Liberal Talk Radio

Before I dive headfirst into the myriad pre-game coverage of tonight’s State of the Union, I want to take a moment to talk about a few things that I’d like to see … admittedly, the POTUS seems to have lost my cell phone number in the last few months, but I’m told he still reads [...]

When we four humble bloggers are on the verge of retirement* in 30-40 years, will the conventional wisdom regarding national elections be “well, Governor Smith has a lot of neat ideas, but we must keep in mind that the American electorate hasn’t elected a governor to the presidency since George W. Bush in 2000?” *Yeah, [...]

On the occasion of Norm Coleman’s concession and Al Franken’s election: Can you imagine what this would be like if breaking a filibuster still required 67 votes? Jiminy Christmas!

Talk about building bridges! President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday defended his choice of a popular evangelical minister to deliver the invocation at his inauguration, rejecting criticism that it slights gays.The selection of Pastor Rick Warren brought objections from gay rights advocates, who strongly supported Obama during the election campaign. The advocates are angry over Warren’s [...]

Jaw-dropping hurricane of House leadership not getting it, as dday points out over at Digby’s place. From the NY Times article: WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats have scrapped plans for another vote on expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, thus sparing Republicans from a politically difficult vote just weeks before elections this fall. Before the [...]

It’s obvious that the GOP found The Nasty right where they left it. What’s less clear is what the effect Palin’s speech will be. My sense is that the McCain campaign designed it to shore up the core of a party in serious danger of fracturing. If the delegates in the venue are any indication, [...]

The West Blogosphere and Democrats are in an unbelievable tizzy about Obama’s race speech, trying to figure out what it all means and whether it’s good or bad for Obama, and good or bad for Democrats, and what was he thinking talking to voters like adults (thank you Jon Stewart, for calling it what it [...]

In conversations with friends, the subject of whether or not cell phones distort poll results comes up surprisingly often. I’ve been landline free for years, and so are many of my peers. (I laughed out loud when I saw a line in Ron Paul’s wikipedia page excusing the candidate’s poor performance for being related to [...]

It’s become almost an article of faith among Republicans, but is it true? No and Double No. Even Arthur Laffer, the guy who invented the “curve” that launched a thousand specious Wall Street Journal op-eds, is ambivalent on the subject. Now, do really high marginal tax rates have deleterious effects on incentives? Yes, probably. Consider [...]

Sentencing Commission to consider making the cocaine sold in black neighborhoods only slightly more illegal than the cocaine sold in white neighborhoods: The commission is taking up one of the most racially sensitive issues of the two-decades-old war on drugs. Jurists and civil rights organizations have long complained that the commission’s guidelines mandate more stringent [...]