Blog: TAPPED

GIULIANI AND RELIGIOUS PANDERING. I agree with Ezra and Mike Tomasky that Rudy Giuliani would be a primarily right-wing president. Mike makes a strong case over at TNR today that Giuliani’s supposed political moderation during his mayoral tenure was really just a demonstration of his ideological malleability. Mike writes, This came home to me in […]

PLA COUNTER-INSURGENCY. Over at Ezra’s place, Dymaxion John had an interesting post about the PLA and Islamic insurgents in Western China. The idea of the PLA developing counter-insurgency doctrine fascinates me from a military culture point of view, since the PLA originated as an insurgent organization, and its leaders developed much of the theoretical foundation […]

THE RIGHT TO DENTAL. Generally, when I speak about universal health care, I’m implicitly including universal dental care, as the idea that the health of your teeth is somehow separate from the health of your joints seems self-evidently ridiculous. Maybe I need to be more clear: Twelve-year-old Deamonte Driver died of a toothache Sunday. A […]

THE REAL RUDY. Bossman Tomasky and Fred Siegel are debating Giuliani‘s candidacy and and presidential prospects over at The New Republic, and Mike concludes with a point I want to amplify. “[Giuliani will] need the right’s support to function as president,” he writes, “and I believe his track record shows us that he’ll act accordingly […]

CHENEY: ME-NOT-ME DON’T PLAY THAT WAY. A day after Richard V. Cheney shook his finger at Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for not doing enough to rid Pakistan’s border region of Taliban and al-Qaeda, Cheney got a taste of what it’s like to be Musharraf when a Taliban suicide bomber detonated, within Cheney’s earshot, a device […]

IF KIDS COULD VOTE … The Children’s Defense Fund started a faux presidential campaign supporting a 10-year-old girl named Suzie Flynn for president. The press stunt is largely targeted at drawing attention to funding cuts for the state program called SCHIP, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. It’s currently scheduled to expire in September, and […]

EITC VS. THE MINIMUM WAGE. You often hear conservatives argue that we shouldn’t increase the minimum wage, we should raise the Earned Income Tax Credit. Setting aside the claim’s disingenuousness — not much in the way of EITC increases after six years of Republican governance, I fear — it’s not true that the two policies […]

THIS AIN’T NO KOREMATSU, THIS AIN”T NO FOOLING AROUND. The Canadian lawblogger Pithlord has a good analysis of the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent Charkaoui decision, which held that the Canadian government’s procedures for detaining and deporting terrorist suspects were insufficient to meet the requirements of fundamental justice. As he said, the decision is judicial […]

POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: THE GAY GRENADE. In the fight to garner popular support for a revitalized ERA campaign in select states, some proponents have taken to reassuring voters that the ERA in no way guarantees gays the right to marry. Keely Savoie explains why this approach isn’t good for gay rights OR women’s rights […]

EDWARDS EVOLVES AGAIN. John Edwards‘s latest on Iran, according to ABCNews: Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards told a group of New Hampshire voters Saturday that he would consider pursuing a nonaggression pact between the United States and Iran. Edwards’ statement came in answer to a voter’s question at a house party in Nashua on Saturday […]