JURIST – Paper Chase: House votes to reverse ban on overseas contraceptive aid The amendment would allow contraceptive aid to be given to nongovernmental agencies overseas, regardless of whether they promote or provide abortions.The aid ban, originally called the Mexico City Policy [Wikipedia backgrounder], was initially introduced under President Ronald Reagan in 1984 and required nongovernmental organizations to agree as a condition of their receipt of US funds that they would neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations. This policy was in effect until it was rescinded on January 22, 1993. President…
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I’ve wondered about this before, but OneUtah.org’s post pointed out some recent studies that were collected about the huge disparity in health care, income, education, and plain old quality of life between “Blue” states and “Red” states, and offers an interesting analysis. First, some examples, none of which are going to be all that surprising, really. PERRspectives Blog: Health Care the Latest Red State Failure The same dismal pattern applies to a wide array of measures of social dysfunction and pathology. 8 of the top 10 states with the highest murder rates are squarely in Red America. 7 of the…
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Manolo’s Shoe Blog: Shoes, Fashion, Celebrity, and Manolo! The Manolo has posted a shocking image: not only does the middling-bad President Bush wear Crocs, he commits the sin of wearing dark Crocs with dark socks. Thus, he has updated your father’s socks-and-sandals shoecrime for the New Milennium, and for this he must be impeached.
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The doings of the Texas Legislature have been newsworthy for years – remember when a bunch of them went AWOL to avoid the redistricting vote and effectively kill it? This time, even the Republicans have had enough with the autocratic, absolutist rule of Speaker Craddick. Since he’s blocking a maneuver to vote on vacating his chair – in effect, he controls whether or not a vote to oust him can take place, a spontaneous walkout took place in the wee hours. One legislator just suggested that anyone that would have voted to oust the speaker just walk out with their…
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“Cleanup on aisle nine; rhetorical blood on the floor.” It’s a pleasure to read this fine rebuke and wonder “What would I say if I ran into one of my senators in the Dom’s Natural Market aisle?” Sadly, I actually have things in common with at least one of my Illinois senators – I’d be able to talk to Sen. Obama about hybrid cars and maybe a bit about community organizing. Durbin would be a tougher case, but he’s gained my grudging respect since the Dems got into power – although my patience with the party leadership is slipping now…
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Bush Says He’s Open to Iraq Bill With Benchmarks – New York Times
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I'm not a big fan of Illinois' Congressional wunderkind Rahm Emanuel, because he operates too much like a "political machine" guy – he kind of held on to the purse-strings during the last election and a lot of deserving grassroots candidates had to scramble for campaign funds because they weren't "insiders" or sexy enough to pique Emanuel's interest. Be that as it may, he recently did a rundown of all the highlights in the scandals, schenanigans, and criminal acts that have come to light that have plagued the Bush Administration. The full text is at www.TomPaine.com. It's a quite a…
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Operation Eagle Eye | Campaign for America's Future I didn't have time to go digging for juicy citations, but Campaign for America's Future did.
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Rebuilt Iraq Projects Found Crumbling – New York Times In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle. Good GOD, when will the horrific, politically embarassing scandals cease coming down the pike? January, 2008 can't come too fast for this country (or this Administration).
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Crooks and Liars » Stewart and McCain debate Iraq on The Daily Show: It gets heated…. My friend Jen recommends this, so I'll watch it later when David isn't intent on an old Star Trek: DS9 rerun.