Joe Scott 3: The Body Politic

Villaraigosa’s political moves

31 August 2009 |permalink | email article

Two months into his second term the unpopular mayor, with unquenchable ambition, has shaken up his top staff to refocus on key priorities that he’s largely ignored since taking charge in 2005.

Rev. Jeff Carr, a deputy mayor and… read full story

Kennedy era over?

30 August 2009 |permalink | email article

Speaking about Edward M. Kennedy’s passing Doris Kearns Goodwin, the presidential historian, aptly reprised Ernest Hemingway’s famous quote in A Farewell to Arms: “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that… read full story

Kennedy, finding his groove

28 August 2009 |permalink | email article

Adam Clymer, a former Washington correspondent for the New York Times and author of “Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography,” writes in an important book that it’s easier to acknowledge him as a great senator in the last decade or… read full story

After EMK

27 August 2009 |permalink | email article

What will be the impact of Kennedy’s death on the future of the health-care reform debate? In this brief period of reflection it’s unclear.

The Boston Globe wrote: “Edward M. Kennedy filled two seemingly contradictory roles during his years… read full story

Death of a Senate Lion

26 August 2009 |permalink | email article

Edward M. Kennedy, the last son of one of the nation’s enduring political dynasties, as reported, was gifted and flawed, knew great times and tragedies, and was a powerful orator in his 46 years in the Senate. Excerpts from… read full story

Brown vs. Newsom; Westly again?

26 August 2009 |permalink | email article

Anne Gust Brown, Jerry Brown’s wife and campaign manager, was quick to e-mail his major financial backers late Monday touting two new polls indicating that the unannounced Democratic candidate for governor has strong early leads over San Francisco Mayor… read full story

Uninsured: out in the cold?

25 August 2009 |permalink | email article

The rising number of uninsured in America, estimated at 45 million, remains a tragic subtext in the debate between liberal and Blue Dog Democrats, and nihilistic Republicans, over health care coverage. A New York Times editorial offers a compelling… read full story

John F. Burns: interactive journalism

24 August 2009 |permalink | email article

The legendary British journalist who joined the New York Times staff in 1975 as a foreign correspondent and winner of two Pulitzer Prizes has a new assignment from his editors.

It’s called “At War,” the newspaper’s expanded blog… read full story

Ridge: having it both ways?

23 August 2009 |permalink | email article

As the Dog Days of August wind down much is being made about Tom Ridge’s “kiss and tell” memoir, “The Test of Our Times,” the Bush administration’s “war on terrorism.” It exposes the clash between security and politics in… read full story

Cal governor’s race: northern tilt

22 August 2009 |permalink | email article

Since 1983 every elected governor has hailed from more populous Southern California – George Deukmejian (Long Beach), Pete Wilson (San Diego), with Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger from L.A.

But, given the five candidates so far lining up to… read full story

Ted Kennedy’s absence

20 August 2009 |permalink | email article

The Lion of the Senate, was expected to play a leader’s role in advancing the health care debate this summer, but has been out of the media eye for most of the last year as he copes with a… read full story

Obama: backlash from the left

19 August 2009 |permalink | email article

The liberal-leaning commentariat is in full revolt mode, attacking the President for being too expedient in shelving the government plan in order to get a bill out of Capitol Hill.

Prominent dissenters include Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and… read full story

Make California work again

18 August 2009 |permalink | email article

Robert Hertzberg and Thomas McKernan, co-chairmen of California Forward, a nonpartisan reform group, make the case in a Los Angeles Times op-ed about a comprehensive reform plan to get the state out of its economic mess.

Based on… read full story

Clifford Clinton, L.A. crime fighter

17 August 2009 |permalink | email article

The Los Angeles Times recently noted that Clifton’s Cafeteria on South Broadway, and one of Southern California’s last remaining cafeteria restaurants, is up for sale and adding that the family of founder Clifford Clinton intends to stay open for… read full story

‘Death panels,’ GOP hypocrisy

16 August 2009 |permalink | email article

The absence of Ted Kennedy at the funeral of his sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver on Friday in Hyannis received little media notice. It didn’t have to because everyone on Capitol Hill knows that the Lion of the Senate, despite… read full story

From Maria Shriver’s eulogy of her mother

15 August 2009 |permalink | email article

“She believed 100 percent in the power and gift of women to change the language, the tempo, and the character of this world. Her heroes were the Virgin Mary, Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, her own mother, her sister Rosemary.… read full story

Is Bipartisanship Possible?

14 August 2009 |permalink | email article

Skepticism grows during the dog days of August as the battle over affordable health care rages across the country.

Paul Begala, the Democratic strategist, CNN analyst and adviser to President Clinton during the 1993-94 health-care reform, is not… read full story

Obama: Regain the Momentum

13 August 2009 |permalink | email article

The health debate has become a proxy, as The Washington Post’s Dan Balz reported, for a bigger fight over whether the federal government is assuming too much control over the economy. The president’s public insurance option has made him… read full story

Sarah Palin: Alaska First?

12 August 2009 |permalink | email article

The Alaska Legislature voted this week to override former Gov. Sarah Palin’s veto of roughly $28 million in federal stimulus funds intended for energy projects. 

The Anchorage Daily News noted that supporters of the veto override argued that… read full story

Taking Over: FDR vs. Obama

11 August 2009 |permalink | email article

The manner in which both presidents dealt with economic issues upon assuming power offers useful insights in terms of the Great Depression and the Great Recession.

Roosevelt’s revolutionary New Deal witnessed an increased role for intellectuals in government. The… read full story

Bratton’s untidy exit

10 August 2009 |permalink | email article

The surprise announcement that Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton is stepping down in October after a seven-year tenure to take a lucrative position in New York with a private-security firm hit the Big Orange like an earthquake.

Bratton’s… read full story

Obama: Working out his riff

09 August 2009 |permalink | email article

An important new book, The Battle for America, by Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson, offers some important new insights about the 2008 presidential election.

Now-President Barack Obama recalled how tough the campaign was for him, particularly during the primaries.… read full story

How far will the crazies go?

06 August 2009 |permalink | email article

Civil discourse in America is being redefined by naysayers and radical elements within the Republican Party, and propelled by hate comment from wing nuts like Rush Limbaugh on radio, with Glenn Beck following on Fox.

According to local news… read full story

Bill Clinton’s stunning coup

06 August 2009 |permalink | email article

The former president’s private mission to obtain the freedom of two Los Angeles journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, sentenced to prison for illegally entering North Korea, was the most visible journey by an American to Pyongyang in almost… read full story

GOP outlook bleak in Golden State

05 August 2009 |permalink | email article

As Democrats slam Republicans for colluding with lobbyists to encourage “angry mobs” of wing-nut extremists to disrupt health care town halls around the nation an assessment of the California Republican Party in the first of two new Field Polls… read full story

McCain rejects Sotomayor

04 August 2009 |permalink | email article

Lacking the courage of Lindsey Graham, his constant companion during the 2008 presidential campaign, John McCain has retreated to that tired old Republican cliché, “judicial activism,” to announce, in a floor speech damning her with faint praise, he will… read full story

Gingrich backs Cal offshore drilling

03 August 2009 |permalink | email article

A key revelation in the disclosure by ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s political group it has raised $8.1 million in the first half of 2009 is that American Solutions for Winning the Future has accepted at least $460,000 from oil… read full story

California: ‘Golden Era’ of politics gone

02 August 2009 |permalink | email article

Mervin D. Field, founder of the Field Poll which has conducted about 10,000 surveys over more than 60 years sampling the opinions and attitudes of as many as 750,000 Californians, is now 88 and semi-retired. Field offered some valuable… read full story

Medicare explainer by Obama crucial

01 August 2009 |permalink | email article

Paul Krugman, in a useful tutorial column in The New York Times, addressed the issue of Medicare and the fear of seniors that, in fact, it’s a useful government program.

At a recent town hall meeting in South Carolina,… read full story