The “explainer-in-chief” came to Worcester Saturday to fire up the Ed Markey campaign. As was the case when he spoke to the Democratic National Convention last year, Bill Clinton did a better job of making his [...]]]>The “explainer-in-chief” came to Worcester Saturday to fire up the Ed Markey campaign. As was the case when he spoke to the Democratic National Convention last year, Bill Clinton did a better job of making his [...]]]>But people forget the 9th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states that “the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained [...]]]>
Obama didn’t create the Joint Special Operations Command, described by a retired lieutenant colonel as “almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine,” but he expanded and embraced it, and he codified a system of identifying “high value [...]]]>
In this week’s column, I take note of the calm, orderly way most politicians, government officials and [...]]]>
A few thoughts on privacy, with more to come:- We shouldn’t be surprised at the domestic surveillance stuff coming out. As we note today in an http://www.redwoodfallsgazette.com/article/20130606/BLOGS/306069945/-1/blogs01
Gomez might have thought it gutsy to go after Markey’s strongest suit, but all the charge did was give Markey an invitation to list all the laws he has written. Markey [...]]]>
It has now been three years since Manning’s arrest, and one curious element will not be part of his trial–we will learn nothing about any harm caused by Manning’s actions. You may recall, at the time of his arrest, [...]]]>
I spent a week driving around East Tennessee in April, and the thing I noticed most on my return was how awful our roads were here in Massachusetts compared to down there.Purely anecdotal, but [...]]]>
You know, not only is there something of a global consensus on all this, [...]]]>
It’s not that that Determinations Unit enforced the legal requirement that 501(c)(4) tax exempt designations unfairly on Tea Party groups, though it certainly used questionable methodology in selecting applications for further scrutiny. [...]]]>“The special election to fill John Kerry’s U.S. Senate seat is less than a month away, and with such an abbreviated campaign season, let’s face it: There’s only one way the candidates are going to make their voices heard. No, not through thoughtful, well-reasoned newspaper op-eds — nobody reads newspapers. They’re going to have to do it through Facebook, because that’s where everybody is. [...]]]>
Watergate created an interesting new cottage industry–the journalist polemic. I’ve never really been able to figure out why this happened exactly, although I blame it, in a large extent, to journalistic frustration with President Johnson over Vietnam. At some point, as Watergate began to break, and it became evident that the news media was on [...]]]>
For now, I just want to pass [...]]]>
Teens imprisoned with adults are far more likely to be raped, far [...]]]>
As it [...]]]>
The espionage act isn’t new, of [...]]]>
Of course, the tragedy in Oklahoma has been both foreseeable and expected for nearly twenty years, ever since the [...]]]>
My column today has my thoughts about Obama’s alleged “scandal trifecta” as of Friday morning, when I wrote it. My [...]]]>
Climate change skeptics often shrug off the pesky facts scientists present by pointing to the big, over-simplified picture. Climate is always changing, they say. Nature goes through cycles.True enough, but there’s nothing all-natural about [...]]]>
So, here’s an idea as to how Obama can [...]]]>
Not that a newspaper editor has to follow some strict standards in making such a call. We aren’t a body of government, sworn to follow legal procedures or base our opinions on statutory reasoning. But I like to think these [...]]]>
How dramatically? In 2010, the deficit was 10 percent of GDP. The CBO reported this week it’s now down to 4 percent of GDP. The economy is coming back, the bailout money is being paid back to the treasury, [...]]]>
As I explain in an editorial today (inspired in part by this http://www.redwoodfallsgazette.com/article/20130513/BLOGS/305139953/-1/blogs01
I visited the memorial to the victims of the Marathon bombings in Copley Square last week, and was moved by the values expressed. As I say in http://www.redwoodfallsgazette.com/article/20130512/BLOGS/305129995/-1/blogs01
An outraged reader wrote me the other day, asking how I could even think about running an editorial about the Bangla Desh T-shirt factory collapse instead of Benghazi. A columnist I often run, Deroy Murdock, offered up a piece calling Benghazi “the worst cover-up since Watergate.” I took a pass; the whole notion just seemed silly to me.
U.S. [...]]]>
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“I remember in school one time, I had a teacher who was [...]]]>
I think Reg Henry wrote his piece about two days too early. Yesterday, after the latest bread and circus murder trial in Arizona resulted in the conviction of a woman for [...]]]>
America leads the world in incarceration, by miles. Our criminal justice policies are a thicket of human tragedies and unintended consequences. Crime [...]]]>I said as much in my column Sunday: “the state now finds itself facing a [...]]]>
There’s a lot to like about how Jason Collins came out of the closet. Collins, a 12-year NBA veteran, waited until the season was over and his contract with the Washington Wizards had run out, keeping his announcement from being [...]]]>Richie Havens was never a superstar, but he had a way of making any song his own. He was the first artist to make it to the stage at Woodstock in 1969, and the only one for a long time. He played for hours to fill the gap, a performance that lives on film and in rock history.
Click here for one of my faves. [...]]]>
One of the interesting questions we’ve had in the past few months on this blog has been the role of the majority in public life–the filibuster in the Senate, the question of whether a majority of voters can deny a minority the right to marry, and now the question of whether Town Meeting in Massachusetts can ban a legal product from sale [...]]]>
Most agree the response was successful. The suspects were identified, killed or captured within four days. Granted, there was luck involved, and the narrative is laden with ironies (like Dzhokhar running over his brother, and being discovered in the boat not because of the lockdown, but because [...]]]>
Say what? It took about an hour to get to the bottom of it, but apparently the latest word you can’t say is “retard.” It’s apparently joined the ranks of “nigger” and [...]]]>
That progress is [...]]]>
I got home from Tennessee just in time to watch the group hug at Fenway Park yesterday. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, or in my house.
I don’t claim to understand all the theories of [...]]]>
The AP reports that the feds intend to torture him without reading his Miranda warnings. The ACLU was quick to point out that the exemption to Miranda only kicks in when there is an imminent threat of immediate and confirmed harm. The feds can’t claim on one hand that the threat is over while, on the other, drooling over the opportunity to deny the suspect due process of law.
We saw a similar phenomenon [...]]]>
One of the things we should have learned over the last few decades is not to jump to conclusions in the wake of a terrorist attack, not that that stops anybody. Everyone’s awaiting more information on the alleged [...]]]>