| Editorial Board: The Senate should shy from 'nuclear option' Dec 4th 2012, 00:59 IN THE SPRING of 2005, Senate Democrats were in an uproar. Republicans, infuriated over what they perceived as the Democratic minority's abuses of the filibuster to block judicial nominees, were threatening to deploy the so-called nuclear option: changing the filibuster rules by a simple majority vote, rather than requiring the 67 votes ordinarily required for a rules change. Read full article >>   |  | Extending leadership on disability issues Dec 4th 2012, 00:59 For the first 25 years of my life I was as an able-bodied American. I played football and soccer and even ran a few marathons. All of that changed three years ago . Having graduated from West Point , I was serving my country as an Army infantry officer in Afghanistan when I was seriously wounded: I stepped on the unseen trigger of an improvised explosive device, and both my legs were instantly torn from my body. From that moment on, my life has been drastically different. Read full article >>   | | Editorial Board: A second chance for Greg Hall Dec 4th 2012, 00:58 Judged by the usual criteria, Greg Hall should be the obvious choice to fill the vacant seat from Prince George's County in the Maryland House of Delegates caused by the removal of the incumbent, Tiffany Alston, for corruption. When he ran for the Maryland General Assembly in 2010, Mr. Hall was the runner-up; he finished fourth in a race for three seats representing House District 24, which includes Landover, Capitol Heights, District Heights and Seat Pleasant. Read full article >>   | | Obama's overreach Dec 4th 2012, 00:55 The endorsement of a continental nation being a powerful stimulant, all victorious presidents face the temptation of overreach. Following his reelection in 2004, President George W. Bush undertook 60 stops in 60 days to sell the nation on Social Security reform. America remained unsold. In 1992, President Bill Clinton attempted and failed to reorganize the country's health-care system — then the Democratic Party promptly lost both the House and Senate for the first time in four decades. "The fundamental political mistake committed by Bill Clinton and his aides," argue political scientists Lawrence Jacobs and Robert Shapiro, "was in grossly overestimating the capacity of a president to 'win' public opinion and to use public support as leverage to overcome known political obstacles." Read full article >> | | Susan Rice's surrogate role Dec 4th 2012, 00:52 In 1953, an Army officer by the name of Irving Peress was promoted from captain to major. Peress was a leftist, possibly a communist, and word of his advancement in rank reached Sen. Joseph McCarthy in Washington. He asserted that the promotion proved the Army was "soft on communism," and he launched an investigation that transfixed the nation. Peress, by the way, was a mere dentist. He was the Susan Rice of his day. Read full article >> | | The open-and-shut administration Dec 4th 2012, 00:51 "My administration," President Obama wrote on his first day in office, "is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government." Those were strong and hopeful words. Four years later, it is becoming more and more clear that they were just words. Read full article >>   | | Boehner plays a weak hand Dec 4th 2012, 00:40 How dare he? President Obama, I mean: How dare he do what he promised during the campaign? How dare he insist on a "balanced approach" to fiscal policy that includes a teensy-weensy tax increase for the rich? Oh, the humanity. Read full article >> | | Questions about guns can protect patients Dec 3rd 2012, 22:50 Regarding the Nov. 27 Health & Science article "Court case in Florida addresses doctors' freedom to quiz patients about guns": As a pediatrician at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University, I read with concern about the attempts to limit conversations between patients and their doctors. I recently cared for a 6-year-old child who found his parents' loaded gun under their bed. When his older sibling attempted to take the weapon from him, the gun discharged and my patient was shot in the belly. He lost more than half his blood volume and was rushed to emergency surgery, where half of his stomach and small intestine and his entire spleen and colon were removed. He remained in the hospital for more than half of a year; he still requires the use of a colostomy bag and cannot feed by mouth. Read full article >>   | | Dec 3rd 2012, 22:49 ● I share Courtland Milloy's concern that the District needs a vision regarding how its growth affects low-income residents. However, in criticizing bike lanes, sidewalks, and public transit (in favor of keeping parking spots, apparently), he has picked an odd scapegoat. Read full article >>   | | Greg Sargent: John Boehner's exit strategy Dec 3rd 2012, 20:03 It's widely understood that John Boehner is in a very difficult spot. On the one hand he has to worry about the Tea Partyers in his caucus who don't want him to compromise on extending just the middle class tax cuts (what they call "raising taxes"). On the other, Obama has far more political leverage here, and as Boehner knows, the GOP is likely to take the blame if middle class taxes go up on millions of people at the end of the year. Read full article >>   | | Jennifer Rubin: Maybe Morocco can help Dec 3rd 2012, 18:23 The United States is short on allies and effective means of influencing events in the Middle East. Syria is still a bloodbath. Libya is threatened by jihadists. Egypt has taken a turn toward dictatorship. Mali is a non-functioning state in which jihadist separatists control much of the country. The "peace process" (for good reason) is going nowhere. Read full article >> | | Jamelle Bouie: Why Washington should kick the can down the road Dec 3rd 2012, 17:23 Back before the election, Angus King — then a candidate for the Maine Senate seat being vacated by Olympia Snowe — explained one of his ideas for dealing with the Bush tax cuts, "We should consider pegging the sunset of these tax cuts to something non-arbitrary, like a certain amount of GDP growth, or a lower level of unemployment." He's right. Given our sluggish recovery, now is not the time for deficit reduction. Far from forcing responsibility now, the country would be best served by a Congress that kicked the fiscal can down the road, and focused attention on putting people back to work (preferably by taking advantage of low, low interest rates). Read full article >>   | | The war of words over a Middle East photo Dec 3rd 2012, 16:12 For those of us who have relatives and friends in Israel, ombudsman Patrick B. Pexton's dismissive comment about the showering of rockets on southern Israel for months being like "bee stings on the Israeli bear's behind" was nothing short of scandalous ["Outrage over a front-page photo," Sunday Opinion, Nov. 25]. Would he say the same if Mexico were showering rockets (no matter how primitive) on children in Texas? Does Israel's strong defensive capacity, necessitated by hostile neighbors, make it acceptable for Gaza to shower rockets on Israel? Read full article >> | | The missing pieces to Pexton's column Dec 3rd 2012, 16:12 Patrick Pexton ignores other issues which are germane to the discussion: Hamas purposely plants its weaponry in densely-populated areas, thereby guaranteeing that retaliatory strikes by Israel will hit civilians; Hamas, unlike the Palestinian government in the West Bank, continues to seek an end to the state of Israel; and, Hamas is the party that started firing rockets into civilian areas of Israel proper (i.e. not the West Bank, not the Golan Heights). At the least, Pexton should have pointed out those facts when discussing the very sad fates of innocent people on both sides. Read full article >> | | What happens when we wage war Dec 3rd 2012, 16:12 Instead of bickering over whether or not publishing the photo was to one side's or the other's publicity advantage, we should focus on the image itself, which is essential to understanding what war does. It kills, maims, causes heartbreaking suffering for the innocent and diminishes all combatants and their supporters. I saw the photo, and I was moved to tears. I think we all need to see pictures of this sort to remind us what happens when we decide that the way to settle disagreements is to wage battle. Whose enemy was that 11-month-old baby? Read full article >> | |
No comments:
Post a Comment