Memnison Journal

Not-Surprise: Democratic leaders (such as Sen. Reid) reportedly pushed Blago not to pick a candidate for Senate (this was before the phone calls came out) that couldn’t win downstate, which included pretty much any of the main black players in Illinois Democratic politics.    Obama suggested others, including two of the same group: Illinois Veterans Affairs [...]

From Dick Meyer at NPR on Blago and Made-off:
As audacious as Blagojevich’s political gluttony is, it is easy to find far worse political corruption, much of it perfectly legal: Distorting intelligence to invade Iraq, torturing prisoners, failure to regulate Wall Street, and systematic pork-barrel boondoggling come quickly to mind. If you’re feeling expansive, how about [...]

Lobbyists are gnashing their teeth and rending their garments; what are they to do without having a ready-made place to grease palms now that Ted Stevens is leaving the Senate?

To maintain an open line to Mr. Stevens, the association hired Ms. Sutherland, who left Mr. Stevens not long after delivering those warnings to open her [...]

OK, look - If I were British, I might be a monarchist, but I’m not in favour (sic) of Family Political Dynasties.  Sometime, that works out, more often it doesn’t.   That includes everyone, whether it’s John Quincy Adams or Caroline Kennedy or George Bush.  Either one.  If someone is capable and a good fit for [...]

Well, if you’d never heard of our Governor before, you have now.    My reflections on this inside.

Rumors about a new Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
A typical approach has been playing out at the Environmental Protection Agency, where the Obama team is led by Lisa Jackson, commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and Robert Sussman, a former Clinton official and now a lawyer and fellow at the Center [...]

It was wonderful to see people at the con; the best part, to me, was wandering around and chatting with con friends I hadn’t seen in a while and catching up with them.   Long chats with Kerri Ellen Kelly, Christa (Linda Sugar’s sister), Deb Kosiba (who was minding her store, so to speak, and I [...]

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country,”
- Abraham Lincoln, Second Annual Message [...]

Being a student of American History and Political Science, I’ve noticed something since - oh, 1930.  When some Republicans, the more wingnut sorts, are behind the eight-ball and trying to stir things up, they call the Democrats commies, socialists or commie sympathizers.  And traitors to the realm.
Go back and check out the commentary about FDR, [...]

Another blogger had the perfect comments on last night’s Presidential debate; excerpts after the cut. I thought McCain (with a lot of audible steaming around, twitching and grimacing, looking like he was going to burst) came across as incoherent and rambling and incredibly cranky.  I also know his voting record enough to throw rocks at [...]

Susan and I took advantage of the federal holiday (but not one for the elections people) to go for the first day of early voting.  We have to, because we’re election judges.  The ballot was light - only a scattering of races, and in our heavily red area, a lot of the more local stuff [...]

…goes to Paul Krugman, of Princeton and the New York Times.  Timely, that.  I read his and Robert Reich’s stuff on economics avidly.

There was a discussion in an earlier post (lj version) about Bush’s negative impact on the economy between me and Bill Roper on a Senate bill in 2005 (S. 190) that allegedly would have prevented the whole mortgage debacle.  A year after the bill was sent out of committee with huge changes, McCain added in [...]

The name Yoshi Tsurumi is one you probably have never heard of; he was George W. Bush’s macroeconomics professor at Harvard Business School, and he presently teaches at CUNY.
He remembers Bush well - as one of his worst students ever:
Bush, by contrast, “was totally the opposite of Chris Cox,” Tsurumi said. “He showed pathological lying [...]

As per those WaPo and NYT stories I mentioned a day or so again, the Alaska AG is some dude that nobody ever heard of - that had a solo practice and was in local politics in Palin’s area.   He had to recuse himself from the Troopergate case because he was one of the people [...]