April 2006
12 posts
Tenth Anniversary of Minimum-Wage Hike. Democrats...
Ten years ago this week I suggested to Bill Clinton we ought to try to raise the minimum wage. It hadn’t been raised in years. Some ten million people worked at the minimum wage, most of them heads of households. The timing seemed good. Elections would be coming up in the fall. The vast majority of Americans were in favor of raising the minimum wage. Yes, Republicans controlled Congress and...
China, Big Oil, and George W
The New York Times says a big issue between Bush and China’s President Hu will be China’s use of the world’s energy resources — and how China is “tying up” oil with long-term contracts. If it turns out that Bush is in fact concerned about this, he’s even dumber than I had feared. For one thing, as you probably know, the United States uses up almost a...
Giving Lots of Money to Your Kids
The best thing about taping Oprah Winfrey’s show a few days ago was the I had the good fortune to meet another of her guests — a young woman named Nicole Buffet. Turns out Nicole is the granddaughter of Warren Buffet, the second wealthiest man in the United States. Here’s the kicker: Nicole doesn’t have health insurance. She can’t afford it. She’s a struggling...
A Dangerous Precedent
Okay, so Rumsfeld’s generals are in revolt. That may satisfy some of us who think this war was crazy from the start and would like to get rid of Rummy as well as his boss. But frankly I don’t like the idea of generals getting into politics. It would be an awful precedent if retired generals could put enough pressure on the civilian leader of the Pentagon to force him to leave office....
How close is Iran?
Iran is close to having a nuclear warhead. Whether it’s months away or two years away is of some doubt, but there’s no doubt it is speeding production as fast as it can. If you were leading Iran, wouldn’t you, too — given this administration’s bellicose foreign policy? Consider: America and the Bushies are occupying your nemisis neighbor, Iraq. They’re also...
William Sloane Coffin RIP
William Sloane Coffin, who died yesterday, will always be remembered by people my age (old, getting older, almost drafted into Vietnam) as a voice of measured reason yet also passion in defense of civil and political rights, and against the insanity of the Vietnam War. I remember hearing him in 1968 when he was chaplain at Yale — powerful, stirring, inspirational, also thoughtful, careful,...
Reasonable Paranoia
I was on the phone this morning with my best friend, talking about everything close friends talk about — from personal matters to Bush’s idiocy — when I suddenly had the first real paranoid thought I’ve ever had. Suppose the FBI or CIA was listening in? Bush is now spying on Americans without a warrant and without any court-approved review. Why wouldn’t I be someone...
The new jobs report is pathetic
Okay so there were 211,000 more jobs in March than in February and unemployment dipped from 4.8 percent to 4.7 percent. The NY Times touts this today as “healthy” and says it means the economy is “picking up speed.” That’s literally true but misleading. If a car is going 5 miles an hour and it accelerates to 8 miles an hour, it’s picking up speed. But relative...
Bush uses intelligence
Am I all alone in believing that Bush’s use of classified intelligence as a means of punishing or discrediting those who opposed his Iraq policy is an impeachable offense? If spying on Americans in direct violation of law doesn’t make the grade, this one certainly does. Richard Nixon was hounded out of office for this. J. Edgar Hoover abused his authority at the FBI like this. Are we...
GM and Jon Stewart
I just got off the phone with a guy who works in public affairs for General Motors, asking me if I’d say publicly on the radio and TV that GM’s buyback deal for GM workers (GM will give a certain lump sum of money to any worker who voluntarily quits) is a good deal for workers, and promising a sum of money for me if I did so. I told him I’d say nice things about the deal if I...
First posting
I’ve just returned to Eurphoric State University from several days in Washington D.C. Delighted to be back here. Washington continues to be a self-important echo chamber in which tens of thousands of people listen happily to the sounds of their own voices confirm the correctness of their views. I met George Allen, who, for those of you in the real world who may not keep track of these...
A test from your son
Dad, I know you may feel tentative about me setting this up for you, but I couldn’t resist. Blogs are a great way to reach an audience immediately. I’m going to send you posting instructions to your email. You can post personal thoughts, political theory, pictures one day, a quote another, anything. There is an audience for this stuff, but you have to start posting to get it. Much...
