Politics
Ask Obama to End the Global Gag Rule
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FK2pzLAdgQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] A brief history: The U.S. government has been playing ping pong with women’s lives globally for almost three decades, ever since Ronald Reagan first declared the “Mexico City Policy” by executive order (without a Congressional vote). Bill Clinton reversed the policy, by then known as the Global Gag Rule, the day he was inaugurated…
Read MoreA Little Light Music: George Bush’s Presidential Library
My friend Malcolm Friedberg sent the following, and it was too good not to share. This post-election, mid-holiday season seems like a good moment for a little lightness and humor, some spoof, some all too accurate. Soon enough the Washington crucible will begin to work on Obama. But for now, enjoy W’s waning days and…
Read MoreWho Should Be In Obama’s Cabinet?
I want to share in this fascinating discussion I participated in yesterday on GRITtv hosted by Laura Flanders. We covered Barack Obama’s selection of Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff and talked about who we’d like to see fill the rest of Obama’s cabinet. Alexis McGill Executive Director of Citizen Change, Dan Gerstein former Senior…
Read MoreJohn McCain’s Wrong Answers to Working Women’s Questions—Now Give Him Your Answer at the Ballot Box
Don’t get excited. John McCain didn’t respond directly to the questions about his positions on economic and reproductive justice we (Carole Joffe and I) first put to him on Labor Day and have been asking him ever since. But he’s shocked even us since then with his over the top contempt for women. During his…
Read MoreObama in St. Louis: Metaphor for America (Guest Post by Mark Salo)
Of all things during this last pre-election week, I’m in the utter chaos of moving into a new apartment, unpacking boxes filled with material elements of life while watching the increasingly frenzied campaign coverage on CNN. As though we’d picked up conversations from decades of working together, an e-mail from Mark Salo popped up on…
Read MorePowell Endorses Obama: What Does It Mean?
I imagine just about every reader of Heartfeldt Politics watched Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama on today’s Meet the Press; you can listen to the key points on this podcast. I often find Powell too wishy washy for my taste, but then he is a diplomat by disposition and profession. And in this case,…
Read MoreSnidely McCain Bullies as Usual but Fails to Tie the Final Knot
Remember the bumbling villain Snidely Whiplash in the Dudley Do-Right animated series? But for the absence of mustache, John McCain might well have been mistaken for Snidely in the final—thank goodness—presidential debate. I could imagine him rubbing hands together, cackling as he anticipated tying the gentle Barack Obama to the verbal train tracks, sure of…
Read MoreWhat Did Sarah Learn?
The frisky pit bull bounded out of her debate camp confinement, lipstick glistening under the PBS staging lights. Her black suit might have echoed Susan B. Anthony, were it not for the decidedly un-serious peplum that added a not so subtle, curtsy-cute feminine flourish. But then nothing about Sarah Palin is either subtle or uncalculated.…
Read MoreMcCain’s Rovian Lipstick Diversion
I rarely agree with journalist Andrew Sullivan, but this time he nailed it. Here’s an excerpt from his blogpost on John McCain’s Rovian diversionary tactical ruse to get the media’s scrutiny off of the McCain/Palin ticket and the important issues facing the country. Sullivan is unequivocal in his condemnation of McCain. So it’s come to…
Read MoreJohn Edwards and the Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants
How many male politicians do you think are burning their little black books and expunging e-mails today, as another of their brotherhood bites the dust from his own lack of zipper control?
We have way too much information about John Edwards and his self-described narcissism. Clearly, like any good lawyer, John Edwards can look us straight in the eye and lie like a rug, as he did initially about his affair with Rielle Hunter.
But then sex, lies, and politics go together like peanut butter, jelly, and bread in America. And sex scandals are the one aspect of government that consistently works across geography and party lines. After all John McCain has admitted to affairs himself. There’s no partisanship in bed, except for short-lived tactics where the sway of sex can be used to bring one’s opponent down.
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