National - Friday, November 6, 2009 10:00 - 0 Comments
Hopes for Two-State Solution Dwindling, and Obama’s Not Helping
Yesterday, Middle East expert and University of Michigan professor Juan Cole had a piece in Salon in which he suggested that a two-state resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict had reached a dead end. And it’s true, things look pretty grim right now. Sadly, the Obama administration, while initially signaling a promising shift in US policy towards Israel, has only exacerbated things by retreating to the reflexively pro-Israeli government posture of the Bush administration.
It started with the Goldstone Report, the product of a UN investigation which found evidence that both Israel and Palestinian militant groups (most notably Hamas) were guilty of war crimes. Needless to say, the Israeli government was displeased.
Pop quiz: Did the Obama administration A) acknowledge the slaughter committed by their ally, or B) do everything they could to suppress the report? The depressing answer is below the fold.
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National - Thursday, November 5, 2009 9:00 - 0 Comments
Other Election Results from Tuesday
Josh and Kenny have already noted the passage of Prop 1 in Maine and Bloomberg’s narrow victory earlier this week, but there were some other noteworthy races going on. Let’s see how they shook out.
New Jersey Gubernatorial: The above video is, of course, the loathsome Chris Christie declaring victory over the also pretty loathsome Democratic incumbent, John Corzine. The polls had been neck and neck therefor a while, but Christie eked out a victory in the end, demonstrating that all the money and fat jokes in the world can’t help an unpopular incumbent during a poor economy. This must have been a disappointment for the White House, which put a lot behind the campaign.
Virginia Gubernatorial: Another Republican victory here, and by a significantly larger margin. But the conventional wisdom is that Democratic candidate R. Creigh Deeds never had a prayer in the first place (VA’s not a blue stronghold yet), and the grassroots weren’t terribly enthused about him, so no biggie.
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National - Monday, November 2, 2009 10:00 - 1 Comment
Staffer Error Gives Us Sneak Preview of Ethics Committee Investigations
The New York Times reports that two Democratic congresswomen, including the high-powered Rep. Maxine Waters (pictured) are under investigation for potential ethics violations. What they don’t mention until a little further down is that civilians are getting a peak behind the signs of the ethics committee deliberations thanks to a less-than-competent staffer:
A committee statement about the security breach said a junior staff member, working from home, improperly placed a document listing all the continuing inquiries into a file-sharing software system to which people outside the committee had access. The staff member, whose name was not released, has been fired, and committee officials said Thursday that they did not know who had gained improper access to the document.
So who else is on the list? There’s another nascent investigation going on focusing on 5 other Democrats and 2 Republicans. On the Democratic side, you might recognize the names John Murtha and Marcy Kaptur (both of whom are in positions of influence on the appropriations committee and relevant subcommittees).
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City - Friday, October 30, 2009 15:00 - 0 Comments
Taxi Cab Fares to Go Up $0.50
Just as we’re celebrating the return of the late night/weekend L-train, New York City transit takes another blow: this time in the form of a cab fare hike.
But before you go cursing the name Travis Bickle, keep in mind that this was a tax imposed on cab drivers by the MTA, and the drivers themselves are decidedly unhappy about it. From the article:
“It’s going to be affected, because it’s going to be too much [money],” said one driver. “Like after 4 o’clock, it’s going to be almost $5 just sitting in the car.”
“Why are we paying for the MTA?” asked another cab driver. “We don’t have any benefits from the government. So this is not good.”
Not good, indeed.
City - Friday, October 30, 2009 13:00 - 2 Comments
Monday: Williamsburg/Bushwick Commuters No Longer Have a Curfew
Speaking of the L train, here’s a happy public service announcement: as of November 2 (this coming Monday), the repairs on the L train tracks will be wrapped up and Brooklyn commuters can once again depart from Union Square late at night or on the weekend secure in the knowledge that they won’t have to transfer to a shuttle bus somewhere along the way. New York City’s 24-hour subway system is well on its way to doing its thing again.
National - Friday, October 30, 2009 10:30 - 1 Comment
World Series is a Dead Heat, but the Yankees Win at Congress
Game 2 of the World Series was last night, and it was a pretty solid night for the Yanks. Not only did they rebound from the near-blowout of Game 1, but Jay-Z and Alicia Keys performed “Empire State of Mind” in the stadium (see above). And on top of that, OpenSecrets is reporting that in the war of campaign contributions, they’re beating the Phillies handily.
Since its inception during the 2002 election cycle, the Major League Baseball Commissioner’s Office Political Action Committee has donated about two-and-a-half times as much money to federal candidates from New York ($51,136) than to those from Pennsylvania ($22,000), CRP has found.
In all, Major League Baseball has contributed money to 14 New York politicos versus six from Pennsylvania. Such donations are part of a broader political influence effort by the baseball commissioner’s office that this decade has featured hundreds of individual campaign contributions to federal candidates and committees. It’s also included more than $9 million in federal lobbying expenditures intended to affect issues ranging from copyright law to broadcast rights to immigration.
National - Thursday, October 29, 2009 8:00 - 8 Comments
Normally Upstanding Democrat Lieberman Shocks Caucus on Public Option
The above is Joe Lieberman using an argument he would later flatly contradict to explain why he is threatening not to vote for cloture of the public-option-including Senate health care bill.
Remember, 60 votes are needed for cloture in the Senate, and there are exactly 60 members of the Democratic caucus. With Olympia Snow now saying she won’t cross party lines, not a single Republican is expected to vote for the bill, meaning that it needs all the Democratic caucus members for passage. Lieberman is one of the key swing votes, and, as is his wont, he’s milking this for as much as he can.
Weigel, who’s usually right about these things, thinks this is an empty threat being made to garner some attention, albeit an empty threat that’s still damaging.
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National - Wednesday, October 28, 2009 8:00 - 0 Comments
NYT Editorial Board Runs Searing Indictment of Obama’s Poor Rule of Law Record
This may be a couple days old, but it isn’t getting anywhere near the attention it deserves–props to Glenn Greenwald for bringing it to my attention.
Here’s a flavor from the first couple paragraphs:
The Obama administration has clung for so long to the Bush administration’s expansive claims of national security and executive power that it is in danger of turning President George W. Bush’s cover-up of abuses committed in the name of fighting terrorism into President Barack Obama’s cover-up.
We have had recent reminders of this dismaying retreat from Mr. Obama’s passionate campaign promises to make a break with Mr. Bush’s abuses of power, a shift that denies justice to the victims of wayward government policies and shields officials from accountability.
I’ve written about this a few times, but too much attention can’t possibly be drawn to it. So, as they say, read the whole thing.
Photo by Flickr user lewishamdreamer used under a Creative Commons license.
National - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 9:00 - 9 Comments
In Defense of “Fishy” Politics
I’ve got to hand it to Pratik Mehta: compared to some of the outright lunacy that often comes from the Washington Square News op-ed page, yesterday’s column was The Federalist Papers. It picked a single issue–a thought-provoking one at that–raised some real, legitimate concerns, and included this crazy innovation in column-writing technology in which you insert real, correct facts right into your argument.
But if the theme for his column was “the tyranny of the minority,” then he certainly picked a funny example to run with in the lede: the recently passed hate crimes amendment.
This measure was an amendment to a national defense authorization bill for the 2010 fiscal year. Republicans have rightly pointed out that hate crimes have little in common with military spending and that the Democrats have thus forced their hand.
While I support the broadened definition of hate crimes and the penalties that come with it, I find this tactic deplorable. Both Republicans and Democrats utilize this fishy tactic of adding off-topic, or non-germane, amendments in order to enact measures that otherwise may not be passed.
On Campus - Friday, October 23, 2009 15:00 - 0 Comments
NYU Students Protest Sean Bell Killing
Washington Square News reports that Nicole Bell, who was fiancée to Sean Bell at the time of his death, spoke to NYU students and led them in protest on Monday.
Yesterday, on the west side of Washington Square Park, dozens of people, ranging from NYU students to family members of police brutality victims, came together for the same cause. Members of the NYPD were present at the park as well.
The protesters wore black and held signs criticizing the police.
“The whole damn system is guilty as hell. Indict, convict. Send the killer cops to jail,” the protestors chanted.
Full article here.
