Thoughts about California First, this old proverb, sometimes attributed to Ben Franklin and more recently publicized by Hunter Thompson: “In a democracy, people usually get the government they deserve, and deserve the government they get.” We’ll see what kind of government Californians deserve tomorrow. Second, a question. Is California the only state that would boot […]

Once in a Blue Moon… …someone does what he believes is the right thing even though it enrages his constituency and peers. And he knows he’ll be shredded in the press and by friend and foe alike for doing said right thing. But he does it anyway. Even less frequently, he gets credit from unexpected […]

Tom DeLay is on Board! Mr. DeLay apparently wants a full investigation of the Plame affair. At a press conference, Tom DeLay released a letter calling for an FBI investigation signed by the Republican House Leaders: Whether or not that specific story originated with the White House or its allies, clearly there is credible evidence […]

Disgusting Via Kuffner, this depressing story from the Austin-American Statesman: [T]he House voted Thursday to adjourn until 2 p.m. Sunday for possible debate — which could go on beyond sundown — on any map approved by House-Senate conferees. House Speaker Tom Craddick said that if there is no map to be considered Sunday, the House […]

RSS Apparently, my old RSS feed went down, so I’ve switched from using blogmatrix to using blogstreet, meaning you may have to update your aggregator. I think I’ve got the code right, but I’m not certain. If any techies feel like viewing the page source and checking it out, I will appreciate it greatly. AB

On Dean Just to clarify, I have no problems whatsoever with Dean. I simply do not want his supporters attacking the other Democratic candidates (and I’d be nonplussed if Dean approved of such steps). The same goes for all the candidates. For example, I was very disappointed in Kerry for his stupid “Dear Governor Dean” […]

Governor Schwarzenegger? MoveOn has really become a powerful cash machine. Previously, they raised $1 million in about a week to support the Texas Eleven. Now, in even less time, they’ve raised $500,000 to air anti-Schwarzenegger ads: Dear MoveOn member, 24 hours ago, we launched an emergency ad campaign to tell California voters the recent revelations […]

Fact-Checking “FACT CHECK CLARK” Tapped has two pieces up, “FACT CHECK CLARK, PART I” and the aptly titled follow-up, “FACT CHECK CLARK, PART II“. Thanks to Tapped’s recently instituted policy of signing posts, I can see that both were penned by Garance Franke-Ruta. I was suspicious of these posts for two reasons: first, it was […]

A Suggestion for Wilson and Plame John Dean, of Watergate fame, has a piece in Salon.com comparing the Plame affair to Watergate. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he argues that this scandal is more serious than Watergate was in some crucial respects. He also gives a very intriguing piece of advice in the Salon article: Regardless of whether […]

An Unemployment Report that’s Not Too Bad Looking on the bright side, it’s good news for the US labor market that the unemployment rate was unchanged, at 6.1%, according to the data released today by the BLS. In fact, payrolls even grew by 57,000. This wasn’t enough to match the average of 100,000 or so […]