Census Worker Hanging Suicide, Not Right Wing Murder
Remember the bizarre case of Bill Sparkman, the census worker found hanging from a tree in Kentucky with the letters FED scrawled on his chest? Remember the media frenzy about crazy Southerners and their hatred of the federal government? At the time, I cautioned against jumping to conclusions, saying there could be any number of explanations. I also agreed with ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 25, 2009 09:03
Educating Illegal Immigrants
A rather bizarre column by Jeff Jacoby is drawing some blogospheric attention. YOU’RE A sensible, principled conservative. You want America to be a land of boundless opportunity and freedom, where people are treated as individuals and judged on their merits. You reject the divisive identity politics of the left - what matters most about any of us, you would insist, is ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 23, 2009 11:38
Marijuana Legalization Support at Record High
While a majority still supports criminalization, more Americans than ever think marijuana should be legal, according the latest Gallup survey. Lydia Saad (a family friend) provides the analysis: Gallup's October Crime poll finds 44% of Americans in favor of making marijuana legal and 54% opposed. U.S. public support for legalizing marijuana was fixed in the 25% range from the late ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 20, 2009 09:30
Conservatives and Bailouts
Regarding the TARP program, Matthew Yglesias makes a comment about conservatives that really isn't fair:But Romney aside, it’s striking to see the number of conservatives who’ve decided that an initiative proposed by George W. Bush and Hank Paulson and endorsed by the GOP congressional leadership was and is secretly some socialist plot. Similarly with the idea that Ben Bernanke, former ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 21, 2009 09:37
Protests and Media Coverage
A meme is developing among a handful of Progressive blogs, with Media Matters, Hullabaloo, Discourse.net, and Brad Blog all complaining that the Washington Post and NYT gave A1 treatment yesterday to the 9/12 protests while relegating anti-war marches in 2002 and 2005 to the inside pages. Steve Benen follows up and observes, There are competing angles to explain something like this, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 14, 2009 07:27
American Political Math
When Republicans controlled the presidency and had strong majorities in the House and Senate, I often read calls from bloggers on my side of the aisle for purging the RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) from the ranks. After all, the likes of Arlen Specter and Lincoln Chaffee were a giant pain in the butt and always seemed to be in ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 18, 2009 07:52
Two Political Blogospheres
Two blogging conventions, Netroots Nation (the successor to Daily Kos) and RightOnline, are being held in Pittsburgh this week. As Timothy McNulty reports for the Post-Gazette, they're different in ways other than politics. The RightOnline conference starting tomorrow morning at the Sheraton Station Square will have about a quarter of the 2,000 attendees at the liberal conference in the convention center, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 13, 2009 10:47
Brooks-Broder Derangement Syndrome
Mike Rappaport "hates" David Brooks and finds him "a despicable character." Why? He lets John Hinderaker explain: Brooks . . . knows where his bread is buttered. He makes his living as a "conservative" who can reliably be counted on to sell out conservatives and Republicans at every opportunity. In this instance, Hinderaker is reacting to Brooks' characterization of Sarah Palin's "death ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 10, 2009 12:23
Winning the Healthcare Fight
David Frum frets that conservatives might be in for a Pyrrhic victory in the health care fight if they define winning as "beat back the president’s proposals, defeat the House bill, stand back and wait for 1994 to repeat itself." [W]e’ll still have the present healthcare system. Meaning that we’ll have (1) flat-lining wages, (2) exploding Medicaid and Medicare costs and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 9, 2009 07:24
Cash for Clunkers and its Critics
Andrew Sullivan thinks Republicans hate the cash-for-clunkers program, wherein the government gives people up to $4500 of taxpayer money to trade in their cars for newer ones that get slightly better gas mileage, out of "emotional reaction to the end of the far right's dominance of American discourse." [C]ash-for-clunkers is one example of the government actually doing something right, helpful and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 4, 2009 15:38
Conservative Health Policy
Dan Miller laments that "the right has basically abdicated its role in the conversation" on health care reform. Health care has been THE liberal project for literally decades; entire careers (not to mention presidencies) have been built around it. There’s a vast policy apparatus on the progressive side of the aisle built around health care, with industrious wonks digging into every ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 17, 2009 06:04
Conscience of the Conservatives
Mark Tapcott hath a point: [I]n a Beltway Confidential post Tuesday, I asked what is the difference between folks on the Right calling the eight Republican House members who voted for Obama-Waxman-Markey the "cap-and-traitors," and the infamous "General Betrayus" ad bought by the Left's Moveon.org in The New York Times. In no time at all, comments variously described your humble servant as ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 2, 2009 11:30
Obama Approval Dropping as Hard Choices Made
As President Obama settles into his fifth month in office, his personal popularity remains high but his job approval is slipping drastically, according to a new NYT/CBS News poll. A substantial majority of Americans say President Obama has not developed a strategy to deal with the budget deficit, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, which also found ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 18, 2009 09:26
Right Wing Extremists
There's been much back-and-forth since Wednesday's tragic shooting of a guard at the Holocaust Musuem about the rise of right wing extremists and the need for the federal government to treat them as a threat. Inevitably, we're seeing the perennial "their extremists are worse than our extremists" debate. Oddly, we're even seeing some "No, he's actually a Left-wing extremist!" arguments. Rather ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 13, 2009 08:17
Court Rejects DADT Challenge
Gays looking to get the Supreme Court's help in being allowed to openly serve in the military have been rebuffed. The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a challenge to the Pentagon policy forbidding gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, granting a request by the Obama administration. The court said it will not hear an appeal from former ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 8, 2009 10:52
