Good Tuesday morning,
When a bill strengthening the independence of the inspectors general offices of the executive branch flew through the House last week by a vote of 404-11, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-MN, was one of the 11 “nay” votes.
She later inserted into the Congressional Record a brief statement indicating that she had meant to […]

Guest Poster Pasquino reads a story in the Times about a grout-sealant that is supposed to evaporate harmlessly, but sometimes sends people to the hospital instead. He remembers back to stories about Justice Samuel Alito’s belief that consumer safety laws are constitutionally suspect, and others about Bushy hostility to regulation generally, and he’s off to the laissez-faire races:
The […]

Good Monday morning Fellow Seekers,
Martin Luther King and Christopher Columbus are the only individuals with official U.S. federal holidays named for them. Today (which is Columbus Day and the excuse for this post) is the only one named for a man who never clapped eyes on the North America, and whose actions toward the natives […]

Hey guys,
I’m slowing down and starting to drown under the challenge of keeping fresh posts on Black Ink all by myself. One way to improve the situation is to recruit guest pieces. I have an old soccer buddy, who writes under the name of Pasquino. That’s the original Pasquino at right, one of the talking statues of Rome. […]

Good Friday noon Fellow Seekers, 
Only three stories start on the Strib front page today.
All three (a Duluth jury’s verdict against a Brainerd woman for for sharing music on the internet; the Henn. Co. District Court ruling that Sen. Larry Craig doesn’t get to take back his guilty plea; and more MnDOT funding woes) are legitimate page one contenders to the eye […]

Lieberman, Kerry, Dean, Kerry, Bush.
Good Friday morning Fellow Seekers,

It’s fine to describe Hillary Clinton as the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. She is. You could say the same about Rudy Giuliani on the Repub side, although his situation is more complicated.
It’s fine to laugh and roll your eyes when pollsters say that their poll results […]

The Republican Party must really have offended the political gods. Now six-term U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico, is expected to announce today that he will not seek a seventh term. Health reasons.
Domenici was already in some political trouble (involvement in the scandal over the firing of New Mexico U.S. attorney David C. Iglesias) but would […]

Good Wednesday morning Fellow Seekers of Wisdom and Truth,
Most U.S. military adventures are justified by their proponents, at least in significant part, as expressions of the U.S. commitment to the spread of democracy.
The history of U.S. wars and covert interventions, and their relationship to democratization, plus the long-standing close alliances between Washington and some of […]

Good Monday noon, 
The first Star Tribune poll since the paper forced out long-time Minnesota Poll director, Rob Daves, is full of bad news for the three major U.S. Senate candidates.
Norm Coleman’s approval rating (45%) is at a level (anything below 50 is considered this level) that paints a big V for vulnerable on the chest of any […]

And does it matter if you smear a smear artist who commits new smears while complaining about the smear against him?
Good Monday morning Fellow Seekers,
This is a foloup to a post from Friday that I confess I put up without enough thought or fact-checking. It linked to a piece by lefty media watchdog Media Matters for […]