Tea Bird

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll Dies

Our Lt. Governor, Catherine Baker Knoll, has died following her battle with cancer.
Key facts:
· 1930-2008, of McKees Rocks
· Sworn in Jan. 21, 2003
· 30th lieutenant governor
· First elected female Lt. Governor
· St. Mary’s High School alumnus
· Served eight years as state treasurer, winning huge % of statewide vote
· Formerly schoolteacher, businesswoman
· Had four children with [...]

The last swing of the boom

After living through sixteen years of two Presidents’ terms, the Baby Boomer generation appears to have run its Presidential course. When Obama, on his way over to Grant Park for his election night event, emailed his millions of plugged-in supporters, he wrote “We just made history.”
As Damien Cave noted:

With that simple “we” in millions [...]

Center-Right No More

Liberal economist (and Nobel winner) Paul Krugman states his case that the “center-right nation” meme is a canard:

Did progressives get a mandate from last week’s election? Lots of people would like to claim that they didn’t — that we’re still a “center-right nation.” And one of the assertions you hear to back that claim [...]

Quote of the Day — 9/3/08

A Vice President who likes guns? What could be wrong with that?

– David Letterman

Have we misunderestimated George W Bush?

Not bloody likely.
From the Independent:

Four months before he disappears into the Texas sunset, Bush is the least loved president of modern times. He will step down with the US embroiled in two unpopular wars, up to its eyes in debt, its economy sliding into recession, its moral standing in the world deeply damaged.
Not even [...]

10 Suggestions for John McCain

Chris Cillizza, The Fix at the Washington Post, has 10 things that McCain needs to be doing while the Democrats are still slugging it out.  Chief among his reccommendations is to “Collect Cash”.
Even though McCain is apparently accepting public financing for the general election, that doesn’t remove the onus of collecting cash. McCain has never [...]

Iraq Is Now Earning Enough to Pay for Itself

With oil prices sky high and Iraq awash with oil, it was always a matter of time until they could begin producing and exporting oil. The export pipeline to Turkey went online in the past six months, and Iraq is now on track to earn $70 billion in oil revenues this year. That [...]

Clinton Going All In For North Carolina

While polling suggests that the North Carolina primary will be an even more lopsided victory for Obama than Pennsylvania was for Clinton, the Clinton campaign, like the Obama campaign in Pennsylvania, is pouring millions of dollars into the state and scheduling a barrage of campaign events.  The Wall Street Journal pegs the rationale as a [...]

Democratic Superdelegates Remain Unmoved by Pennsylvania

Before the Pennsylvania primary finished I wrote a piece stating that Democratic superdelegates would be unmoved by the Pennsylvania primary results.  According to Elizabeth Drew of Politico, that is indeed the case.
“I don’t think anyone’s shaken,” a leading House Democrat told me. The critical mass of Democratic congressmen that has been prepared to endorse Obama [...]

Fineman’s Good Advice to Obama

Howard Fineman of Newsweek and MSNBC has seven ways to improve Obama’s image.  They are all basically ways to flesh out his humanity.  I agree with Fineman that this superstar metahumanity of Obama’s is part of his problem, along with race, of attracting white working class voters.  It’s hard to relate to a guy when [...]