Decisions like these are never easy. However, should they be outlawed? From the Wash Post: “So when do you go for the abortion?” my friend asked, her voice sympathetic. “Wednesday,” I replied, and then hurriedly got off the phone. I called Mike, my boyfriend, in tears, complaining about how inconsiderate people are, how no one [...]

Flash forward thirty years and Bob Woodward is in the midst of another reporter revelation involving a politically charged “gate.” The disclosure that a current or former Bush administration official told Bob Woodward of The Washington Post more than two years ago that the wife of a prominent administration critic worked for the C.I.A. threatened [...]

Dan Savage breaks down privacy laws in a great editorial: In 1961, Griswold, the executive director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, opened a birth-control clinic in New Haven. She was promptly arrested for dispensing contraceptives to a married couple and was eventually convicted and fined $100. She appealed, and when her case reached [...]

Interesting take from Bill Tierney who was in Iraq as a weapons inspector: UNSCOM could pursue a lead and approach an inspection target from various angles to cut off an escape route, but at some point, the Iraqis would hold up their guns and keep us out. A good example of this was the inspection [...]

Bush’s numbers are sinking so Republicans are thinking about 2006: WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 – The Senate voted on Tuesday to press the Bush administration to provide more public information about the course of the war in Iraq as lawmakers of both parties made it clear they wanted chief responsibility for securing the country shifted to [...]

They now call themselves Open Source Media (or OSM for short), and already people are piling on the criticism. Hey, fair enough. It’s an “us against them” type of atomsphere since this is the first truly political blog advertising consortium to break onto the scene. And let’s be honest, with Charles Johnson at the helm, [...]

That’s the word Cheney used to described Democrats who are criticizing the planning, selling and prosecution of the war in Iraq. WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In the sharpest White House attack yet on critics of the Iraq war, Vice President Dick Cheney said on Wednesday that accusations the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to justify the war [...]

$125 Million is being pulled. Why? WASHINGTON – Congressional budget negotiators have decided to take back $125 million in Sept. 11 aid from New York, which had fought to keep the money to treat sick and injured ground zero workers, lawmakers said Tuesday. New York officials had sought for months to hold onto the funding, [...]

That’s how many people we’ve detained without rights since the War On Terrorism has begun. From the AP: The United States has detained more than 83,000 foreigners in the four years of the war on terror, enough to nearly fill the NFL’s largest stadium. The administration defends the practice of holding detainees in prisons from [...]

This is going to be messy… Editor and Publisher Hullabaloo Washington Monthly The Mahablog firedoglake JustOneMinute azerbic War and Piece Talking Points Memo Yellow Dog Blog Shakespeare’s Sister No More Mister Nice Blog The Mixed-Up Files of Mr. Bob Woodward And many, many more…

Western Europe is in a crisis. Fifty years of multiculturalist policies that kept Muslims segregated on social welfare roles will be the ink that writes the next chapter of European history. On my side of the Atlantic, there’s little to relish in this crisis. Losing Old Europe is tragic. Many rich continental cultures are ebbing, [...]

The ultimate odd couple? I arrived at Megu at 11:30 and was led past a phalanx of American security guards (provided, I was told, by the U.S. State Department), to a small, private room where Chalabi, his daughter Tamara (a Harvard PhD who lives in Baghdad and works closely with her father), and a half-dozen [...]

Jeez, I am extremely sorry for the 24 hour downtime. Three times in about a month is REALLY bad for a site to completely go down. Again, I apologize. So then, we’re still here, we’re still committed to giving you the best opinions from the left, right and center, and hopefully you’ll stick with us. [...]

He’s come up in a few posts and comments here lately. I differ with some of my Southern friends in that I see Abraham Lincoln as a literary genius, one of the great American prose stylists and certainly the greatest ever to occupy the Presidency. He could have written a Greek tragedy. Instead, he starred [...]

Out of humble beginnings, pajama-clad included … Are we witnessing the further evolution of the creature known today as “Media?” The underdogs of our time, journalistically speaking, are bloggers. And the online unraveling of Rathergate was their first unmitigated triumph. One of the bloggers who led the charge against Rather is Charles Johnson, proprietor of [...]

Lest we forget what we’re fighting for, Sullivan reminds us: I’m not suggesting that no liberties should be surrendered to counter the real threat of terror. I’m arguing that any surrender of freedom must be clearly justified in each case and openly discussed. I’m saying the courts and parliament and Congress are not threats to [...]

Iraq, Alito, abortion rights, Plame Game, and don’t forget the bird flu. So many issues, so little time, and coming at us from so many directions, almost like the swirls of a storm. Are we just in the eye of the fiscal hurricane? “We face a demographic tsunami” that “will never recede,” David Walker tells [...]

This is ridiculous: WALLACE: Now, the President never said that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat. As you saw, you did say that. If anyone hyped the intelligence, isn’t it Jay Rockefeller? SEN. ROCKEFELLER: No. The â€â€? I mean, this question is asked a thousand times and I’ll be happy to answer it a thousand [...]

Let me say right now, I like this plan because I think it’s a good compromise on people who are essentially prisoners of war against an idea. I understand the legal quandry that the Bush Administration has faced regarding these people, but they should have come up with an idea like this a lot sooner [...]

Basicallly, Republicans want out. Smart political move because it does two things. First, it draws a line in the sand between them and a clearly unpopular President. Second, it takes this issue away from the Democrats who can’t actually do much about it anyway. But is their plan really any different than John Kerry’s plan? [...]