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Obama's Healthcare Plan Only Adds to the Federal Spending Disaster
Tweet Share on Facebook July 17, 2009 Comment (34)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Like two ships passing not at night but in broad daylight, one arm of Congress is promising spending of mammoth proportions as another says such spending is "unsustainable.:"
Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas W. Elmendorf gave a fiscal wake-up call to Senate Budget Committee members in testimony on July 16, noting that "the federal budget is on an unsustainable path — meaning that federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run."
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Obama's Environmental Legacy: Destroying Pristine Tongass Habitats
Tweet Share on Facebook July 17, 2009 Comment (10)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Those of you who follow my work know I give President Obama credit on some issues, but find him an overall disappointment. One area in which I've been thinking (and blogging) that he's going great guns is on environmental protection. But now we're finding out he's caving in to moneyed pressures there as well.
Approving road-building in untouched parts of the Tongass National Forest will create a legacy for the Obama administration of destroyed pristine habitat, devastation of species and what little is left of true wilderness in America. It is, in a word, despicable.
I wonder how long it will take the majority of Americans to recognize that when money is waved in front of this man's face, he caves. His promise of change is meaningless. He's as beholden to special interests, lobbyists, and the $3,000 suit crowd as any of his predecessors.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's stated reason for approving the 6.9-mile road, which had been started but halted by environmental groups' legal challenges, is job creation. There are plenty of ways to create jobs in Alaska without destroying habitat.
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Oldest Woman to Give Birth Dies, Raising In Vitro Fertilization Ethics Issues
Tweet Share on Facebook July 16, 2009 Comment (16)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Ethics have yet to catch up with technology on the fertility question, but this news item begs for nations to pass strict laws on who qualifies for in vitro fertility treatment:
MADRID — A Spanish woman who deceived a U.S. fertility clinic about her age and became the oldest woman to give birth has died at 69, leaving behind 2-year-old twins, newspapers reported Wednesday.
Bad cases make bad law. So Maria del Carmen Bousada's decision to become pregnant at age 66 by deceiving a U.S. fertility clinic is flawed from the start. She told the Los Angeles clinic where she was treated that she was 55, not 65.
It's tricky business passing judgment on women's fertility decisions because men have sired children late in life since the Old Testament described Methuselah's feat:
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Sotomayor's a Bore -- What Ever Happened to the Days of Bork and Thomas?
Tweet Share on Facebook July 16, 2009 Comment (6)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
There's been a lot of Web and TV chatter about the continuing importance of Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominees—given the relative non-newsworthy hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor and her two predecessors, now-Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. It's a legitimate question, given the fact candidates are so thoroughly prepared by surrogate questioners and communications persons not to make news.
Are the days of rough-and-tumble hearings over? Not since Justice Clarence Thomas's nomination process has there been a truly nasty Supreme Court nomination process, Mrs. Alito's tears notwithstanding.
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Sarah Palin Proves that Not Only Liberals and Feminists are Whiners
Tweet Share on Facebook July 15, 2009 Comment (12)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
You don't hear it much anymore (praise be!) but there was a time when conservatives described feminists as whiners and sourpusses. There are whiners and sourpusses on every side of every political argument, just as there are comedians, wise-crackers, and happy faces. Now, finally, a conservative publication has opined that there can be female whiners on the Right, too:
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Sotomayor Versus the White Men
Tweet Share on Facebook July 15, 2009 Comment (28)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota went off the deep end a bit during her questioning of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor by asking, as her closing question, whether Judge Sotomayor watched the All-Star baseball game on TV last night. Klobuchar was trying to be funny and make nice-nice with her party's nominee, but it came off as gooey and fawning instead.
It's too bad, because the visual elements of the hearing itself seem to do a better job of raising public support for the nominee than anything her Senate supporters could do. One cannot help but notice on the cable news networks that her Republican opponents, including Sens. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Jon Cornyn of Texas, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, as well as the 19 white and one Hispanic New Haven firefighters (who dropped by for a photo-op this morning), are male and almost exclusively white.
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Congress Has a Chance to Strike a Blow Against Horse Slaughter
Tweet Share on Facebook July 14, 2009 Comment (29)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Today is Save the Horses Day (my phrase) on Capitol Hill for equine enthusiasts nationwide. The Humane Society and Animal Welfare Institute have invited horse lovers and rescue operations from across the country to convene at the U.S. Capitol to lobby their House members and Senators to support a bill that would ban the transport of U.S. horses to Canada and Mexico for slaughter.
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Has Obama Intentionally Relegated Hillary Clinton to Third-Class Status?
Tweet Share on Facebook July 14, 2009 Comment (20)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street Blog
Hill, we barely knew ye. So funny that Secretary of State Clinton is back in the news again, after what seems like a prolonged absence. I remember being offended when hearing that last month ABC News Sunday talk show host George Stephanopoulos asked her exactly what her portfolio was, or words to that effect, since V.P. Joe Biden and other Obama administration males have succeeded in carving up large, juicy parts of the international issues territory.
Turns out he was right!
Secretary Clinton has been all but invisible since ascending to one of the most visible cabinet posts, and one wonders whether this was done on purpose. She had to resort to carping about the length of time it's taking to get her U.S. AID lieutenant in office in order to make headlines—that after her commander in chief globe-trotted back from Africa, Italy, and other parts of the world these past couple of weeks.
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The Sotomayor Hearings Expose the Judicial Activism Myth
Tweet Share on Facebook July 13, 2009 Comment (10)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
U.S. senators frequently spend way too much time belaboring the obvious or posturing during opening statements before they start questioning Supreme Court nominees. But today's statement by Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island is a surprising exception. In his statement, he laid bare the fallacy of judicial restraint, used by conservatives to pretend that conservative-leaning judges don't make new law, whereas "activist" liberals do:
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Chamique Holdsclaw is the Sort of Role Model Michael Jackson Never Was
Tweet Share on Facebook July 13, 2009 Comment (3)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I bring to your attention an awe-inspiring article in Friday's New York Times about WNBA player Chamique Holdsclaw. She is the type of person who should be getting all the hype lavished on Michael Jackson. I know, I know, he sold millions of CDs, she didn't, he was a household name, she wasn't, and he has passed on while she is very much alive.
That said, however, this is a woman who has struggled with depression and won. Her values are terrific, her valor even more impressive, and she is the type of role model young Americans should be taught to emulate:
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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