Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Sunday, August 24, 2008

The downside of Biden

By Libby



As events have unfolded in the last 24 hours, I'm generally satisfied that Biden was a good choice for VP. However, Radley flagged the one big negative that I've been reluctant to bring up in an effort to prolong the positive coverage. But since Radley didn't show my restraint, it's worth noting that Biden's record on the war on some drugs is abysmal.



In fact, Biden is largely responsible for every inane and counterproductive present day policy from asset forfeiture to the atrocious RAVE Act. The one mitigating position he currently holds is "a fairly strong position against federal raids on medical marijuana clinics." Which is not to imply he supports medical marijuana. He doesn't.



All that being said, it's still not a deal breaker. None of the candidates have anything close to resembling common sense drug policy planks, well except Bob Barr, who seems to have seen the light but has no appreciable chance of becoming president. So it's better to focus on Biden's positives. Clearly, after watching his debut, he's willing to get down and dirty to fight the GOP smear machine on its own ground. Better to help him win now and worry about the policy squabbles later.



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