path.”
Gerrymandering, Now a Motion Picture
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| Categories: Politics, ACT NOW, state government, redistricting, voting rights Elbridge Gerry signed the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, but he refused to sign the Constitution because there was no Bill of Rights. He was our fifth vice president, but nationally he’s most remembered for his partisan act of drawing a congressional district in Massachusetts. He put most of the Federalists into a single district and kept the rest for his own Democratic-Republican party.
Today, we call the redrawing of district lines to give unfair advantage gerrymandering.
The Wisdom of Solomon
| Categories: Al Gore, Politics, Obama Administration, Hillary Clinton, Afghanistan Lately, when I think of President Obama, King Solomon comes to mind.
From childhood, I was riveted by the story I heard in Sunday school about how the king determined which of two women was the real mother of a newborn infant by threatening to cleave it in half with a sword. Of course, the biological mother preferred to leave her baby whole even at the risk of not being able to care for it herself. At least, the baby would live.
President Obama should take a clue.
Speaking Truth to Problems
| Categories: Politics, Obama Administration, healthcare policy, education I have two new heroes this week: Diane Ravitch and Dennis Kucinich don’t have a whole lot in common, but both of them exhibited the rare ability to hang onto their principles and change their minds at the same time. We could use more leaders like them.
Corporate Supreme
| 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.
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