If you’d asked Nick Yarris how old he was, on May 17, 2004 — his 43rd birthday — he’d have told you, “121 days.” For the rest of his life, Yarris will have his regular birthday and the day he was born again: January 16, 2004, the day he walked out of the Pennsylvania State […]
Tom Lowenstein
Posted inFeatures
Collateral Damage
Carlos Kelly was six years old when, in December of 1991, his mother, Caridad, was arrested by federal agents in Florida for conspiracy to distribute cocaine. “I remember it was, like, me and my stepbrothers and sisters, we was all gathered in the playroom,” says Carlos, now 16. “I told my mom that the Nintendo […]
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Why Did He Do It?
After years of following the Republican Party as it side-stepped rightward like a drunk at a Bob Barr confederate-pride cookout, and months of watching George W.’s slight grin of “bipartisanship” pasted over his very partisan agenda, a Republican has finally had the courage to stand up and admit that the party he joined no longer […]
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The Craven
Tuesday, as their party sold its constituents down the river on the John Ashcroft nomination, Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton publicly recited the Edgar Allen Poe poem “The Raven” to their counterparts from Maryland. The New York senators had lost a bet over the Superbowl — in which the New York Giants […]
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Filibuster!
Before John Ashcroft’s confirmation hearings even started, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott announced that all 50 Republican senators would vote to confirm Ashcroft as attorney general. When Democratic Senators Zell Miller of Georgia and Robert Byrd of West Virginia announced recently that they would vote for him, they reconfirmed that Ashcroft would be approved. That […]
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The Big Fold:
Yesterday, the Judiciary Committee voted 10 to eight to send John Ashcroft’s nomination for attorney general to the Senate floor. The “aye” votes included every Republican on the committee and Democratic Senator Russell Feingold. Feingold told the committee that he voted for Ashcroft because it is customary to give the president his cabinet. As he […]
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Fight Ashcroft?
Yesterday, as leading party strategists gathered in a Washington, D.C. hotel conference room to apportion blame for Gore’s victory, Senator Tom Daschle assured President Bush that Democrats would not filibuster John Ashcroft’s confirmation for attorney general, thereby all but guaranteeing that Ashcroft would be approved. The promise came just one day after ranking Democrat on […]
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Get Over It!
Very early morning, November 8, 2000. I’m at home, in bed, my eyes propped open with toothpicks. Last night — as the networks called Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida for Al Gore — I revived the moonwalk in my glee. Now the networks have called the election for George W. Bush, and I’m thinking the moon […]
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Student Teachers:
After four months of post-election purgatory — more than 100 days in which liberals have watched Democratic leaders weakly grumble as President Bush has handed the government over to corporations and sought to pay off their C.E.O.s with giant tax cuts — real leadership has finally emerged on the left. Who are these new leaders? […]
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LA Story: The Convention
Tuesday: Dems on Cells Wednesday: The Three-Convention Drop Thursday: Babs on Politics Tuesday: Dems on Cells Our bus makes its way to Staples Center through a neighborhood of squat white and pink houses and small shops with signs mostly in Spanish. The sky over LA is brown. Locals tell […]
