tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-350291082011-04-21T17:07:58.338-04:00"It was once said that the moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped." - Hubert HumphreyBull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.comBlogger361100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-22525259942418087622007-07-19T23:19:00.001-04:002007-07-19T23:19:41.935-04:00

Update your links to: http://idealisticnation.wordpress.comHope to see you there!

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-33161558111717446222007-04-14T02:40:00.000-04:002007-04-14T03:58:06.952-04:00

So, the giant California education study was released last month. The conclusions of two separate groups of researchers: California could add upwards of $20 billion to a $45 billion education budget and still not have most of its schools meeting state academic goals. That's not pocket change.I have not worked on education policy for very long at all, but I have worked in the field long enough to

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1169088727714519982007-01-17T21:48:00.000-05:002007-01-17T21:52:07.716-05:00

And before you go thinking I'm trying to bankrupt America and destroy our economy with all my progressive programs, keep this NYTimes feature in mind.On an annual basis...Universal health insurance + universal preschool + implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations + another $55 billion in spending money = 1 Iraq War.Just remember that.

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1169088488356171382007-01-17T21:16:00.000-05:002007-01-17T21:48:08.423-05:00

I don't know why David Brooks seems to keep giving me good material, but this week he takes on income inequality ($). His political conclusion?The Democratic Party is now divided between moderates — who emphasize individual responsibility and education to ameliorate inequality — and progressive populists, who advocate an activist state that will protect people from forces beyond their control.

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1168543799325285012007-01-11T14:05:00.001-05:002007-01-12T00:19:13.180-05:00

Recently, I discussed the startling income inequality in the U.S.Well, guess what, a new report shows that the Bush tax cuts have had the effect of exacerbating that inequality. Look at the NYTimes editorial board's take on it here.

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1168154049396939882007-01-07T02:06:00.000-05:002007-01-07T02:22:49.396-05:00

Though in my previous post I expressed my support for a government-controlled universal health insurance system and pointed at other countries' lower health care costs, I felt I should clarify that I do not believe our current system is entirely to blame for high costs. In great part, I feel we ourselves are.Read this great piece at the NYTimes about Americans' mania with being diagnosed with any

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1168139041151147822007-01-06T21:49:00.000-05:002007-01-06T22:04:01.176-05:00

Check out Anna Bernasek's vision for universal health insurance over at the NYTimes. Per capita, Americans pay double what other industrialized nations pay on health care. "At the same time, life expectancy in the United States, a broad measure of health, was slightly lower than it was in those other countries in 2004, the latest year for which complete figures are available. And the United

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1167976605683985092007-01-05T00:43:00.000-05:002007-01-05T00:59:54.966-05:00

You know, I had thought warrantless wiretapping was about as illegal an action as a sitting President could condone, but this is ridiculous."The executive branch shall construe subsection 404(c) of title 39, as enacted by subsection 1010(e) of [HR 6407], which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection, in a manner consistent, to the maximum extent

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1166939546242046572006-12-24T00:36:00.000-05:002006-12-24T00:52:26.273-05:00

Just because I don't think an Obama candidacy would have a shot at winning does not mean I don't think the world would be a much better place with Obama in the Oval Office.From an interview with Newsweek: "Our politics has very much been grounded in debates over the '60s. There's the '60s, the backlash against the '60s, the counter-backlash within the Democratic Party against the '60s. We've been

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1166859440723095602006-12-23T02:26:00.000-05:002006-12-23T02:37:20.736-05:00

A recent CNN poll shows Obama behind both McCain and Giuliani by 4 and 7-point margins, respectively. Most polls, as far as I can tell, also put Clinton trailing both GOP frontrunners. The one man (other than John Edwards) who appears to be even or ahead of both is...Al Gore?Perhaps experience still counts for something in this world. Whether Gore could manage a win as the '08 nominee is

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1166858260534565512006-12-23T02:16:00.000-05:002006-12-23T02:17:40.533-05:00

Robert Novack (yes, yes, I'm citing Robert Novack) explains why Edwards might be the labor candidate in '08.

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1166858039042989932006-12-23T01:56:00.000-05:002006-12-23T02:13:59.073-05:00

So, Goldman Sachs, with its $9.5 billion profit this year, paid CEO Lloyd Blankfein a $53 million bonus.I think this would qualify as an appropriate time - if ever there was one - to feature a WaPo editorial on what they call "Just Capitalism." Saying that executive pay has gone "unhinged," they note that,"since 1970, the pay of chief executives has jumped from less than 30 times the average wage

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1166663725798502552006-12-20T20:10:00.000-05:002006-12-23T02:14:40.820-05:00

The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial ($) today about the income tax burden in the US, arguing that silly liberals like me don't appreciate how much the rich pay in taxes:"Imagine a banquet attended by 100 random Americans. If the bill for the meal is distributed like the income tax, the richest person in the room is required to pay one-third of the tab.... The three richest people are charged

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1166509204007856232006-12-19T01:17:00.000-05:002006-12-19T01:20:04.016-05:00

The assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling institute explains why John Edwards might be the "Democrats' best hope."

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1166471673661201962006-12-18T14:50:00.000-05:002006-12-18T14:54:33.696-05:00

While I'm on the topic of Mr. Edwards, here're the results of a poll of likely caucusgoers in Iowa conducted in October by Harstad Research for Environmental Defense. The poll was released last Wednesday.John Edwards 36%Hillary Clinton 16%Barack Obama 13%Tom Vilsack 11%Yes, it's only Iowa, but then again, nobody expected John Kerry to go anywhere until he won the Iowa Caucus in '04...

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1166409917628964952006-12-17T21:36:00.000-05:002006-12-17T21:45:17.630-05:00

According to an NBC News/WSJ poll (PDF) done from Dec. 8 - Dec. 11:Clinton 43, McCain 47Obama 38, McCain 43Edwards 43, McCain 41'Nuff said.

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1166407478380692872006-12-17T20:45:00.000-05:002006-12-17T21:28:59.933-05:00

It's about time I comment on the hype around Barack and Hillary:No. They won't win. Stop asking.I mean, get real, people. First, Sen. Clinton, despite her commanding lead in polls, will fall as fast as Howard Dean did in '04 - and probably sooner, since Dean didn't peak until a little over a year before the election. Conservatives think she's too liberal. Liberal's think she's too conservative.

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1166406324832992102006-12-17T20:29:00.000-05:002006-12-17T20:45:24.846-05:00

Peter Singer provides an excellent exhortation on charitable giving today. Singer, perhaps the philosophy world's most prominent proponent of utilitarian ethics, provided his most famous defense of his global utilitarian perspective in his 1972 essay, "Famine, Affluence, and Morality."Today, Singer argues why today's wealthy should expand their charitable giving. A few gems:"But the amount of

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1165119714462222692006-12-02T23:04:00.000-05:002006-12-02T23:24:23.620-05:00

What is progressive government, you might ask (or, if you are poster "Anonymous," you did ask)? Well, you want it, you got it.But first, a brief digression into political philosophy.In 1958, Isaiah Berlin coined the distinction between "negative liberty" and "positive liberty." A negative liberty is a freedom from restraint, whereas a positive liberty is a freedom to act. This distinction is not

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1165032242197477292006-12-01T22:01:00.000-05:002006-12-01T23:04:02.353-05:00

The NYTimes has been running a series of articles recently about the new wealth gap in America - the difference between the rich and the über-rich.Consider the following: If you earn more than $330,000 a year, congratulations! You're in the top 1% of income earners (about one million households). This elite cadre earns an average of $940,000 a year. If you're lucky enough to be in the top 0.1%,

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1165028466329923112006-12-01T21:49:00.000-05:002006-12-01T23:07:03.670-05:00

David Brooks strikes again, pandering to both sides of the political divide while making himself appear the centrist - a "belle of the ball" to be wooed back by the GOP. Almost despite himself, however, he manages to throw in a few gems:"Nurturing stable families in which children can develop the social and cultural capital they need to thrive.... It means publicly funded, though not necessarily

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1164766560186031312006-11-28T20:32:00.000-05:002006-11-28T21:16:00.240-05:00

...let's talk about the rise of the "economic populists." With all of the midwestern-moderate types making headlines in the Democratic party, are we going to see a resurgence of the power of unions and protectionists?John Edwards, charismatic and energetic as always, is, in my opinion, one of the top contenders for the Democratic nomination in '08 (is he running? ask Jon Stewart). Rasmussen has

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1164763854074541862006-11-28T20:19:00.000-05:002006-11-28T20:30:54.083-05:00

Another article appeared in the Times yesterday about the apparent extinction of the "Yankee Republican." The New England Republican effectively died as a politically viable faction of the GOP.Consider New Hampshire: a fairly solidly red state, though really more libertarian than anything else (live free or die! or both, seeing as there is no helmet law for motorcyclists in NH). "In New Hampshire

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1164526012550375272006-11-26T02:14:00.000-05:002006-11-26T02:26:52.570-05:00

The current Doonesbury Straw Poll asks "which election loser will you miss the most?" One of the possible choices is "Lincoln Chafee. The most liberal Republican in the Senate, and the only one to vote against the Iraq war: Our newly-bipartisan world could have used a guy like that, even though losing him helped make it bipartisan. Curse you, irony!" The sentiment is similar to one found in the

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1164162512861075272006-11-21T21:28:00.000-05:002006-11-21T21:29:33.716-05:00

Kieth Olbermann's Special Comment: President Bush on Vietnam

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1164080732336279392006-11-20T22:38:00.000-05:002006-11-20T23:16:47.776-05:00

I heard once that any joke that was funny once will, if you wait long enough, eventually be funny again.Back in 1990, Dana Carvey performed a sketch on SNL where he, as President George H.W. Bush, was speaking about the impending Gulf War: "And if we do go to war, I can assure you---it will not be another Vietnam. Because we learned well the simple lesson of Vietnam: 'Stay out of Vietnam.'"Looks

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1163642640817990282006-11-15T20:43:00.000-05:002006-11-15T21:05:09.676-05:00

So, Russ Feingold announced this weekend that he will not seek the Democratic nomination for President for 2008. On his website, he wrote, ""I'm sure a campaign for president would have been a great adventure and helpful in advancing a progressive agenda. At this time, however, I believe I can best advance that progressive agenda as a senator with significant seniority in the new Senate serving

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1163174263190533642006-11-10T10:31:00.000-05:002006-11-10T10:57:43.243-05:00

Along the lines of what I said yesterday, here's what Charles Krauthammer had to say in today's WaPo about how the Democrats won on Tuesday: "The result is that both parties have moved to the right. The Republicans have shed the last vestiges of their centrist past, the Rockefeller Republicans. And the Democrats have widened their tent to bring in a new crop of blue-dog conservatives."This, I

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1163126790404738462006-11-09T21:41:00.000-05:002006-11-09T21:47:02.193-05:00

Tuesday night's blue wave, as Joe Scarborough said, appeared to make the northeastern Congressional Republican as endangered a species as the Southern Congressional Democrat. But who was voted into Congress in place of many of these Republicans? The cadre of Democrats voted in this year, I would imagine, is decidedly more conservative than the cadre voted out in 1994.Look at some of the big names

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1163126501551895832006-11-09T21:35:00.000-05:002006-11-09T21:41:41.570-05:00

So, the Democratic Party has taken control of both houses of Congress. Overall, a good day for America. It's been a long time since I woke up feeling good on a Wednesday morning in early November. For the last two years of the Bush II presidency, at least, Congress will not be a rubber stamp for undermining the Bill of Rights and the Geneva Conventions. That in itself is an enormous victory, and

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1162267086624028402006-10-30T22:54:00.000-05:002006-10-30T22:58:06.633-05:00

The New Jersey Supreme Court's recent ruling in Lewis v. Harris raises several important issues regarding how the law in this country treats gender and sexuality. The court ruled that the state could not deny the equal protection of the law to couples based on sexuality.This begs the question: why isn't this obvious? The state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage in 2004 (and all the

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1161927014032135532006-10-26T21:50:00.001-04:002006-10-27T01:32:21.350-04:00

This is the first of what may become several posts on the New Jersey Supreme Court's decision in Lewis v. Harris.First of all, let's be clear what happened on Wednesday. The court unanimously ruled that homosexual couples were entitled to all the rights of heterosexual couples. What they're split over is a word: marriage. New Jersey lawmakers must provide homosexual couples with equal rights, but

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1161270014381602462006-10-19T10:52:00.000-04:002006-10-19T11:00:14.393-04:00

If you have a few minutes, I'd suggest watching this clip from Countdown with Keith Olbermann. It's an excellent and powerful piece of oration. Maurizio Viroli would be proud.Among his points was one I didn't consider in my post yesterday, regarding the implications of suspending habeas corpus for non-citizens: "If you are pulled off the street tomorrow and they called you an alien or an

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1161222663379257362006-10-18T21:18:00.000-04:002006-10-18T21:59:52.826-04:00

A few helpful notes for people wanting to look beyond the spin on the military commissions law that President Bush just signed:The Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV) states that when a non-military prisoner "is definitely suspected of or engaged in activities hostile to the security of the State, such individual person shall not be entitled to claim such rights and privileges under the present

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1160804033645354102006-10-14T01:16:00.000-04:002006-10-18T21:56:30.046-04:00

So, I've never known quite how I feel about prediction markets such as TradeSports, but along with the polls I will undoubtedly be tracking in the new two years, I will include predictions from TradeSports about who the nominees for President will be. We'll see how well it does. Unfortunately, my first TS review comes after the first big news of the '08 season. And all those poor people who had

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35029108.post-1160802535572630202006-10-14T00:40:00.000-04:002006-10-18T21:56:59.356-04:00

Why the new Bull Moose Party, you might ask?The original Bull Moose Party, actually named the Progressive Party, was formed by Teddy Roosevelt, after losing to William H. Taft for the Republican nomination for the 1912 Presidential race.The Bull Moose Party was progressive both in its democratic ideals - e.g. calling for women's suffrage - and it's view of the role of government. Government, in

Bull Moosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13548733482029962199noreply@blogger.com0