This, from Hitchens, is pretty funny: I was invited onto Scarborough Country on MSNBC to debate the proposition that reindeer were an ancient symbol of Christianity and thus deserving of First Amendment protection, if not indeed of mandatory display at every mall in the land. I am told that nobody watches that show anymore—certainly I […]
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Hillary’s Next Move
So what to make of Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s decision to drop her bid to unseat Hillary? Instant pundit wisdom has it that Pirro’s campaign fell apart because of her gaffes on the stump and her failure to raise money. There’s some truth to that, of course. But the real reason Pirro collapsed was […]
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Cause You Love Me
I’ve gotten a couple e-mails asking if I had a tip jar for Christmas Holiday scratch. I don’t. What I do have is an awesome wish list packed with books I’d love to have. If you like the site and want to offer it a yuletide sacrifice, that’s the spot.
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Quickies
This morning, on NPR, David Gergen was talking through the FISA violations. Two relevant points: • There’s not a question whether or not this is legal. It isn’t. FISA was passed specifically to constrain executive control and direction of the intelligence services. I know that Cheney (and I guess, Bush) seem to think this unconstitutional, […]
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An All-American Christmas
The white Christmases that Irving Berlin dreamed of weren’t the earliest ones he used to know. He spent his first five Christmases in czarist Russia, and his only recollection of that time, at least the only one he’d acknowledge as an adult, was that of watching his neighbors burn his family’s house to the ground […]
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There Are Lies, Damned Lies, and Fred Barnes Columns
Fred Barnes, energetically attempting to wake the Bush propaganda machine from its torpor, writes: Yet there’s a strong case Bush and his aides can make for impressive economic gains at the individual level. True, rising healthcare costs have cut into the gains, but tax reductions have helped. By citing micro numbers or fleshing out macro […]
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European Tour
Madrid — Cindy Sheehan blazed through Madrid this week like a rock star or a political candidate, shuttling from peace rally to a day-long press event to a private dinner with her supporters. Watchful handlers hurried her from venue to venue, drawing her away from autograph seekers, though she seemed always to have time to […]
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More Lies
Yesterday, The LA Times trashed George W. Bush’s usage of Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Alihdhar. The two hijackers popped up in Bush’s radio address as prime examples of who we must, but previously could not, tap. As it turned out, not only had they been tapped, but the data was analyzed and the NSA, the […]
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Invisible Children
A new book investigates the oft-overlooked subject of children whose parents are serving hard time. TAP sits down with Nell Bernstein, author of All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated (The New Press, 2005). Bernstein is an award-winning journalist whose stories have appeared in The Washington Post, Mother Jones, salon.com, and Newsday. She […]
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Progressives vs. Liberals
David Sclar thinks we should eliminate the health insurance deduction and use it to subsidize health care for the poor. Nathan Newman thinks he’s a cancer on progressivism. Ezra Klein. I Report. You decide. And then I tell you what I think. If the only options are ditch the deduction and channel the cash towards […]