Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia University today brought out the best and worst in modern American culture. Columbia University President Lee Bollinger showed courage in inviting such a polarizing and controversial figure to speak. There were calls to cancel the Iranian president’s invitation and now some politicians want to cut funding to Columbia [...]

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The political euphemism glossary, which is non-partisan and being built gradually, is a catalog of the tools, words, and phrases used by political minds to shape how we think or worse, lull us into such a complacency we fail to critically think at all.
The next euphemism to enter the complete glossary is below. Click on [...]

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Think American confidence in the presidency is low? The public is even less confident in Congress. And that is also a result of the President Bush’s leadership.
Gallup conducts an annual poll of American confidence in 16 different societal institutions ranging from the military to religion, business to labor, the medical system to HMOs, news [...]

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“Politics is the art of the possible” -Otto Von Bismark
There are growing number of folks with a full head of steam about impeachment. There’s impeachcheney.org. There’s impeachbush.org. The blogosphere is abuzz with the idea. The mainstream media is starting to discuss it. There’s actual articles of impeachment against Vice-President Cheney in the House, submitted [...]

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Our political leadership, congressional and presidential, has turned the most urgent and critical issue facing our nation into a an exercise in sound bite governance and diplomacy. “Cut and run” and “stay the course” compete with “bring the troops home” and “support our troops” as empty slogans masquerading as policy. The nation deserves a well [...]

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In the very first session of Congress this year, the newly Democratic-led House of Representatives passed a resolution requiring members to disclose the earmarks they have placed in spending bills. It would identify what is was for, how much it is for and which House member requested it. This was hailed as fulfilling a promise [...]

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The New York Times reported that Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, David Obey, has decided to change how each congressmember’s pet pork barrel projects, known as earmarks, get reviewed. He’s decided that the 36,000 earmarks will be posted in the Congressional Record one month before they’ll be voted on for final approval. That’s 36,000 [...]

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This from Bloomberg:
A resolution to express “no confidence” in Alberto Gonzales, President George W. Bush’s embattled attorney general, was blocked by U.S. Senate Republicans who called it a meaningless gesture… Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell chided Democrats for “spending our time on a meaningless resolution about giving the president advice about who the attorney general [...]

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The House Judiciary Committee has pulled a truly galling maneuver. They have removed a provision from HR 2316, ironically titled the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, that would have required congressional staff to publicly disclose that they were negotiating for a job outside of Congress. The favorite career choice for Congressmen, Congresswomen, [...]

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