It's Protest Friday as Nicole Sandler looks at the nearly extinct First Amendment right to peaceably protest with activists Kevin Zeese and Medea Benjamin, both of whom were exercising their rights this week. Nicole's Tom Petty interview from April 1999 is today's Flashback Friday feature!
My outrage over the right wing hypocrisy concerning the release of Bowe Bergdahl continued over the weekend, and boiled over after John McCain made his zillionth Sunday show appearance yesterday, with Candy Crowley at CNN where he proclaimed the five Taliban members traded for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was being held prison of war, were "hardcore military jihadists who are responsible for 9/11" and should have been detained indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay or some other U.S. prison. "First of all, I wouldn't release these men," McCain told CNN host Candy Crowley. "Ever?" Crowley wondered. "Not these men," McCain [...]
Welcome to the 21st century political reality. Hypocrisy all around. President Obama proved that he can release Gitmo detainees without the approval of Congress after six years of hiding behind their intransigence on the subject. John McCain, who is hailed as a hero only because he was a Prisoner of War in Vietnam (certainly not due to his heroics in war or the way he was captured), originally was all for the prisoner swap to get Berghdahl's release -- that is, until Obama did it. As for all of Bergdahl's former platoon-mates (if that's what you call his fellow soliders) [...]
How appropriate is it that Larry Summers' departure is announced on the first day of fall? What other beautiful changes can we hope for as the Obama administration attempts to get voters excited before November 2? How about making a list? Get Rahm the hell out of there too! The PCCC started a campaign to get Chicago voters to pledge never to vote for him... but I say "shhh." Let him think they'll vote for him, and then don't! In the wake of yesterday's blockade in the Senate of opening debate on DADT (by way of the Defense Appropriations bill), [...]
Politics is a dance. More often than not, it's infuriating. But it's the biggest reality show out there, where the winner gets the power. And we're just in time for the fall season. I started tonight's show talking about the Florida Senate race. I've stated before that I'm in a quandary. Kendrick Meek is the Democrat, and also happens to be my Congressman! The problem is that I'm not a big fan of his. I don't dislike him either, but I don't think he's been particularly effective. And then there's the name that doesn't scream fighter! I also think he [...]
Mondays creep up on us entirely too quickly. But they always arrive and we deal with them... Today was a day I had been dreading, as I was truly frightened about what it might bring. Not because it's Monday, but because today is April 19, 2010 -- the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. It was a day that gun worshipers decided was a fitting day to hold pro-gun rallies in and near our nation's capital. Timothy McVeigh apparently chose April 19 as the date to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma City because two years earlier, the Branch [...]