Hank Kalet

The plot thickens on the House Intelligence Committee as Alcee Hastings pulls out of the running. It appears, as well, that Jane Harman maybe out, leaving the door open for a new face.

According to various wire service reports (including this one), soon-to-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) “is still considering other candidates for the post, including Representative Silvestre Reyes of Texas, Norman Dicks of Washington, Rush Holt of New Jersey and Sanford Bishop of Georgia, according to the Democratic aide.”

Hmmm. Stay tuned.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Another major news agency has decided — in a very public announcement — that it will call the civil war in Iraq what it is. Here is NBC’s Brian Williams (I heard about this from TomPaine.com):

We will also reference our decision today (after much consultation over the weekend with our colleagues, fellow journalists, historians, analysts and members of the military, both present and former) to describe the fighting in Iraq as a Civil War. We believe it is a more accurate reflection of what is happening there, and there was a fair amount of reaction to the decision today… even though a number of news organizations have already made a similar call.

An “accurate reflection”? During the Bush years? Score one for the fact-based community.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

New Jersey conservatives are officially weighing in on the issue of gay marriage. As expected, they are planning to unveil a constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman — an amendment that woudl write discrimination into law.

And they are planning to unveil a compromise domestic benefits bill that would grant all of the rights and benefits of marriage not only to gay couples, but to nearly every non-married living arrangement. On the surface this seems a useful compromise, but it falls short for two reasons. First, it ignores the psychic and social benefits that come with the marriage designation (a purposeful sleight). And, just as importantly, it would not cover heterosexual couples who choose not to marry because they would be eligible to marry — making it both unfair to gays and straights and unnecessarily coercive.

A better and fairer approach would be to include gay couples in a new marriage law while also creating a separate domestic benefits bill that would cover all of those arrangements short of marriage.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Milton Friedman was, no doubt, a great thinker. But his approach to economics has wrought serious damage to our economy and the classes of Americans who fail in his winner-take-all world. Leave it to William Greider to remind us of this when much of the press in the wake of Friedman’s death has been so laudatory.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

OK. I’m sorry. I forgot — Roger Moore, Grace Jones and a jumble of bad vibes. A View to a Kill gave Moore the chance to show us all that even old and out-of-shape guys can, well, … whatever.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick