Plead the First

Maybe not yet, but he appears to be heading in that direction. From the Boston Globe (via DailyKos): When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using […]

Local Greensboro bloggers Cara Michele and Sean Coon have launched thepeopleyes, a project to give a voice and online presence to people living at or below the poverty line in Greesboro, NC.

Ed Cone takes issue with those who would call North Carolina’s lottery a “tax”. I agree that it’s not a tax, however I do think it is appropriate to say that the lottery is taxed. As David Boyd points out, “What is the 50% the state keeps other than sales tax?” Jim Caserta furthers this […]

Throughout his presidency, Bush has been reluctant to go out on a limb and answer questions from the general population, preferring scripted events, friendly audiences, and softball lead-ins to talking point answers. Recently, he’s gotten a bit bold, and fielded a few real questions, and based on a couple of them, it’s easy to see […]

David Boyd quotes from a George Will column pointing out the failure of the Bush administration’s attempts to use democracy to create “hospitable cultures”. Boyd then says: If the theory would have held, things would be much simpler. Since it didn’t, we’re back to the law enforcement model for dealing with nuclear terrorism. It’s nice […]

Here’s the latest version of Greensboro’s Political Comapss: I find it interesting that many of the results that fall into the center and the lower-left quadrant seem to be “bunched up” in many places – specifically there are four groupings towards which many of the results seem to gravitate. Compare that to the upper and […]

Greg at The Talent Show has posted a great 1947 short film on the dangers of prejudice and an “us versus them” mentality. As the film points out, America is a nation of minorities. Anyone trying to divide us and pit one group against another is looking to get something out of it, and we […]

A wire story in today’s News and Record reported that the House passed a bill preventing states from adding extra warnings to food labels: The House voted Wednesday to strip many warnings from food labels, potentially affecting alerts about arsenic in bottled water, lead in candy and allergy-causing sulfites, among others. Pushed by food companies […]

Lex has a great post over at his News and Record blog on our government and open-records laws: Stripped of all its social, political and legal niceties, our relationship to government is almost like that of a hostage. We have to pay taxes, and if we don’t pay the government can jail us, and if […]