New Mexico’s Governor Bill Richardson dropped from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination tonight, making my New Hampshire prediction a wee bit more accurate, although he did not endorse Barack Obama.
Fred Thompson? Duncan Hunter? You listening?
According to a report in today’s Washington Post 35,000 people moved to Florida last year.
This was unusual, because the Sunshine State’s annual population are more on the order of the 268,000 who moved there in 2005. The Post reporter, Peter Whoriskey, speculates that high taxes and the cost of hurricane insurance are making Florida less attractive to northerners.
Why move south when the south can come to you? My backyard had two feet of snow a week ago, but it’s gone now. Balmy breezes blow and people are walking about in shirtsleeves.
Two thousand eight will be a year of great change. This is one. I’ll try to tip you off to others as I see them.
… why the primaries are important, check out this New York Times article on today’s Supreme Court session.
The issue at hand is whether the current “three drug” system of lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Oral arguments gave Antonin Scalia more opportunities to taunt those on death row. He does this because he thinks the argument is about murderers. It’s not. It’s about us.
The fact that ours is the only western nation to still execute people speaks volumes about how far the United States has fallen from the leadership of the civilized world. The fact that so many people have been freed – and continue to be freed – from our death rows, because they have been convicted on flawed evidence, speaks other volumes about they way in which justice is (or isn’t) meted out in this nation.
Our death houses speak further volumes about why we have a president who orders torture and then defends it. It speaks to why people would want to attack our nation in the first place.
Pity Antonin Scalia, not because you have sympathy for murderers, but because we as a nation could have put such a weak conscience at the top of our judicial pyramid.
I was having one of those conversations yesterday, in the warm January air, about global warming, the endless war in Iraq, the lack of health care, et cetera, et cetera.
My conversational partner expressed the incredulity we’ve all come to live with: “How can these people be so blind? How can they think that all of this will not reach out and get them, too? Sure, they have health care and their kids will never go off to fight in a war, but global warming? Doesn’t Dick Cheney care about the world he’s leaving to his grandchildren?”
The answer is: yes, of course he does, but to understand Dick Cheney, we have to see the world as he sees it.
Let’s assume Mr. Cheney is rational, even if it’s in an evil way. His grandchildren will have health care, as he and his children have it. They will not serve their country, as he and his children have not served their country.
(Yeah, yeah, I hear the protests – he and his children are public servants. No they’re not. They are cynical manipulators of civil service for the singular purpose of enriching themselves and their cronies.)
And yes, global warming will affect Mr. Cheney’s grandchildren, but since he is not the only selfish manipulator out there, he surely calculates that altruism has no value. Global warming, he may believe, is inevitable and therefore he can best provide for his grandchildren by ensuring they are as rich and powerful as they can be, because wealth and power will insulate his grandchildren from the effects of global warming and its attendant catastrophes as long as possible.
The poor and powerless will suffer first and most, so Dick Cheney’s grandkids probably don’t need to worry. His great-grandkids do.
An unheralded winner in Thursday’s Iowa caucuses was Howard Dean, whose own presidential candidacy died in those snows four years ago.
In 2005, Mr. Dean won the chair of the Democratic National Committee, much to the dismay of the Clinton clique and the Democratic Leadership Council.
Mr. Dean portrayed himself – as a candidate and DNC chair – as a champion of outside-the-beltway politics. He was the one who beefed up the staffs of every state committee, helping the Democrats take control of Congress in 2006, even though Democratic Congressional and Senatorial Campaign Committee chairs Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer did their best to minimize his contributions.
Although Mr. Dean is neutral in party primaries, both Barack Obama and John Edwards have been striking Dean-ish themes in their stump speeches. And both beat Hillary Clinton.
Howard Dean may come to be remembered as a Barry Goldwater figure, who did more in defeat to change the tone of his party than many victors ever did.