Waiter, There’s an Endangered Rat Snake in My Soup! Snooping into the Bloody Black Market for Wild Meat
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on February 15th, 2010 5:38 am by HL
Waiter, There’s an Endangered Rat Snake in My Soup! Snooping into the Bloody Black Market for Wild Meat
Millions of fork-twirling gourmands — many of them in the U.S. — are eating endangered wildlife trafficked by international criminal networks.
Millions of fork-twirling gourmands — many of them in the U.S. — are eating endangered wildlife trafficked by international criminal networks.
Dick Cheney Admits to Torture Conspiracy
If the U.S. had a functioning criminal justice system for the powerful, former Vice President Dick Cheney would have just convicted himself with his Sunday comments.
If the U.S. had a functioning criminal justice system for the powerful, former Vice President Dick Cheney would have just convicted himself with his Sunday comments.
More Americans Favor Eliminating the Filibuster
This post was originally published on Think Progress.
One of the greatest obstacles to passing progressive legislation in Congress has been the use of the filibuster in the Senate. With upwards of “40 cloture votes since the start of the 111th Congress in January, this Senate is on pace to record the second-largest number of filibuster roll calls,” transforming what was intended to be a seldom-used procedural tactic into an all-out tool for obstructionism. Now, a new CBS/New York Times poll finds that more Americans support ending the filibuster and requiring legislation to pass by a simple majority:
As you may know, the Senate operates under procedures that effectively require 60 votes, out of 100, for most legislation to pass, allowing a minority of as few as 41 senators to block a majority. Do you think this procedure should remain in place, or do you think it should be changed so that legislation is passed with a simple majority?
Should remain 44
Should be changed 50
[Don’t Know] 6
Changing the filibuster would not be without precedent. In 1975, the filibuster threshold was lowered from 67 to 60. Sens. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) have introduced legislation that would “change Senate procedure to create a four-step process that would eventually allow a majority of 51 votes, rather than 60, for cloture ? ending debate and moving to a final vote on passage of a bill.” Yet Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has “dismissed the effort” as unlikely to succeed. OpenLeft’s Chris Bowers has an ongoing whip count for the effort to pass Harkin’s reforms here.
Get Serious About Cutting the Bloated Military Budget
This post was originally published on the Booman Tribune.
I think one of the central tenets of progressivism is that the United States government spends too much on the military. This isn’t necessarily a critique of having the largest, best equipped military in the world, nor is it at all a criticism of how much soldiers are payed or how veterans are cared for. Some progressives would like to see America start rolling back our forward-leaning foreign military basing strategy. Others are even more demanding in their desire to see a demilitarization of our foreign policy. Opinions on the left vary, but one thing that is consistent is a suspicion that when it comes time to make hard decisions on our long-term structural budget deficits that people’s Social Security and Medicare deficits will be cut, while the Pentagon’s budget will go untouched. Part of the progressive frustration with the health care debate is that we spend so much more on the military than other countries and then are told that we can’t afford the kind of universal systems of health care enjoyed by every other industrialized nation. Progressives don’t want deficit spending except as a scientifically applied short-term stimulus. With an ever diminishing discretionary budget, the last thing we need is more debt to service that is wasted money.
So, it’s understandable that Obama is announcing some serious efforts to rein in the budget, and it’s good politics at a time that we’re raising the debt ceiling. And it’s bad politics to announce cutting military spending on a day that we’ve launched a major offensive in Afghanistan. I understand that. But the military’s budget absolutely has to be part of the conversation for any commission that looks at our budget problems, and our wars in Asia should not be exempt from PAYGO.
