Mainstream American churches have, in the past, used Biblical passages to advocate the rightness of slavery. Mainstream American churches have also refused to allow blacks to join their congregations with the same status as white worshippers. Mainstream American churches have used the Bible to justify wife-beating, and corporal punishment for children. That is all fine and good (well, it's not, really; but it's legally all fine and good) -- the Constitution does not permit government to have any sort of sway over a church's beliefs in any way (except possibly if the church were mounting armed resistance to the government and calling it religion).

Read Complete Article »

You know what I have yet to see either on television or in print? A poll of the workers affected. Maybe that's too tough a thing to ask for -- polls are time-consuming, after all, and the debate hasn't been raging all that long. But I have also yet to see in the media even a single woman interviewed who actually works for a religious hospital or university. Not a single "woman on the street" interview, not a single union representative who speaks for these women, not a single spokesperson for the women themselves. Not one. No nurses, no janitors, no administrators, no security guards... nothing.

Read Complete Article »

OK, to be completely honest, we just felt like beating up on some Republicans today.

Read Complete Article »

O'Malley makes a good point. President Obama's re-election team should heed it.

Read Complete Article »

Not a whole lot has been happening in Washington, due to Congress being out on one of their countless month-long vacations. Not a whole lot of Democrats have been in the news, either, since the Republican primary season is sucking all the oxygen out of the political arena right now.

Read Complete Article »

Her campaign so far has been the populist model for every other Democrat to mimic if they want to catch the wave of anger at Wall Street, and use it to their benefit. Without question, Elizabeth Warren is Destined For Political Stardom.

Read Complete Article »

Two-and-a-half years ago, I wrote the following column, hoping that the Obama administration was going to live up to its promise to have a "science-based" drug policy. I spoke of two examples: medical marijuana, and the "morning after" pill. Today seemed a real good day to re-run this column.

Read Complete Article »

This was, to put it mildly, completely unacceptable to a large swath of the Republican base. Cain hastily backtracked, and is now as "pro-life" as he can humanly be, stating that abortion should be illegal in every single case -- no matter what the extenuating circumstances.

Read Complete Article »

Last week (as with this week) the subject de semaine was "class warfare." The comment which inspired this week's mini-rants contained a simple, repetitive concept: "When [something outrageous pushed by Republicans happens], nobody calls it 'class warfare'. Maybe we should."

Read Complete Article »

But perhaps I'm being too harsh. The reason the clip was edited down so much was that the other heckling clip was so much better -- Romney misspeaking, and then instead of just immediately walking it back, actually digging the hole deeper. In answer to a question about raising taxes on corporations, Romney answered (at first) that he wasn't going to raise taxes "on people." When the questioner yelled back "Corporations, not people!" Romney could easily have said something along the lines of "Sorry, I meant to say corporations -- I'm actually not going to raise taxes on people or on corporations, and here's why...." It would have just melded the whole thing into standard Republican dogma, and Romney would have been safe.

Read Complete Article »