Today the Senate overwhelmingly voted to “put new restrictions on the credit card industry, passing a bill whose backers say will make card-issuers spell out their terms in fewer words, using plain English, and treat customers more fairly.” The 90-5 vote, following a 357-to-70 vote in the House on April 30, made it likely that President Obama will have a measure on his desk before the Memorial Day recess. There are still differences between versions of the bill from the House...
Monthly Archives: May 2009
Going, Going, Gone
Monitoring the “fall of the lastest Gilded Age“: Richard and Amanda Peacock spent five years building their dream home, a 10,000-square-foot, orange mansion overlooking the ocean here. They filled it with leopard-skin chairs, pinball machines, antique Coca-Cola signs and six sports cars. It had a room full of 100 hunting trophies — including a hyena and the head of an elephant — and an aviary out back housing eight rare parrots. On a recent Saturday, they held a one-day...
The Shrinking GOP
In the news this morning… The GOP is shrinking swiftly: A new Gallup analysis shows that the precipitous decline in the number of people who identify themselves as Republicans is widespread across nearly every demographic group — a development that suggests that there is no simple solution to solving the party’s current problems. It’s like someone took the GOP and threw it in the washing machine and ran the cycle on hot, hot water. Sphere: Related Content
Supreme Court Upholds California Medical Marijuana Law
Attorney General Eric H. Holder said in March, that the federal government would not be devoting a great deal of effort to “prosecuting low-level marijuana cases” and now… The Supreme Court has “rejected appeals from two hold-out counties in Southern California that objected to the state’s 13-year-old medical marijuana law and claimed it should be struck down as violating the federal drug control act.” Without comment, the court turned down the pair of appeals. The action probably will clear the way...
Bill Clinton To Be Named UN Special Envoy To Haiti
The Cable on ForeignPolicy.com has an exclusive today, reporting that former president Bill Clinton is to be named the UN Special Envoy to Haiti: A UN official confirmed to The Cable that there would be a formal announcement on this Tuesday. The Clinton Foundation did not immediately respond to queries; nor did the White House. In March, Bill Clinton traveled with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to Haiti. It was his “fourth trip to the impoverished island.” Sphere: Related Content
Ezra Klein’s New Gig
Progressive blogger, Ezra Klein has a new gig at the WaPo, blogging “politics and policy of the economy.” We’ll be focusing at least as much on economic inputs. The forces that decide what tomorrow’s economy will look like. Health care reform, which is the central fiscal challenge of our time, threatening to bankrupt both the government and the rest of us. Cap and trade, which proceeds from the recognition that carbon emissions, and thus global warming, is governed by...
Hannity’s ‘Tree of Liberty’ bears bogus fruit
I thought Republican charges that Barack Obama is a “socialist” couldn’t get any goofier. Sean Hannity proved me wrong. He used a cartoon tree. Hannity recently co-starred with the “The Tree of Liberty” on his Fox News show. The tree sprouted on a big screen. The graphic was so crude it was comical. I half expected to see Keebler elves in tiny “Nobama” t-shirts running around the tree. Anyway, three apples — labeled “industry,” “commerce,” and “security” – dangled...
On the Rise Again: Gas Prices
I’ve been doing a lot of driving in recent weeks, back and forth from the north eastern tip of Maine to the Massachusetts/New Hampshire border, and I have one more trip scheduled for the end of this week. Sadly, I have noticed as I have been logging a lot of miles on my frequent trips that gas prices are on the rise again. AP News reports: The price of gasoline in the U.S. jumped 25 cents a gallon during...
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