Recently in Politics Category

A week wouldn't be complete without a few musings from the mind of Michele (Bachmann, that is). Last night on Larry King Live, when pressed by King about whether or not she agrees with the "birthers," the pride of Minnesota said: "I have no reason to doubt that he wasn't born in the United States. I have none." Knowing Ms. Bachmann's difficulty with the English language, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and...

File this under, 'if they'll do this to their own employees, what will they do to you':"WellPoint Inc., the largest U.S. insurer, dismissed a "small number" of workers last week and announced cuts to employee health benefits Friday, in its latest attempt to deal with the recession's toll on enrollment.WellPoint eliminated the positions last week and expects to let more go before year's end, though the number will be "relatively small," Kristin Binns, a spokeswoman,...

Fox News gets their share of criticism here, because as the late John Houseman would say, they have uuuhhned it. But in the giving credit where credit is due department, there was an exchange between Shepard Smith and Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) yesterday over the merits of the public option. Smith makes a stronger case for the public option than have many, if not most, of our elected officials in D.C., including pointing out both...

Warning: there is some random stuff in here, but it's based upon the research I've done and where it randomly took me at the time. I encourage you to think about things and let your critical thinking take you to places you've never been. Because we live in a world of naysayers, I have included links to the sites from which I have derived my information at the end of this piece. I challenge...

On September 29th on Countdown Eric Burns, president of Media Matters, said of Fox News, "This is no longer a news organization, this is a political organization." Case in point; here's Mike Huckabee on his own show on Fox, and also on Greta Van Susteren's propaganda hour, asking viewers to go to something called balancecutsave.com and sign a petition calling on Congress to "balance the budget, cut their spending, and save American families." Watch:<br />What...

Rachel Weiner of the Huffington Post reports today that a conservative group that calls themselves The Conservative Bible Project believe that "Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations" so they are re-translating. Upon first reading this story, I was reminded of the great Kevin Smith movie Dogma, where Jesus is repackaged as the Buddy Jesus (see photo above) to attract a younger crowd to Catholisism.  Sadly, these folks aren't joking.  The...

Some numbers to consider in light of General Stanley McChrystal's request for as many as 40,000 additional troops in Afghanistan, and  numbers to remember when you hear the voices in Washington who support the troop increase but argue that we can't afford health care reform:  Annual funding for U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan, 2002: $20.8 billion.Annual funding for U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan, 2009: $60.2 billion. Total funds for U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan, 2002-2009:...

I learn something new every day, usually from people who are younger than I am and who haven't developed the jaded or cynical or hard-headed perspective that I have as an adult. This one comes from a couple of young folks I know. We'll start with my 23-y-o highly intelligent, Georgetown graduated, extremely idealistic, somewhat pretentious, annoyingly talented, raconteur nephew who writes regularly (lately at http://www.echoditto.com/blogs/bryn-bellomy) and introduced me to a new term. See wiki definition below...

One of the labels for Obama that gets thrown out regularly is the label of the "messiah." Personally, I find this term offensive because I personally believe there is only one messiah. That messiah died nearly 2000 years ago. However, what angers me the most is that this is yet another example of fake outrage from the right. They came up with the term messiah and then attributed it to the left. I don't know...

A trip down Hypocrisy Lane. Remember Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Damascus in April of 2007 to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad?  President Bush called it "counterproductive" and Sen. Joe Lieberman said it was "bad for America." The right-wing blogosphere was throwing a tantrum. Hot Air called it "undermining our foreign policy." Sister Toldjah asked, "Can we question their patriotism now?" The headline at WorldNetDaily was "Terrorists Go Ga-Ga Over Pelosi's Trip." Jammie Wearing...