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- President Obama lifted some travel and gift restrictions for Cuban-Americans today, a significant break from the policy of the past half-century. Then again, maybe there wasn't all that much political risk to changing the status quo in the first place. Still, there's much more that could be done to address the larger issue of human rights violations in Cuba and lifting the pointless trade embargo.
- Congress is in recess for the week, but the debate over the Gates/Obama Defense budget will become a central preoccupation of the District before long. Encouragingly, Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin, who had previously been silent on the issue, has come out in favor of the budget and there seems to be little resistance from the Air Force on letting the F-22 die a dignified, scheduled, death.
- Apparently there's some proponents of the upcoming "tea party" protests (can't wait!) who think those of us on the left are applying some sort of double standard when it comes to financing our own rallies and protests. That is, we're guilty of "astroturf," too. Well, no, the issue is claiming to be grassroots when you're clearly not, hosting $500/plate fundraisers for said "grassroots" campaigns, and lying about your network's "fair and balanced" protest coverage.
- According to remarks by Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, the Christian Right has lost the culture wars. Dobson says the we've been going downhill since "the Nineties and the internet came along and a new president came along." Now we're "awash in evil." I don't want to overanalyze this, but why did it take 16 years for the "war" to end? Did the tide briefly change with the Supreme Court appointment of George Bush? Wasn't 9/11 punishment for our sins? Why is he conceding defeat now?
- Even more confusing than the Associated Press' bizarre attempt to define news itself as "intellectual property" is their policy FAQ, which has a picture of Bill Clinton on the masthead for no apparent reason. I certainly hope an AP photographer took that picture 10 years ago...
- Weekend Remainders: Ruth Bader Ginsburg argues against American provincialism in American jurisprudence; the paranoid minds on the Right are getting downright pathetic; Olympia Snowe walks back on support for government-run health care; and the evidence that the GOP has finally become a regional party continues to mount.
--Mori Dinauer
