I have long said there are three distinct groups under the GOP's tent: theological warriors, who want to impose their social views on the rest of society; Tea Party zealots, who say with a straight face that they want the government to get out of their Medicare; and remnants of the pro-business moderates.
Never write when you can talk. Never talk when you can nod. And never put anything in an e-mail.
Our criminal justice system is fallible. We know it, even though we don't like to admit it. It is fallible despite the best efforts of most within it to do justice. And this fallibility is, at the end of the day, the most compelling, persuasive, and winning argument against a death penalty.
Global warming threatens our health, our economy, our natural resources, and our children's future. It is clear we must act.
Yes, people pull the trigger - but guns are the instrument of death. Gun control is necessary, and delay means more death and horror.
After 25-plus years as a lawyer, prosecutor, and defense attorney, I have developed a deep appreciation for both the wisdom of the law and the role that jurists play in framing the rights and responsibilities that define our society.
It's not Big Brother that we now have to be afraid of, but Big Browser.
I don't care about motivation. I care about credibility.
One of the biggest lies in capitalism is that companies like competition. They don't. Nobody likes competition.
Sometimes in politics, you think you've seen it all. Turns out I was wrong.
The pace of global warming is accelerating and the scale of the impact is devastating. The time for action is limited - we are approaching a tipping point beyond which the opportunity to reverse the damage of CO2 emissions will disappear.
In politics you learn to always smile.
As someone with a deep faith in competition and the market, I also know that markets only work with tough enforcement of the rules that guarantee competition and fair play - and that the pressure to break those rules only gets stronger as the amount of money involved gets larger.
I do not believe that politics in the long run is about individuals. It is about ideas.
It sucks. I used to be governor of New York.
A year is an eternity in politics - though less than a moment in history.
I apologize to the public, whom I promised better.
Delay is the enemy of progress.
The Republican argument that raising the debt ceiling encourages additional future spending is logically irresponsible. The debt ceiling has to be raised to authorize spending already approved by Congress. Despite that fallacy, the GOP has been able to score political points with its argument.
Any reasonable economist will tell you that it's nearly impossible to isolate the impact of right-to-work laws on a state's job growth. A multitude of other factors intervene. However, one thing the numbers can show is that right-to-work laws have a negative effect on the wages of workers in that state.
Companies that pollute should be taxed so that a product's cost to society is reflected in the price of that product.
The irony is that it was tougher to rent a car from Cerberus when it owned Alamo than to buy a semi-automatic. To rent a car, one had to provide ID, a drivers' license, and get insurance coverage. To buy a gun? Cash and carry, from the back of a station wagon at a gun show. No concerns about downstream liability or risk.
When you're in office, there are tangible moments when you can see tangible successes.
While their fiscal views aren't mine, the moderates are the last reasonable voice in the current Republican Party.
Tax rates for the wealthy should revert to Clinton-era levels, both because it is necessary for long-term deficit reduction and because fairness dictates it. Moreover, there is no proof that higher marginal rates dissuade investment, all the rhetoric from the Right notwithstanding.
