Politico reports there’s progress on the “partisan hack” front… John McCain’s campaign asked a prominent Republican consultant, Craig Shirley, to leave his official campaign role Thursday after a Politico inquiry about Shirley’s dual role consulting for the campaign and for an independent “527″ group opposing the Democratic presidential candidates. The campaign also released a new [...]

When you hear McCain talk about how he has no control over swift-boat like groups, he may be right, but you’d also do well to remember this story. From TPM: A few weeks ago, Media Matters’ David Brock announced to great fanfare that he was taking over Progressive Media USA, a third-party group that would, [...]

And he’ll still be blogging here from time to time, but he has a new blog about his family’s experiences… Hey. I have an idea. Let’s load up the kids and move to Italy. Let’s call the kids The Boy and The Girl. (8 and 10 respectively. Feet tall. They’re very large kids.) Maybe we’ll [...]

The oppression of Tibet by China is a deadly serious issue. The San Francisco Olympic Torch Relay protests were not. I am glad they stayed that way.

As noted by TPM, the daily call from Hillary’s camp was lacking the usual venom. Let’s hope this continues.

Good for her. This was needed. Ferraro has been WAY out of line and it’s good to see Clinton publicly reject her once and for all. From AP: Earlier in the day, Hillary Clinton supporter and fundraiser Geraldine Ferraro gave up her honorary position with Clinton’s campaign after she said in an interview last week [...]

I think this is something everybody can get behind… Congressman Ron Paul has signed on as a cosponsor of legislation that would prohibit the Secretary of Veterans Affairs from collecting certain debts owed to the United States by members of the Armed Forces and veterans who die as a result of an injury incurred or [...]

I think I speak for all the teenagers in the world when I say, “Let’s do it!” From NY Times: Research shows that teenagers’ body clocks are set to a schedule that is different from that of younger children or adults. This prevents adolescents from dropping off until around 11 p.m., when they produce the [...]

Everybody of a certain age has a bald eagle story. I spent six of the first eight years of my life in Buffalo, N.Y. Growing up there, the bald eagle had almost mythic significance to my young mind because it was a symbol in more ways than one. Not only did it represent our country; [...]

Excellent news out of the Senate today. A bill that would allow terrorism suspects access to federal courts to challenge their imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. The committee, on an 11-8 vote, advanced a bill that would allow prisoners to protest their detentions through a writ [...]

Well, there you have it. Shine a little sunlight onto the Shaquanda Cotton case and we can collectively turn things around. From the Chicago Tribune: HOUSTON — Shaquanda Cotton, the teenage black girl in the small east Texas town of Paris who was sent to prison for up to seven years for shoving a teacher’s [...]

I certainly wasn’t expecting this on a Friday in March, but it’s a good decision. From Bloomberg: March 9 (Bloomberg) — A U.S. appeals court struck down a three-decade-old District of Columbia law that bans residents from keeping a handgun in their homes, saying the Constitution’s Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms. [...]

Hello progress! From WSJ: Four former majority leaders who used to battle on the Senate floor plan to launch next week a “Bipartisan Policy Center� to encourage Republicans and Democrats to work together on national security, energy and agriculture issues. With funding from philanthropic organizations, former Democratic leaders Daschle and Mitchell, and Republicans Dole and [...]

Dems worked with Repubs and got the job done. Bravo. From the AP: WASHINGTON – The Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday to boost the federal minimum wage by $2.10 to $7.25 an hour over two years, but packaged the increase with controversial tax cuts for small businesses and higher taxes for many $1 million-plus executives. [...] [...]

Thank God. And I say that as someone who voted for the doofus in 2004. In my defense, I would have voted for a trained pig if the alternative was another four years of Bush. My vote was a vote against Bush rather than a vote for Kerry. Anyway, this isn’t a big surprise; nobody [...]

Republicans are asking defeated Maryland senatorial candidate Michael Steele to replace outgoing RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman. He’d be a good choice: a popular, smart moderate from a blue state who, by virtue of his skin color, would lend built-in credibility to Republican efforts to continue Mehlman’s strategy of reaching out to blacks. And it would [...]

It depends who you ask. Some disgruntled Democrats want to replace him with Harold Ford, arguing that Dean did poorly at fundraising, and that his “50 state” strategy cost them several additional seats. Elsewhere, though, he’s being hailed as a genius. Not only did the Democrats not need his help to win, but his efforts [...]

I am, of course, pleased by New Jersey’s top court recognizing what I consider the obvious: that same-sex couples deserve the same legal and tax benefits as heterosexuals. But what really interests me is not the whole debate over whether same-sex unions should be allowed; it’s that the debate provides a near-perfect example of how [...]

“The idea of trying to cast blame on President Clinton is just wrong for many, many reasons, not the least of which is I don’t think he deserves it…I don’t think President Bush deserves it. The people who deserve blame for Sept. 11, I think we should remind ourselves, are the terrorists -the Islamic fanatics-who [...]

We live in a world that likes to focus on flash…the best news is breaking news that portrays the latest tragedy…whether that be a plane crash, a shooting, or any of a number of calamities. At the same time, slower burning, less inflammatory catastrophes unfold at a reliably steady pace each day. The question is [...]