Hero worship of Bill Clinton

At Salon.com, Matt Stoller questions the liberal hero-worship of Bill Clinton:

Back in June, Clinton angered Democrats nationwide by calling for an extension of the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy. He also spoke glowingly of Mitt Romney’s “sterling business career,” getting in the way of an effective line of attack by the Obama campaign. And in terms of deregulation, Bill Clinton was one of the patron saints of the crisis: pushing through the final repeal of the Glass- Act, which legalized the heretofore illegal merger of Citigroup; signing the Commodities Future Modernization Act, which fully deregulated derivatives; and reappointing bubble blower Alan Greenspan to the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve.

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Judge Richard Posner skewers Justice Antonin Scalia’s so-called originalism

In his recent detailed article published in The New Republic, "The Incoherence of Antonin Scalia," Judge Richard Posner has taken United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's theory of textual originalism to task. Yes, this article presents an extended series of technical legal analyses, but it is written in a way that many lay readers can appreciate. It should be read by anyone who wants to understand the repeated protestations by Justice Scalia that when he rules on case, he is doing so by rigorously paying attention to the actual words of enacted laws. [More . . . ]

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The secretly taped Romney video

At this article in Mother Jones, you can listen to Mitt Romney's presentation to a select ($50,000/plate) private audience. In addition to the well-publicized gaffes, listen to the story about how Mitt's wife's father's family (parents and children) scraped to put one of the children through college. This is at about the 4:40 mark. Mitt marvels at the thought that a child from a financially struggling family worked long hours of self-sacrifice to put his brother through college. It was a touching story of self-sacrifice, but then comes Mitts punch line: "I mean, I would never do that for my brother." [Loud laughing]. No, Mitt. I'm sure you wouldn't. You've made this clear throughout this campaign that everyone is on their own, except for big companies that buy Congress and laughingly feed at the public trough. At the 23 minute mark, Romney asserts that the Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace. Remarkably simplistic world view.

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