The mayor of Washington DC has been arrested, along with 6 of the 12 members of its city council, during a protest today near a US Senate office building, objecting to the city's use as a bargaining chip while negotiating the
7th Continuing Resolution to avoid a government shutdown last Friday. The bill prohibits the District of Columbia from locally funding abortion services, and imposes a locally-unpopular school voucher program. Had the government shutdown taken place, the DC government would have also had to suspend most of its operations including
trash pickup. For those of you keeping track, Vince Gray is the 3rd (of 6) DC mayor to be arrested while in office.
[more inside]
posted by schmod
on Apr 11, 2011 -
93 comments
During his campaign, skeptics warned that Barack Obama was nothing but a "beautiful loser," a progressive purist whose uncompromising idealism would derail his program for change. But as president, Obama has proved to be just the opposite — an ugly winner. Over and over, he has shown himself willing to strike unpalatable political bargains to secure progress, even at the cost of alienating his core supporters. This bloodless, if effective, approach to governance has created a perilous disconnect: By any rational measure, Obama is the most accomplished and progressive president in decades, yet the only Americans fired up by the changes he has delivered are Republicans and Tea Partiers hellbent on reversing them. Heading into the November elections, Obama's approval ratings are mired in the mid-40s, and polls reflect a stark enthusiasm gap: Half of all Republicans are "very" excited about voting this fall, compared to just a quarter of Democrats. But if the passions of Obama's base have been deflated by the compromises he made to secure historic gains like the Recovery Act, health care reform and Wall Street regulation, that gloom cannot obscure the essential point: This president has delivered more sweeping, progressive change in 20 months than the previous two Democratic administrations did in 12 years. The
Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson argues
The Case for Obama.
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Oct 15, 2010 -
177 comments
For quite some time, I’d wanted to make a screwball comedy. A fast-talking, wildly acclerating ensemble comedy that gets stupider and stupider. I never imagined it would be about a war, and inspired by a very recent war at that. But Simon, Jesse, Tony and I all felt that the more we found out about the dysfunction in Washington and the naivety in London leading up to the Iraq invasion, the more obvious it was that the only way to deal accurately and fairly with this topic was as a screwball comedy. - The Oscar nominated script for
In The Loop, with an introduction by writer Armando Iannucci.
posted by Artw
on Feb 13, 2010 -
33 comments
In September of 2004, a Superior Court in Washington state ruled
the state's 1998 "Defense of Marriage" act unconstitutional, a ruling which would have allowed the state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In 2006, the state Supreme Court issued in an opinion in
Andersen v. King County overturning the lower court's ruling, noting "that
our decision [pdf] is not based on an independent
determination of what we believe the law should be." The legislature, in response,
created the state-registered domestic partnership in 2007, expanding many (but not all) marriage-related rights to same-sex couples. Last month,
a new law expanded the partnership to cover the remaining rights, creating an "all-but-marriage" partnership.
This year, the Washington Values Alliance has
filed Referendum 71, which would put this expansion to a ballot vote. The referendum will need 120,000 signatures to make it to the ballot.
WhoSigned.org intends to make these signatures searchable.
Predictably, this is
creating some controversy.
[more inside]
posted by 0xFCAF
on Jun 2, 2009 -
114 comments
"Only Nixon could go to China," and only
ex-Republican ex-Senator Lincoln Chafee can explain how George W. Bush set out "to preempt the Congress... on every issue", "turned his back on (his) bedrock campaign pledges", and become simultaneously America's most powerful and least popular President (and why there could never be a "surely this..." moment). NOT just another OMGBUSH commentary, this should be required reading for anybody who
honestly wants to know what went wrong.
posted by wendell
on May 2, 2008 -
46 comments
Citizen K Street: How Lobbying Became Washington's Biggest Business The story will begin in the newspaper and on the Web on March 4, with an overview of Cassidy's career. Then, beginning March 5 and running Monday through Friday for five weeks exclusively at washingtonpost.com/citizenkstreet, Kaiser will tell the story in a serial narrative that will chart Cassidy's path and the transformation of the lobbying industry in Washington.
posted by srboisvert
on Apr 8, 2007 -
5 comments
Is the U.S. suffocating reform in Iran? "'Despite sporadic verbal concern with the condition of human rights in Iran, the U.S. is protecting and providing clandestine support to the right-wing conservatives in Iran,' says Sayed Ali Asghar Gharavi, a member of the banned but tolerated Iran Freedom Movement (IFM), the country’s leading opposition party. 'The U.S. government in no way favors the coming to power of the reformist groups in Iran and is secretly supporting the religious conservatives.' Government insiders in Iran allege that the deal, first proffered by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, is simple: If the hard-liners quietly support the United States in Iraq, Washington will quietly support them. U.S. State Department officials declined to comment." It seems unlikely that the Bush administration would side with the mullahs, but considering the U.S.'s
troubled history with Iranian democracy, it's not inconceivable. Perhaps this is why Michael Ledeen's
cries of alarm aren't being heeded.
posted by homunculus
on Feb 6, 2003 -
25 comments
It's Marching Season! There's an
godless american march comin' to DC this fall (November 2)
"Our leaders, including the President, must stop calling the nation to prayer, or claim that we are a "Christian" country..."(Amen to that!!!) and
"We must remember to not "feed the fundies" by engaging in arguments with religious protesters and hostile "prayer warriors" who want to "save" us."From what I understand, this will be the first big march on Washington since our new wartime laws have been implemented....will atheists become "unlawful combatants?" Anyone up for it?
posted by amberglow
on Aug 14, 2002 -
52 comments
"The sky won't fall, it will probably just trickle down." On whom? (Guess who.) Out here in Washington State voters just approved another in a series of initiatives that, collectively, choke off the state government's primary funding sources. What else are the results of the initiative process around the country? And are The People responsible enough to be trusted with it?
posted by argybarg
on Nov 8, 2001 -
30 comments
Anti-bullying vote blocked by Christian Conservatives The Washington State bill would have required school districts to set up policies against harassment, bullying and intimidation. Christian conservatives that blocked the vote claim "it amounted to censorship of their right to condemn homosexuality." There is no mention of homosexuality in the bill at all. So this leads me to the conclusion that these Christians condone "harassment, bullying and intimidation." How far from the Golden Rule can you stray and keep a straight face?
posted by kokogiak
on May 1, 2001 -
26 comments
