Susan Madrak

You find the darndest things on Craigslist, don't you?

Looks like the The Peter G. Peterson Foundation is putting together another scare piece (remember "I.O.U.S.A."?) to use in their latest attempt to kill Medicare and Social Security.

As a Philadelphian, I'm thrilled we were chosen to take...

This is an open letter to the anti-choice, anti-sex, anti-woman crazies of the so-called "conservative" movement.

Hey, you. Shut up and sit down. Yes, you.

Now listen, I don't care who you are or what you do for a living. You simply do not have the moral right to foment...

I was reading this critique of Eric Boehlert's new book by Anglachel, and it reminded me of something I'd thought earlier today: I can't believe that only a few bloggers have reviewed the book so far.

I mean, this is Eric Boehlert of Media Matters, author...

This library really is a national treasure. (I know, I used to be a board member.) It's believed to be the country's first continuously-operated public lending library (as opposed to a paid subscription library), operating since 1743. It just has the damned misfortune to be in a historic...

For a couple of years now, I've been thinking about how to ground people in community through hard times (because I always knew hard times were coming.)

One of the ideas I have is to have weekly community pot lucks. My idea is that people who are actually hungry and...

The thing I'd like to point out is, just as I kept saying back in the primary wars, that white working-class people are nowhere near the simple racists white liberals think they are.

I have to say, they surprised me, too. I feared they wouldn't, but hoped they would.

In all my years in journalism, I've never seen anything quite as disgusting as this.

And I know some of you will snicker, because it "only" hurts Hillary Clinton.

And you would be wrong about that.

The enemy isn't Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. It's the corporate media.

This is the second time Michelle Obama has said something really dumb (the first being her quote that she'd "have to think about it" when asked if she could see herself working to support Clinton if she won the nomination). [Ed. note: Corrected quote.]

This one's a lot more...

Are you as tired as I am of the politicians saying we "can't afford" universal healthcare?

Think about all the things we could do if we weren't spending untold sums on this war. Watch the video,...

One of my readers asked who I'd vote for, now that Edwards has left the race.

If I were going to cast a ballot Tuesday, I'd still be voting for John Edwards. Why?

Because I don't trust either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton to carry the banner of progressive causes....

I read the Washington Post so you don't have to. Michael Gerson, former Bush speechwriter, today writes:

Proposals such as No Child Left Behind, the AIDS and malaria initiatives, and the addition of a prescription drug benefit to Medicare would simply not have come from a traditional conservative politician....

Yes, I know that national health programs have their drawbacks (a Canadian reader wrote me with a bunch of horror stories just this week) but removing the profit motive should take care of many of the problems we have now:

Eric Simpson was strangely calm when the insurance company...

(At front of hotel ballroom, ELIZABETH EDWARDS taps the podium mike.)

ELIZABETH:
Is this thing on? Oh good.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming to today's press conference. As we said, John has an important statement to make. But first, I'd like to make my own statement.

(Flashes...

The more I think about Kristol getting a column at the Times, the madder I get. There are several hundred thousand dead Iraqis as a result of the bad information he persistently pushed to the American public, and this is treated as, oh, I don't know, a minor faux pas?...

But as far as I'm concerned, Mary is always going to look a lot like Imogene Herdman - sort of nervous and bewildered, but ready to clobber anyone who laid a hand on her baby. And the Wise Men are always going to be Leroy and his brothers, bearing ham....

This happened two miles from my new house, and although it didn't happen in my neighborhood, it's close by and I can't tell you how very sad I am that it happened. I grew up in a racist working-class neighborhood, and it brings back some bad memories.

Let me...

As my longtime readers know, I rarely comment on what right-wing blogs do. They're witting tools of the Republican smear machines, they just make shit up. So I ignore them.

But occasionally something comes along that's so outrageous, I have to say something.

The wack job who writes...

In today's segment of FoB: Is it a feature or a bug, that Rudy Giuliani's campaign hires a Minnesota law enforcement official who's know for using the "N" word? You decide!

This, by the way, ties in nicely with this week's Philadelphia Weekly cover story about Rudy's recent visit...

Some other bloggers picked up Miracle's story, and yesterday brought $3000 in donations to the Joseph family in New Orleans - which is great, but nowhere near what they need. (There's now a place to send checks, for those of you who don't like to donate online.)

Mail to:

The downside of blogging is that you immerse yourself day after day, week after week in such depressing information. After all, there's not always much you can do about these things, and it can really wear on the spirit.

But every once in a while, something comes up where blogging...