Recent Comments

1. about 10 years ago on Clay Bennett

   I find it interesting that so far, everyone in the media is focused on “we are at war with ISIL” while completely ignoring the phrase immediately following it: “in the same way we are with al-Qaeda.” That’s a big qualifier, and it’s in all of the administration’s statements; that can’t be an accident. It’s part of the message..Looking only at the first phrase, this looks like a major policy shift from the previous “counterterrorism actions” position – but if you look at the full statement, it’s no change at all. We’re practicing counterterrorism against AQ, and we’re doing the same to ISIL/ISIS. That’s as true this week as it was two weeks ago..Am I the only one seeing this?

2. about 10 years ago on Clay Bennett

   Yeah, I can definitely agree with that. I envy the countries that have strictly-defined election seasons…

3. over 10 years ago on Tom Toles

   “If we could get all Americans, conservative, CONservative, liberal, libertarian, moderate and extreme to understand that like it or not we are in this together” Not gonna happen, at least not any time soon. The libertarian “screw you, I’ve got mine” philosophy won’t let it, and the “fiscal conservatives” seem to have forgotten basic math, that prudent investment now (when interest rates are rock-bottom) is cheaper than a catastrophe later; they’d rather skip an oil change and blame the liberals when the engine locks up. (Or, in more concrete terms, they’d rather let the infrastructure decay than do any “deficit spending” on a jobs bill to both fix it and boost the economy. That’s fiscal insanity, not fiscal conservatism!) Don’t get me wrong; I like the idea of everybody pulling together for the common good…but it’s fundamentally a good-of-the-community idea, which is anathema to the serve-the-rich modern right wing. I hate to say it, but I’m getting to be afraid that things will have to actually break before the right wing sobers up and starts sliding back toward the middle. If you want to avoid that, the best thing we can do is get the moderates to vote. Not just in presidential elections, but in local and especially primary elections. Just in Republican primaries, a solid moderate voting block would pull the Tea Party’s fangs overnight…

4. over 10 years ago on Tom Toles

   “Republicans are not against healthcare – they are against government ran healthcare because it costs far more for the same care” Fortunately, the ACA isn’t “government ran [sic] healthcare” – at least, no more than Coca-Cola is a government-produced beverage by virtue of the mandatory nutrition and ingredients label. Of course, the Free Market is working so well – have you seen this? http://bit.ly/1sXWHJS Brief summary: A group checked prices for basic blood tests at over 100 facilities in California, and the differences are astounding. The headline-worthy note is from the costs of a basic lipid panel, which ranged from $10 to $10,169 depending on the facility. That’s not a test where expertise is a factor. You put the blood into a machine, push a few buttons and read the result. And some hospitals charge over $10,000 for it. The group also surveyed the prices for a simple, no-complications appendectomy; those ranged from $1,529 to $186,955. This is clearly a market that would benefit from open competition, and it’s equally clear that the facilities involved aren’t going to do it on their own. All the government needs to do is prohibit providers from concealing their price lists, so people will be able to investigate rather than spinning the roulette wheel and hoping they land at an inexpensive provider. Obamacare is already doing something very much like that for health insurance costs, by creating marketplaces where insurers compete side by side, with standardized plan summaries that clearly show what is and is not covered. Unlike Medicare, you’re still buying private insurance from a private company, but it’s a lot easier to compare the options and see what you’re getting. Yes, everything costs money – but the customer has the right to know what he’s in for. Relying on obscurity to protect healthcare prices is not a sustainable business model.

5. over 10 years ago on Tom Toles

   @MangeyMoose:Nope, never been there. However, I have read almost everything Stephen King’s ever written, and I think that oughta count for partial credit. ;).@louieglutz and Michael Moreno:18 years old is a kid, the alleged theft is irrelevant to the shooting, and the cop could easily face a first-degree murder charge. After all, they call it premeditation when you gun down someone who has surrendered and is explicitly posing no threat..But, hey – way to put your racism on display, pinheads. You could hardly have been more obvious about it without putting on a pointy white hat and carrying a CSA flag.

6. over 10 years ago on Tom Toles

   @Night-Gaunt49:Perhaps you should reread my comment; I’m solidly on the side of the protesters, and I’m so white I can get sunburned driving down the road. This behavior is outrageous, and I’m glad to see that someone’s finally taken some action to de-escalate the situation over the past couple of days..@curtisls87:It’s a local problem in that these cops have obviously received little, if any, training in the proper use of that equipment. They need to leave their toys alone if they can’t play with them responsibly, and that’s a purely local shortcoming..@Various commenters:Whether the kid stole some cigars or not is wholly irrelevant. The cop used deadly force on someone who was standing still, hands in the air, unarmed and posing no threat. If this was about some stolen cigars – or anything else, really – that’s when the cop should’ve cuffed him for questioning. Shooting him dead in that circumstance is inexcusable.

7. over 10 years ago on Tom Toles

   The biggest problem with Rand Paul’s piece in Time is that he carefully blurs the distinction between the different levels of government involved. His libertarian “brand” is that the most power should be in the most local hands; the feds should exercise little influence, while your state and city governments affect you the most. Unfortunately, that is exactly the problem in Ferguson and elsewhere. The racist punishment problems he points out primarily come from local law enforcement, and historically we can see that the feds have to step in when the locals abuse their power. Gosh, if you look at it that way, it’s almost as if the federal government acts as a check on local fiefdoms. Checks and balances…remember when we used to USE those to make things work, instead of abusing them for partisan gain? As for the laughable statement that we have no idea what happened…we have multiple eyewitness accounts. We have video. Soon, we’ll have the coroner’s report. The story that has emerged so far is that the cop initiated the incident by telling Brown and a friend to get out of the street. What immediately followed is admittedly fuzzy, but the eyewitnesses all agree that a shot was fired while the policeman was still in the car, but it did not kill (and may not even have hit) Brown. Brown then started RUNNING AWAY from the policeman, who exited his car and pursued on foot while firing. Brown stopped and turned around, hands up, and the policeman continued firing until Brown was dead. I have yet to hear any justification for anything that cop did from the point he decided to get out of his car. There is no indication that the officer was in danger or that Brown had committed any crime…so why was any pursuit, armed or otherwise, called for? What possible excuse can there be for firing on an unarmed man whose arms are raised in the universal “I surrender” posture?

8. over 10 years ago on Tom Toles

   @ConserveGov:.Remember Dubya and his “signing statements”? Or were those okay because he was a spend-and-spend “conservative” who never saw a budget he couldn’t break?

9. over 10 years ago on Tom Toles

   I have seldom seen such pure crap as that Komando video. Net neutrality is not something new that would be imposed; it’s the current status quo that would be preserved. Not to mention that, if it went away, so would her livelihood – unless she’s willing to bribe all those cable providers to let her in the fast lane.

10. over 10 years ago on Tom Toles

    You have that backwards. We have net neutrality now; what we want is to KEEP it. The cable companies and FCC are trying to get rid of it.