-
Heckuva Job, Brownie: Michael Brown Assails Obama on Handling of Swine Flu
Tweet Share on Facebook April 30, 2009 Comment (14)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Ummm. Brownie's still doing a heckuva job.
In case you missed it, Michael Brown, the guy who was in charge of FEMA during the little thundershower that wrecked New Orleans, was on Fox today lambasting the Obama administration for its handling of the swine flu outbreak. Seriously.
He has about as much credibility talking about this as Dick Cheney does talking about the efficacy of torture.
-
Forget Torture—Obama Can't Let the Guantanamo Detainees Loose in the U.S.
Tweet Share on Facebook April 30, 2009 Comment (11)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
In one of his first acts as president, in an example of putting the cart way, way out in front of the horse, Barack Obama issued an order closing the detention facility used to house suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
What neither the order then nor the administration now have resolved is the problem of what to do with the detainees once the Gitmo facility is closed. One alternative, which has been much in the news, has been to transfer them to facilities inside the United States, where they can either be tried or released into the general population.
Predictably, this idea does not sit well with any number of folks who fear the possibility of having a suspected terrorist for a neighbor.
-
Twitter Quitters? Not Sarah Palin
Tweet Share on Facebook April 30, 2009 Comment (8)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Sarah Palin is a twit. Errr. What I mean to say is that she is—what?—tweeting? Does that then make her a twitterer? A twitterizer? A twitterist?
She's on Twitter, and if you'd like to join the (as of this writing) more than 7,000 people following her (including a number of big journalistic and political names) you can click here (but don't click here).
She is of course only the latest pol or hack to enter the Twitzone, but she may be jumping on this bandwagon after its completed its own arcing leap over the shark. According to Nielsen, while Twitter saw explosive growth during March, it was unsustained—60 percent of users did not come back:
-
Republicans, Including Michael Steele, Must Rid Themselves of the Religious Right
Tweet Share on Facebook April 30, 2009 Comment (19)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Poor Michael Steele. The recently appointed GOP chair is already wiping rotten tomatoes off his jacket and the worst part is, they were thrown by his fellow partisans:
-
Swine Flu and Joe Biden's Gaffes: Might the Vice President Have a Point?
Tweet Share on Facebook April 30, 2009 Comment (22)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Joe Biden—the vice president, not the surgeon general, in case you were wondering—has been getting plenty of hard-earned criticism and ridicule on the 'net today for his intemperate remarks this morning on the Today Show to the effect that wise Americans will avoid being enclosed with each other like, well, the plague.
-
The Specter Lesson: Moderate Republicans Like Christine Todd Whitman Must Lead GOP
Tweet Share on Facebook April 30, 2009 Comment (18)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
It was January of 1995, and I was pregnant with our oldest daughter, working as a speechwriter at the Republican National Committee. My assignment was to help New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman write the first State of the Union response ever delivered outside of Washington, D.C.—she was going to speak from the state capitol in Trenton. More importantly, it was the first time in American history that a woman would deliver the response. Here's what she said to the nation in the wake of Republicans taking control of the House for the first time in 40 years:
-
Swine Flu Near-Pandemic Means We're All In This Together, Can't Close Borders
Tweet Share on Facebook April 30, 2009 Comment (89)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
If the current
swine fluH1N1 flu outbreak does reach pandemic levels, it will not only be the first global pandemic of the 21st century, it will be the first globalized pandemic ever. This struck me reading the New York Times front page story on the outbreak this morning. It's not simply that the world has gotten smaller in a physical/travel sense—people move around faster thanks to open borders and airplanes, thus increasing the speed with which these diseases can spread. -
Obama the Military Leader Should Be Wary as Army Confidently Marches Off
Tweet Share on Facebook April 30, 2009 Comment (8)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I appreciated Barack Obama's reply to the question at last night's press conference about the "enchanting" aspects of his job.
-
Torture Is Not Conservative? Well Yeah, Torture Really Is Not Conservative
Tweet Share on Facebook April 30, 2009 Comment (5)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Neo-con Ken Adelman has an interesting and admirable blog post over at one of Foreign Policy's blogs. He makes a conservative case against torture.
-
Atheists, Christianity, Bush, Religion, and Why God Is Not Dead
Tweet Share on Facebook April 30, 2009 Comment (65)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Atheists, come out of the closet. You won't be struck by lightning. I promise. I've been an "out of the closet atheist" for years now, and God (and her followers) have yet to cause me to perish. The New York Times has finally picked up on the trend and published the following this week, which I believe was the Times 's take on a front-page article in the National Journal earlier this year:
advertisement
Cartoons
