the browntable

Sure, it was predictable that the right’s most venomous voices would find a way to turn America’s desire to help Haiti into something dark. But you’d think these guys would at least wait a day before starting to spew their bile. Nope. Pat Robertson has declared that Haiti brought the destruction on itself by, well,…

When news broke last night that a 7.0 magnitude earthquake has killed thousands and leveled Port-au-Prince, Haiti, I immediately thought of the things we take for granted in America—building codes, for example. I also thought of a photo essay I once edited about Haiti’s long tradition of recycling and retailoring clothes from wealthy nations into…

Continuing the conversation on the race for 2010, here is a surprising development that wouldn’t change the Senate math for Democrats, but could start quite a fight: Encouraged by a group of influential New York Democrats, Harold Ford Jr., the former congressman from Tennessee, is weighing a bid to unseat Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand in…

A Connecticut senator is doing what’’s best for America and his party. And it’s not Joe Lieberman. Chris Dodd, a five-term senator from Connecticut, will not stand for reelection this November. Chris Cilizza at The Fix has the scoop: Dodd’s retirement comes roughly two years after his presidential ambitions came to an end in the…

Is the Obama administration about to open a third front in Yemen? A visit by Gen. Petraeus to Sana’a this week was a strong sign that the military option is fast becoming the first reaction to a terrorist event. We’re still in Iraq; we’re escalating in Afghanistan; and we’re already crossing the border from Afghanistan…

In response to Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab’s Christmas Day attempt to down an airliner headed from Amsterdam to Detroit, the US Transportation Safety Administration is implementing a new system of passenger screening based on national origin: Citizens of Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria, countries that are considered “state sponsors of terrorism,” as well as those…

In his second official statement regarding the failed Christmas Day terror bombing aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, President Barack Obama acknowledged “systemic failure” in the nation’s response to this particular threat. He added that American security forces need to act quickly to fix the flaws in the system. Taking no questions,…

Karl Rove’s gotten his second divorce. That ought to be his private business, to be sure. Except, once again, here’s a person who has made it his public business to police every body else’s relationships. So, I welcome a thorough, detailed examination of every aspect of Rove’s private life. Starting with his hypocrisy. Salon’s Glenn…

In the wee hours of Christmas Eve, the United States Senate passed a health care reform bill—an achievement that, despite the months of controversy that preceded its passage, hasn’t been done, ever before. President Obama, rarely one to miss the historic nature of any political act, cheered the bill’s passage in remarks made just before…

The Senate has voted to vote on health care reform. Reactions to the series of late-night, last-minute votes that should, if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has his way, result in that chamber’s passage of a health care reform bill by Christmas Day, has been mixed. On the one hand, progressives are mad (really mad)…