Kristof on Gun Control

A rare column by Nicholas Kristof that I admire.

Hurrah!

Obama is re-elected.

Income Inequality

Digby has a post here with a couple of good TED videos (especially the first one) on income inequality.

Rachel Maddow on Rick Perry

Good run down by Rachel Maddow on Rick Perry and the myth about how well Texas is doing.

http://youtu.be/DpCPVpfxEcY?t=7m58s

Frank Rich on Barack Obama

 

Barry Blitt, New York Times

Frank Rich had a good Sunday op-ed on Barack Obama's performance after a little over a year in office. He mainly focused on Obama's leadership, or lack thereof. 

Obama and the Public Option

Today's Glenn Greenwald post links to Ezra Klein's post about the question of whether Barack Obama campaigned on the public option. It's rather a question of semantics. Perhaps the public option was not a major theme of his campaign, but it or what was called a public program was certainly in his campaign.What's the difference?

As of today, what Organizing for America has for the Obama Plan includes a public option.

This is in regards to Obama's recent statement: "I didn't campaign on the public option."

Bill White for Governor

Bill White, former mayor of Houston, is running for governor of Texas. His campaign website doesn't mention it, but he is running as a Democrat. I guess White wants to present himself as non-partisan, but probably as well it still must not be politically safe to be proud of being a Democrat in Texas. Anyway, I'm glad White is running. He is a strong candidate with a very good record as mayor of Houston. I think he should be competitive against the Republican candidate, either current governor Rick Perry or Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson.

The original reason for this post was to link to White's commencement speech to Rice University graduates in 2006. At the time I watched the speech on C-Span, I was somewhat moved by seeing someone so openly promoting public service. It was one of the most stern but also most inspiring commencement speeches that I have ever seen. I've been a stronger admirer of White since.So finally, here is a link to it. Unfortunately, I can't embed it into this post.

Challenging the President

Ryan Grim of HuffingtonPost.com takes up the challenge from President Obama to identify any gaps between what Obama campaigned on and the policies that his administration have supported since his taking office. Some pointers in the article to remember.