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The Trouble With Eric Holder
By John Nichols
Quick! Name the veteran Department of Justice insider who, shortly after the USA Patriot Act was signed into law as the Bush administration was proposing to further erode barriers to governmental abuses, that dissenters should not be tolerated?
Who invoked September 11, explicitly referencing "the World Trade Center aflame," in calling for the firing of any "petty bureaucrat" who might suggest that proper procedures be followed and that the separation of powers be respected?
John Ashcroft? No.
(30) CommentsNovember 18, 2008
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GOP Senators to Alaska: Please Get Rid of Stevens for Us
By John Nichols
The rapidly dwindling Senate Republican Caucus met Tuesday for the purpose of deciding the fate of the felon in their midst: Alaska Senator Ted Stevens.
At issue was the question of whether to take away the committee assignments of the party's senior senator -- who has been convicted on seven counts of failing to report bribes, er, "gifts" – and kick him out of the caucus. In the tradition-bound Senate, the move by the caucus is the first step in a broader process of censuring Stevens.
But the Republicans blinked.
(20) CommentsNovember 18, 2008
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Bernie Sanders' Wise Counsel on Lieberman
By John Nichols
Democrat-turned-independent-turned-John-McCain-backer Joe Lieberman faces an election of sorts on Tuesday.
The junior senator from Connecticut who was reelected as an independent ("Connecticut for Lieberman Party") candidate in 2006 has for the past two years enjoyed the full benefits of membership in the Senate Democratic Caucus. On Tuesday, in a secret ballot vote, the other members of the caucus -- all of whom backed Democrat Barack Obama for president while Lieberman was campaigning for Republican McCain -- will decide whether to deny Lieberman that most significant of those benefits.
The Connecticut senator currently chairs the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee -- a powerful post with responsibility for a wide range of national-security issues and, more importantly, for ethics and lobbying issues and oversight of government agencies such as FEMA.
(60) CommentsNovember 16, 2008
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John McCain's Reprehensible Campaign Swing
By John Nichols
In case anyone was wondering whether John McCain has found that lost claim check for the conscience he put on hold when he started getting serious about making a 2008 presidential run, the answer from Georgia Thursday was a resounding "no."
Six years ago, McCain bluntly decried the manner in which Saxby Chambliss got himself elected to the Senate. Despite the fact that Chambliss was a fellow Republican, McCain objected to the tenor of the 2002 campaign that the Georgian had run against Democratic Senator Max Cleland.
Like McCain, Cleland was a Vietnam War veteran who had suffered as a result of his willingness to serve his country in a time of conflict. Where McCain spent five years in as a prisoner of war, Cleland lost three limbs in Vietnam.
(59) CommentsNovember 13, 2008
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Ted Stevens Might Lose His Seat Before He's Expelled
By John Nichols
The Senate may not have to deal with the difficult challenge of expelling felon Senator Ted Stevens.
It looks as if the voters of Alaska might have cleaned up the ethical and legal mess that is their senior senator by defeating him at the polls on November 4.
But it will still take awhile to know for sure.
(70) CommentsNovember 12, 2008
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Alice Walker's Wise Counsel for Obama
By John Nichols
Pulitizer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, student of people's historian Howard Zinn and literary instructor to a generation or so with books such as The Color Purple, has some advice for Barack Obama as he transitions from candidate to president. Walker's advice takes the form of an open letter to Obama. But she speaks as well to a battered nation that seeks to come to grips with what many of its citizens dare to hope could be a transformational presidency.
The comfortably controversial, intellectually challenging and spiritually bold author expresses that hope in the warmest of terms – as she does the relief that accompanied last Tuesday's election result. Walker is cautious with Obama, even gentle. Yet, she prods, as well, urging the president-elect "not to take on other people's enemies."
Here is Walker's wise counsel:
(25) CommentsNovember 11, 2008
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Emanuel Makes the Right Move on Colombia Trade Deal
By John Nichols
This column has expressed plenty of concern about the selection of Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel to serve as President-elect Barack Obama's chief of staff. Emanuel, whose record and reputation are those of a rigid "New Democrat," was the pointman for the Clinton White House's free-trade agenda. And, in Congress, he has been a reasonably steady supporter of the Bush administration's trade policies.
The fear with regard to Emanuel's selection was that he might try to impose his pro-Wall Street politics on an administration that has promised to serve Main Street.
The hope, detailed in a column last week, has been that Emanuel would put his own ideological tendencies aside and use his considerable political skills to help Obama implement a more pro-worker, pro-environment agenda on trade policy.
(112) CommentsNovember 10, 2008
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Court Ruling: Count Al Franken's Votes
By John Nichols
The Minnesota U.S. Senate race between Democratis challenger Al Franken and Republican incumbent Norm Coleman is close, and getting closer.
Coleman finished ahead by around 700 votes on election night, and he has been trying since then to lock in a win -- with bombastic calls on Franken to concede, attempts to discredit local election officials and legal actions designed to prevent a full count.
But Coleman has failed, so far, to halt the democratic processes in a state that prides itself on holding clean, efficient elections. And with the slow tabulating of absentee ballots, as well as the correction of errors in initial counts, Franken has been closing the gap.
(60) CommentsNovember 8, 2008
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A Jeffersonian Victory in Virginia
By John Nichols
The 2008 election is the gift that keeps on giving.
At the close of the week of Barack Obama's election to the presidency came the news that Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode -- one of the originators of the creepy politics that was used by the worst elements within the Republican Party to try and frighten voters about the Democratic nominee -- had been swept from office in the tide of Obama votes.
Goode, an otherwise obscure Republican, stirred a national controversy two years ago when he worried publicly about the precedent set by the election of a Muslim, Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison, to Congress. The Virginian declared in a letter to a constituent that "When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Qur'an in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Qur'an."
(14) CommentsNovember 8, 2008
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Oregon Win Takes Dems to 57 in Senate
By John Nichols
Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley, who The Nation profiled last month in a look at progressives who might take Republican Senate seats, has defeated incumbent Republican Gordon Smith in a closely contested race that took until Thursday to resolve.
"This is the beginning of a transformational change for America," Merkley told supporters after learning that he had defeated Smith by 40,000 votes.
Merkley campaigned as an anti-war, pro-civil liberties progressive who criticized the initial Wall Street bailout plan, arguing that in amounted to corporate welfare at a time when working families needed help.
(28) CommentsNovember 6, 2008
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