When: Monday, 24 August, 4-7pm (music from 4-5, food from 5-7) Where: Hermanos Cocina Mexicana, 11 Hills Avenue, Concord Price: $7.75 per person for the incredibly delicious food.
Reps. Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes will also be there. After that meetup, I'll be down the street doing a book signing for the new paperback edition of Taking on the System:
Gibson's Bookstore 7 p.m.
This is my first (and maybe last?) book event ever in New Hampshire, so I hope you can join me at these two events.
llinois Republicans are a patriotic bunch. They start their meetings with a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, the nation’s unofficial loyalty oath. And so it was last week when Republican Party leaders met at a Springfield hotel prior to attending Republican Day at the Illinois State Fair. Republican county chairmen (party leaders, not county board leaders) held a meeting and prepared to recite the pledge. Oops. There was no flag in the room for them to face while reciting. What to do? Why, call on a fellow named Gene to come to the rescue. Gene was wearing a shirt decked out in an American flag pattern. He came forward, and the group of assembled Republicans pledged allegiance to his shirt.
llinois Republicans are a patriotic bunch.
They start their meetings with a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, the nation’s unofficial loyalty oath. And so it was last week when Republican Party leaders met at a Springfield hotel prior to attending Republican Day at the Illinois State Fair.
Republican county chairmen (party leaders, not county board leaders) held a meeting and prepared to recite the pledge. Oops. There was no flag in the room for them to face while reciting. What to do?
Why, call on a fellow named Gene to come to the rescue. Gene was wearing a shirt decked out in an American flag pattern. He came forward, and the group of assembled Republicans pledged allegiance to his shirt.
What [Tom Ridge's book] establishes is that Ridge had the same suspicions [about Bush] as many liberals and libertarians. And Ridge, having access to most of the intelligence, had sound reasons to object. "Gut hatred" is way too strong a term -- it's the wrong term -- to describe why liberals doubted the fundamental capacity of the White House to be honest about anything. It was ideological and based on their intepretation of a pattern of facts that, in retrospect, seems much more reasonable than it did. The media's skepticism was warranted; our derision wasn't and mine isn't. Quite frankly, I don't think the triumphalism is any more attractive, either.
We didn't face "skepticism". We faced nothing but derision. And to this day, journalists like Ambinder continue to try and avoid their share of the responsibility for Bush's excesses. Look, I would've gladly taken that derision had those same journalists expressed even the faintest shred of skepticism of the Bush Administration and its actions. Triumphalism isn't attractive? Maybe because those journalists don't like to be reminded that they were wrong, we were right, and no amount of derision -- then or now -- will change that.
Now that Ridge is confirming what we were saying, Ambinder thinks that well, maybe the liberals were right about that. You see, criticisms of the Bush Administration continue to be valid only when "bipartisan". It's the Beltway obsession, and not even my friend Marc can avoid it.
Missouri passed a law intended to ban Styrofoam on rivers, to stop the littering from float trips using disposable foam coolers and foam cups. But instead of banning expanded polystyrene, they banned polypropylene. So if you're paddling down a Missouri river and have your lunch kept dry in Tupperware, there's a $1000 fine and a year in the clink in your future (and who knows what happens to people using canoes and paddles actually made from polypropylene). But those partying with crumbly coolers and crushable cups can party on -- Devilstower
And speaking of greening up expanses of concrete, I want to do this with my own home's driveway.
"What they see on television is a local or a state official speaking very negatively about immigrants and then what they see is that that person is Republican," said Diaz-Balart, who like Martinez supports a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. But Diaz-Balart said Republican leaders such as South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who also voted for Sotomayor, are helping to put the party on a new path. He predicted if Democratic leaders allow an immigration bill to reach the floor, Americans will hear a very different tone from his party. "Without any doubt how we handle that immigration debate is going to be very important," he said.
"What they see on television is a local or a state official speaking very negatively about immigrants and then what they see is that that person is Republican," said Diaz-Balart, who like Martinez supports a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
But Diaz-Balart said Republican leaders such as South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who also voted for Sotomayor, are helping to put the party on a new path. He predicted if Democratic leaders allow an immigration bill to reach the floor, Americans will hear a very different tone from his party.
"Without any doubt how we handle that immigration debate is going to be very important," he said.
He's high. Latinos saw how Sonia Sotomayor was treated, and reacted in appropriate horror. The coming immigration debate will be ten times worse. It's going to be ugly.