Hold Fast

Josh Schrei takes on comments of China apologist Tom Grunfeld and really lays the smackdown. Schrei’s writing is a phenomenally clear rebuttal to the pro-colonialist arguments that because Tibet wasn’t, in fact, a Shangri La prior to China’s invasion in 1950, that Tibetans shouldn’t be able to ask for freedom and self-determination. Here’s an excerpt: [...]

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Hey look, the Senate just passed another extension of the USA Patriot Act! Considering this reauthorization was something that during the course of the FISA fight civil liberties activists were told would be an opportunity to restore the rule of law, this is really disheartening. Apparently the reason there were no improvements, revisions or increased [...]

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President Obama’s calculus ”that by listening carefully and appealing to reason he can bring people together to get results” fundamentally fails to understand that Republicans will not do anything that they see politically benefiting Democrats.  The GOP is not a good faith partner. They do not want to pass comprehensive health care reform. Bringing them along for [...]

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Duncan Black is 100% right. The White House has lead on health care reform to the place where they want to see the legislation being. That place does not include a public health insurance option because the White House does not want there to be one. They are not currently trying to get one and [...]

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This really shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s paying attention, but the New York Times is reporting that the attacks on Google, other American tech and defense companies, and activists working for human rights in China and Tibet have been tied to universities in China that maintain close working relationships with the Chinese military and government. It’d [...]

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Senator Scott Brown: Newly-minted Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) appeared on Fox’s Neil Cavuto and showed none of the outrage and concern about terrorism that he exuded during his Senate election campaign. Asked for his reaction, Brown said he felt for the families, but quickly shrugged off the attack and transitioned to say that “people are [...]

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Apparently Dick Blumenthal thinks chickenshittery will save us all. Blumenthal is in line to be the Democratic Senate nominee in Connecticut, in a bid to replace the retiring Senator Chris Dodd. Despite being Connecticut’s Attorney General, Blumenthal has repeatedly made a big deal out of the fact that he thinks all terrorists should be tried [...]

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A number of years back, during the Bush administration, a New York Times columnist (I believe it was Paul Krugman, but haven’t been able to find the article) wrote a piece that began with the recounting of a story of a group of aggrieved peasants in some eastern European country raiding the house of the [...]

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Working in politics, I’ve become increasingly unimpressed by charges of hypocrisy. When you look at the arguments surrounding how Democrats should strategize on the filibuster and whether there should be vocal pushes for “up or down votes,” it is not convincing to me that one party or the other has no standing to critique a [...]

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Mike Stark does some great work interviewing Senator Chris Dodd, getting him to speak out against the obstructionism by the Republicans that have turned the Senate into a dysfunctional institution. he had some pretty strong words for the conduct of certain Senators (that remained unnamed), saying they needed to “start acting like Senators”. But perhaps [...]

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