National Politics

Two-Faced Weasel Alert: Her Speakerness Finds She Shares Some of the Views of Tea Partiers

By Monique Chartier | February 28, 2010 |

… after accusing them of carrying swastikas, implying that they incite violence and calling them astroturf. [Thanks to NewsBusters’ Noel Sheppard for sitting through the interview so as to bring this to light.] [House Speaker Nancy] PELOSI … But, you know, we share some of the views of the Tea Partiers in terms of the…

H.R. Clinton: The Massive Debt is Bush’s Greenspan’s Fault (But is She Also Sandbagging Obama?)

By Monique Chartier | February 27, 2010 |

Reuters. “It breaks my heart that 10 years ago we had a balanced budget, that we were on the way of paying down the debt of the United States of America,” [Secretary of State Hillary Rodham] Clinton said. “I served on the budget committee in the Senate, and I remember as vividly as if it…

Treasury @ Haute Couture: Geithner to Have a Layout Be Profiled in Vogue

By Monique Chartier | February 22, 2010 |

One question. Why?? [H/T the Fred Thompson Show.] If last year’s bailout of the financial industry caused you to start muttering words like investment banker and robber baron in the same sentence, it may cheer you to know that Timothy Geithner, the man responsible for crafting much of that bailout, agrees with you. “I am,”…

Blah, Blah, Spin, Blah, Blah, Big Government

By Justin Katz | January 28, 2010 |

I caught about 25 minutes or so of President Obama’s State of the Union address on 630AM/99.7FM WPRO on my way home last night, which served to make me even more relieved to pull into the driveway. Put aside all the cortex-numbing spin, the take away message from what I heard, and what I’ve read…

Identifying the Stealth

By Justin Katz | January 25, 2010 |

The Providence Journal ran this story on the front page, Saturday, with the headline “Stealth GOP effort helped Brown win.” The first paragraphs surely give comfort to those who continue to prefer that the upset not be proof of real grassroots unrest and voter discontent with the Democrats’ policies: The stunning Republican come-from-behind victory in…

Protestations to ProJo Pronouncements

By Marc Comtois | January 24, 2010 |

1) The ProJo editors on global warming: Still, that a few scientists are accused of manipulating a bit of data from some climate research does not do away with the preponderance of evidence. The latest controversy revolves around the validity of the collection and use of data behind a U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…

Rhode Island’s Poor National Representation

By Justin Katz | January 23, 2010 |

Could there be anything more indicative of poor representation than Rep. Patrick Kennedy’s dogged insistence that he’s going to shoot for the healthcare stars, no matter what the people say? Kennedy flatly endorsed a strategy for passage of the pending health-care overhaul that many fellow Democrats are wary of pursuing: a swift vote in the…

On Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court Decision: Reflections from April 30, 2005 on Correcting the Bizarre Incentives Created by Campaign Finance Reform Laws

By Donald B. Hawthorne | January 23, 2010 |

A nearly five year old blog post, reposted here in response to this week’s Supreme Court decision about free speech: Andrew has a terrific, focused posting entitled First They Came for the Radio Talk Show Hosts… that gets to the heart of the latest fallout from campaign finance reform here in Rhode Island. Once again,…

Winning in Race by Making Policies Primary

By Justin Katz | January 23, 2010 |

Watching the tears of joy streaming down the faces of black attendees at the Rhode Island Democrats’ election-night gathering in Providence, in 2008, knowing candidate Obama’s centrist rhetoric to be completely contrary to his life history and political record, and believing that his likely policies would be an unmitigated disaster, I worried what effect it…

A Note on Availablegate

By Justin Katz | January 21, 2010 |

By now you’ve caught wind of Senator-elect Scott Brown’s joking around about his daughters’ availability on the dating scene: I appreciate that it’s an interesting topic about which to talk, but the conversations really tell you more about the people having them than about Brown. Even taking the joke as a significant gaffe (which I…