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Barack Obama, the Economic Stimulus, and the GOP: Responding to Farrell
Tweet Share on Facebook January 30, 2009 Comment (6)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
I'm not sure I agree with my colleague John A. Farrell's take on whether the Republicans made a mistake by opposing President Obama's stimulus bill in the U.S. House:
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Obama, the GOP, and the Myth of Post-Partisanship
Tweet Share on Facebook January 30, 2009 Comment (6)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Well, President Obama is barely into his second week in office and his flimflam promise of post-partisanship has shown itself to be the campaign lie it always seemed to many of us to be. The veiled myth of post-partisanship was revealed as the curtain was pulled back on the House vote on the stimulus package yesterday: The bill passed with no Republican support. That, even after Mr. Obama tossed women's health aside and caved into Republican demands to cut out hundreds of millions of dollars to provide birth control to low-income women.
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The Anti-Women Women's Movement and the True Woman Manifesto
Tweet Share on Facebook January 29, 2009 Comment (24)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
This little ditty about the True Woman Manifesto and so-called submissive feminists is wending its way around the Web, drawing choruses of excoriation from true, or progressive, feminists.
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Dick Armey Displays Republican Sexism on Hardball With Joan Walsh of Salon.com
Tweet Share on Facebook January 29, 2009 Comment (123)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Not sure what Joan Walsh said to prompt former (thank god) U.S. Rep. Dick Armey to retort as follows. But whatever it was, Armey's loose lips have shown him to be the chauvinist he and many of his old guard GOP buddies are. In fact, Armey will now be seen as the GOP's "aren't we out of it?" poster child. As the party reforms after its trouncing at the polls in November, it should consult Armey on what it needs to do, and then do the complete opposite.
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Obama is Right to Sign the Ledbetter Law on Sex Discrimination
Tweet Share on Facebook January 29, 2009 Comment (28)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
My colleague Sam Dealey posts against the Lilly Ledbetter Law, which President Obama is due to sign today, as the first bill signing of his administration. The law makes it easier for people who believe they've been discriminated against in terms of pay to sue employers.
Sam: I'm against frivolous litigation, too. But methinks you stretch the possibilities posed by the Ledbetter Law to the point where they don't just break, they get nuked. In your post of yesterday you wrote:
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Obama, Bush, and a First Amendment Heroine in Virginia
Tweet Share on Facebook January 28, 2009 Comment (33)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Judith Scott probably never set out to be a First Amendment heroine. But she is as far as I'm concerned. As described in my Scripps Howard Newspaper column, she has filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia for what she claims was a retaliatory firing. Her proselytizing boss at the Blacksburg, Va., Middle School, whose acts are detailed in her court filing, kept trying to force her to participate in unlawful prayer meetings and religious events at work.
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Sarah Palin and Free-Market Feminism
Tweet Share on Facebook January 28, 2009 Comment (20)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Very interesting post on alternet.org about whether Sarah Palin gives right-wingers a chance to launch something called free-market feminism and brand her as a lure to younger, slightly more progressive Republican or conservative women. The article explains how she appeals to Bible conservatives with her lifestyle (heterosexual marriage, lots of kids and a great career) but also to free-marketers with her beliefs.
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Obama Picks Geithner and Lynn Aren't 'Change'
Tweet Share on Facebook January 26, 2009 Comment (7)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
President Obama promised change. But some of his cabinet and subcabinet appointments have been anything but. I posit two examples here, first Treasury Secretary-designate Tim Geithner:
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John McCain, Barack Obama, and the Limits of Post-Partisan Myth
Tweet Share on Facebook January 26, 2009 Comment (5)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Having worked as a Washington journalist for more than 2 decades, I'm not a big believer in post-partisanship. If one side agrees with the other, why have two sides? Besides, we're not a post-partisan nation. The religious right rarely agrees with the urban left on anything cultural. And even though the crumbling economy has pushed gay rights, abortion and guns to the sidelines for the moment, social issues are not sidelined permanently.
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On Obama, the Global Gag Rule, and the Myth of Post-Partisanship
Tweet Share on Facebook January 23, 2009 Comment (28)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Let's be clear. There's no such thing as post-partisanship. President Obama's annoying tendency to try to please everyone could one day cause him to lose everybody. The most recent group he threw over the side was women—who gave him his job. Unlike his two predecessors, Obama did not take action on the so-called global gag rule on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. But major media sources say he will act to end it, possibly as soon as today.
