For all that the hyperbole surrounding the proposed building of a mosque and Islamic center two blocks from Ground Zero would make it seem that religious tolerance – at least of Muslims – in America is dead, voters have, actually, elected to Muslims to Congress since the 9/11 attacks. Reps. Keith Ellison of Minnesota and [...]
Could all the sound and fury over a proposed mosque near Ground Zero actually be good for Democrats? At least one prominent Republican strategist thinks so, both over the short and the long term. “It’s the Monica Lewinsky ploy,” says Grover Norquist, a loyal lieutenant to the 1994 Gingrich revolution and president of Americans for [...]
Anthony Shadid, who has covered the war in Iraq from end to end, has this depressing piece about the political stalemate–and the incompetence of Iraq’s political class–in the NY Times today. This paragraph is particularly revealing: Iraq’s neighbors, in particular Turkey and Iran, often unhelpful, have taken to playing politics here like a parlor game. [...]
If it’s a Tuesday it’s a primary day and today voters are heading to the polls in Washington and Wyoming. Voting has been going on in Washington for two weeks already and it looks likely that former State Senator Dino Rossi will easily win his primary. But the race hasn’t left him totally unscathed. Rossi, [...]
A federal jury in Chicago has convicted former Ill. Governor Rod Blagojevich on a single count of lying to federal agents. That charge was the only one of 24 counts, which included allegations that Blagojevich tried to sell Barack Obama’s old Senate seat, on which the jury reached a verdict. After 14 days of deliberation, [...]
How much confidence does the lead filer of the lawsuit against the individual mandate have that it will prevail? Virginia, whose attorney general and governor are leading the charge, at the same time is taking definitive steps to make sure that federal health reform is implemented effectively within it’s borders. Yesterday, Gov. Bob McDonnell announced [...]
Robert Pear of the New York Times today picks up an unsurprising, but important, new study showing that the recession has caused Americans to cut back on medical care far more than in countries with universal health care. This is to be expected. In tough economic times, even health care costs are considered discretionary for [...]
This, from the New York Times today: Two mosques, founded in 1970 and 1985, are already within several blocks of the proposed center. Oh My God! The sacrilege! Paging Newt Gingrich: should we close those suckers down? Actually, this is further evidence of the true nature of this squabble: a particularly sleazy form of Nativist [...]
