A Word in Support of Hillary’s License Response

In fairness to Hillary Clinton, it seems clear to me that she was not so much evasive in last night’s MSNBC Democratic debate fielding a question about Eliot Spitzer’s policy to allow undocumented sojourners to obtain driver’s licenses as hampered by her own intelligence. 

Root for Wall Street?

Since antiquity, the prophetic voice has stressed the interconnectedness of all creation.   When Amos railed (4:1-2) 

Faith Leaders Publish Farm Bill Letter in Roll Call

Roll Call, the Capitol Hill paper, has published a letter from a number of religious leaders today. Here’s the text and signatories in full:

With All Due Respect,

Your Holiness, I believe your argument has a fundamental flaw.

Pope Benedict XVI said Monday that pharmacists have a right to use conscientious objection to avoid dispensing emergency contraception or euthanasia drugs – and told them they should also inform patients of the ethical implications of using such drugs. 

ABA Study: Death Penalty Unfair

But we knew that. Nice the ABA backs us up:

The American Bar Association today released the findings from their three-year study on state death penalty systems and called for a nationwide moratorium on executions. Based on a detailed analysis of death penalty systems in eight sample states, the ABA Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project identified key problems common to the states studied, including major racial disparities, inadequate indigent defense services and irregular clemency review processes – making their death penalty systems operate unfairly. 

A Single Payer Cautionary

I was meeting with colleagues around the nation last week  and in one of our small group sessions we were mulling over strategies for moving legislatures toward adopting universal access to health care. My counterpart from a neighboring state raised the issue of the singlemindedness of the single payer advocates he deals with. Any willingness to discuss alternatives is, according to them, betrayal. 

Spitzer, Chertoff Compromise on Drivers Licenses

Governor Eliot Spitzer today announced an agreement with the federal Department of Homeland Security to bring New York State into compliance with the Real ID Act. This makes New York State only the fourth state to do so, after Arizona, Vermont and Washington. The compromise involves creating a more secure driver’s license for U.S. citizens and allowing undocumented sojourners to get a different type of license. 

“It’s Still the Corporate State, Stupid”

“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” – Benito Mussolini (possibly apocryphal.)

This morning Glenn Greenwald smacks down Fred Hiatt’s stupid argument in the Washington Post that telecoms should be immune to lawsuits for past breaches of privacy because, well, lawsuits cost alot. In Hiatt’s Beltwayese: 

Clerks to Governor — We’ll Show You!

Well, it isn’t as drastic as “kill them all; let God sort them out.” But it does show a similar contempt for discernment towards “the other.” From the Times Union:

Classic Illustration of Free Market Ethics

Rep. Randy Kuhl’s paranoia about SCHIP embodying the threat of “a government-run, government-mandated health care system” got me thinking about other government run, government mandated systems, and what the market alternatives might be. Ready, class?