Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Speaking of Michigan and Nader Josh Marshall links to this from ABC News: Consumer advocate Ralph Nader’s quixotic presidential campaign says it submitted about 5,400 signatures to get on the Michigan ballot, far short of the required number of 30,000. Luckily for him, approximately 43,000 signatures were filed by Michigan Republicans on his behalf, more […]

Swing State Numbers The latest Gallup/USA Today poll shows Kerry even in Missouri, down 4 in Florida, and up 5 in Ohio — with Nader in the race.(*) Since Gore barely lost in 2000 while carrying none of these states, and Bush seems unlikely to win any states he didn’t carry in 2000 (the possible […]

Bush Tells Urban League Employment is Rising   After George Bush snubbed the NAACP, he appears before the Urban League with another partisan attack at the Democrats with lines like: “I know plenty of politicians assume they have your vote. But did they earn it, and do they deserve it?” and “Have the traditional solutions […]

Perspective Kuffner puts things into perspective nicely today: …I have a few words to say about the attempt by the Republicans in Congress to force DOMA-related lawsuits out of the federal courts. I just can’t decide if I find this sort of behavior outrageous or pitiable. I mean, for crying out loud, we’ve just had […]

The National Archives I’m not sure what to make of the Sandy Berger kerfuffle, other than that it’s strange. But Bob Somerby has a pretty good idea: Meanwhile, add the National Archives to the list of deeply dysfunctional agencies. Apparently, they only keep close watch on their documents after they think that some are missing. […]

Rumsfeld’s Pentagon Before 9/11 My earlier post excerpting Chapter 8 portrayed the Commission’s findings regarding Attorney General Ashcroft prior to 9/11. Chapter 6 paints a similar picture of (probably benign) negligence in the case of Rumsfeld. The confirmation of the Pentagon’s new leadership was a lengthy process. Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz was confirmed in March 2001 […]

Clinton-Bashing and National Security Here’s another short excerpt from the Commission Report that I find enlightening. Apparently all of the useless obsession with Clinton’s personal life during 1998 had an impact on our national security: By the early hours of the morning of August 20, President Clinton and all his principal advisers had agreed to […]

The System Was Blinking Red After spending only an hour or two with the report so far, Chapter 8 has become my favorite chapter. That’s because it seems to offer the most insight into whether and how the attacks might have been prevented. Chapter 8 describes the state of US intelligence reporting and government responses […]

The 9/11 Commission Report The 9/11 commission report is an odd document in some ways. Ten out of thirteen chapters of the report simply contain an organized retelling of the factual documents and statements that they received. Only the last three chapters contain any sort of “editorializing,” as it were. And in that section, the […]

Update on the Tax Cuts Here’s the latest on the proposed tax cuts about which I wrote the other day. Yesterday congressional Republicans reached a compromise between the extreme tax-cutters and those fiscally responsible Republicans who wanted to limit the tax cuts and find offsetting revenue to make the changes budget-neutral. So what was the […]