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The Incredible Disappearing Opposition to Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court Nomination
Tweet Share on Facebook June 23, 2009 Comment (11)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
So the GOP is finally awakening to the fact that Judge Sonia Sotomayor is not as left wing as opponents might have hoped she would be. And that means she's not a particularly meaty target of attack during her upcoming confirmation hearings. Do I hear a sonorous "duh!" emanating from the audience?
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Poll: Don't Tax Current Healthcare Coverage to Pay for Universal Coverage
Tweet Share on Facebook June 23, 2009 Comment (6)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Health care reform was second only to "righting" the economy during the last election as the most important issue on which most Americans' were going to vote as they went to the polls. Now that there's a president in office who wants action on health care, and a Congress that pledges to change health care as we know it, there's only one small problem. Only 3 percent of Americans told Synovate pollsters they are willing to pay with new taxes on their employer-paid health insurance coverage in order to pay for other Americans' care. That, as reported by my colleague Paul Bedard.
Rather predictable, I'd say, wouldn't you? Just about everyone wants every benefit Uncle Sam is willing to dole out. But when it comes to paying for other people's needs, we Americans take the NIMBY approach: Not In (or more appropriately, from) My Back Yard.
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Iranian Women's Key Role in the Iran Election Protests
Tweet Share on Facebook June 22, 2009 Comment (3)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Mariam Memarsadeghi is a democracy and human rights program specialist whom (my producers and) I invited to appear on my PBS program this past weekend to discuss the role of women in the Iranian election protests. Her views shed light for me not only on the role of Iranian women in these protests, but also on the thinking of Islamic women who emigrate to the United States. It has always been a mystery to me why all but the most recent of these immigrants would go through the trouble to uproot and leave their home countries only to cling to the repressive customs of their home countries once they arrive in the U.S.
NB: I have interviewed a half-dozen experts on Islamic women over the years, including one who wrote a book on why U.S.-born women convert to Islam and choose to wear hijabs and chadors, when they were raised not wearing head coverings. I have heard experts holding this opinion say over and over that these were acts of liberation, not subjugation. I have also listened to the voices of other, equally religious Islamic women say just the opposite. It is in this spirit that I asked Mariam Memarsadeghi to answer the following two questions for me.
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AARP or No, Big Pharma's $80 Billion Discount Drug Offer Is Just a Smidgen
Tweet Share on Facebook June 22, 2009 Comment (13)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
So the group that no one wants to get old enough to be asked to join, the American Association of Retired Persons, is once again displaying its potent public relations muscle. Today, its leaders walk across town (D.C., that is) to the White House to make a small contribution to cutting healthcare costs. AARP, the self-proclaimed largest American seniors lobby, is turning over to the Obama administration an offer by drug manufacturers to contribute $80 billion over the next decade to reduce the cost of comprehensive health reform, in part by discounting the price of Medicare prescriptions. From the Washington Post:
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A Peaceful Conclusion to Iran Election Results Does Not Seem Possible
Tweet Share on Facebook June 18, 2009 Comment (9)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
I would like to chime in on my colleague Peter Roff's Tuesday blog , predicting the mullahs may yet be ousted in Iran. He wrote:
The millions of Iranians who are the streets this week may bring down the regime. Toppling the mullahs would have a profound impact on U.S. security, potentially removing from the scene one of this country's major enemies and what is perhaps the world's principal terrorist-supporting state.
Here, here! I am listening to a public radio report as I write this, about the importance of the Internet and social networking in organizing the Iranian protests. The government is aware of this and cracking down on internet usage as a result. This is fomenting more calls for outright rebellion.
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John Ensign, Defender of Marriage--Except His Own
Tweet Share on Facebook June 17, 2009 Comment (56)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
This is rich—another hypocritical politician. What a surprise! John Ensign's anti-gay marriage Senate career ended on Tuesday when he came out of the closet about his affair with a married campaign staffer. Apparently Sen. Ensign (R-Nev.) only went public when he discussed the affair with the staffer's husband—who also worked on his campaign—and the husband asked Sen. Ensign for a lot of money.
Sen. Ensign, while running against Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in 1998 called on President Clinton to resign for having his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. One wonders whether Ensign is considering giving himself the same treatment. Of course not, at least now. But this nasty mess does seem to have knocked Sen. Ensign off the top of the list of GOP presidential nomination contenders in 2012.
This incident will also, let us hope, rob him of the credibility to campaign as a defender of marriage (against gay marriage.) ThinkProgress.org ran the following quotes from Ensign on the topic:
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Obama's Way Out of the Recession Could Lead to Inflation
Tweet Share on Facebook June 16, 2009 Comment (8)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
We're all searching the financial horizon for good news on the economy. But this is good news I don't particularly like. Last month, housing starts jumped 17 percent above the year before, exceeding expectations in a market that seems to have bottomed out and is now starting to rise.
That's the good news. The bad news is, if this keeps up, inflation is on the way. We've all been watching in despair as oil prices climb back toward last summer's ridiculous high. They're already double what they were at the end of last year. If our economy picks up too quickly, price cuts for food, real estate, and consumer goods due to the recession will fizzle quickly and be replaced by soaring inflation. The Obama administration has intelligently created tax breaks for first-time buyers and the Fed is trying to keep down otherwise soaring interest rates, but I smell an economy that is on the verge of overheating.
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Barack Obama's Half-Brother, George Obama, Gets a Book Contract. Seriously
Tweet Share on Facebook June 16, 2009 Comment (10)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
As hard as the book publishing industry has been hit by the recession, by the Kindle, and by the waning interest of the American public in the printed word, publisher Simon & Schuster must still have money to burn. It's apparently signed a completely unknown author (or tale-teller, as he won't even be writing his own book) to a six-figure contract simply because he shares a famous last name.
George Obama, the allegedly drug-plagued, Kenyan half-brother of President Barack Obama, has been signed to a six-figure contract to tell his life story—to a journalist who will write George Obama's book. At 27, George is the youngest of seven children of Barack Obama's father and 20 years younger than his famous older half-brother.
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Florida 18-Year-Old Jailed for Trail of Dead Cats
Tweet Share on Facebook June 15, 2009 Comment (6)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
It is so sad that an 18-year-old Florida boy is charged with the horrible crime of animal in the abuse—mutilating and killing nearly three dozen of his neighbors' beloved pets. According to ABC News:
Tyler Weinman was charged with 19 counts of animal cruelty, four counts of burglary and 19 counts of improper disposing of an animal body, according to ABC affiliate WPLG. Neighbors and police have said the cats were beaten, skinned or sliced open. Cutler Bay, Fla., resident Mary Lou Shad, whose 2-year-old cat was among Weiman's alleged victims, said she was relieved to hear of the arrest.
But the good news is, police everywhere seem to be taking animal abuse more seriously. Time was when animal killing and mutilation were considered misdemeanors. Then, within the last two decades psychologists and other forensics experts realized that young mass murderers started practicing the trade on animals before moving on as adults to humans.
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CIA's Panetta Is Right: Cheney Does Want Another Terrorist Attack
Tweet Share on Facebook June 15, 2009 Comment (93)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
You know, CIA director Leon Panetta is right! I've been watching former Vice President Dick Cheney's media parade of the last few weeks and wondering, "What is he up to?" It's unseemly for a former president, much less a vice president, to dissect and criticize the policies of a subsequent administration, especially so soon after that vice president has left office. And yet Cheney has said publicly President Obama's abandonment of waterboarding as an interrogation technique is, "unwise in the extreme."
In an interview in an upcoming edition of the New Yorker Panetta said Cheney seems so anxious to justify the Bush administration's interrogation/torture policies, it almost seems as if he'd appreciate another terrorist attack on U.S. soil:
Bonnie Erbe
Bonnie Erbe is a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report and hosts PBS's weekly news analysis program, To the Contrary with Bonnie Erbe. She also writes a weekly syndicated newspaper column for Scripps Howard News Service.
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