Saturday, August 31, 2013

The Truth On Syria

I found Cannon's post very persuasive. Cannonfire: "The "Trojan" trick: You can't understand what's going on now unless you know what happened in 1986"

Friday, August 30, 2013

GOPer Jedis

For any Teabagging GOPer to imagine they have anything in common with Jedis is an insult to irony and common sense.

Sad, empty threats from a cabal of deluded conservatives - Salon.com:
...Chait draws our attention to a cabal of conservative congressmen who call themselves “The Jedi Council” and are plotting both the party’s debt limit strategy and — possibly — the recriminations for GOP leaders if they fail to successfully extort the Obama administration. He also warns of “the apocalyptic damage the party is preparing to unleash in the here and now.”

I know I must sound like a broken record, but the damage they’re preparing to unleash is all in their minds. At least for now. The Jedi Council evokes a crew of shipwrecked sailors, marooned on a deserted island, who are planning to unleash hell in the final battle, but don’t realize the war ended years ago...

Is The Insanity Ending?

Will new Obama policy on marijuana be a boon for black America? | theGrio:
...In 2011, of the 1.5 million drug arrests made, 750,000 were for marijuana. People of color make up the overwhelming majority of those targeted by law enforcement. In every step, from those who are stop and frisked to those convicted and sent to serve time, the drug war certainly picks favorites. According to a recent report from the ACLU, black people are nearly four times as likely to be arrested for a marijuana arrest, even though marijuana consumption is fairly even across races...

Thursday, August 29, 2013

GOPers Say No To MLK

A party full of rodeo clowns: GOP flips the bird to racial justice - Salon.com:
...That’s all behind us. As recently as 2007, I believe, it would have been unthinkable that no major Republican leader would accept an invitation to join Wednesday’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. But that’s what happened this week, even though a delusional Bill O’Reilly claimed last night that “no Republicans and no
conservatives were invited” to speak. As usual, O’Reilly is wrong: House Speaker John Boehner was washing his hair; wait, he was visiting Wyoming (the sixth whitest state in the U.S., by the way). Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who traveled to Selma with Rep. John Lewis last year, was likewise otherwise engaged. Both Presidents Bush are recuperating from health troubles. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was invited in his brother and father’s stead, but he had other plans. Sen. John McCain also declined....

Keep ACA Funded Says Most

Majority oppose GOP plan to defund Obamacare, poll finds | KBZK.com | Z7 | Bozeman, Montana:
A clear majority of Americans are opposed to the Republican-led effort to defund Obamacare, a new poll shows...

Who's Responsible For NOLA Fears?

Opinion: We Sued the Oil Industry So New Orleans Can Survive:
After Hurricane Katrina, which struck eight years ago today, and the collapse of the levee system—a system entirely designed and built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—Louisiana wanted a new kind of local levee board, one made up of flood experts instead of political appointees. So, with 81 percent of the vote, the state's citizens passed a constitutional amendment that created the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East (SLFPAE), a reform board that oversees the levee system of greater New Orleans on the east bank of the Mississippi River, and of which I am a member...

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Origins Of The New Racism

Ed Schultz Exposes Cause Of Much Of The Racism In The South (VIDEO):
...Alabama Legislator: I got a call this week from a White female Republican. We have a school district in our county that has made an application to become independent. The reason she called me was because in the church this past Sunday, they were bullied and told you’ve got to support this school district pulling away from the county so we can minimize the number of blacks that are in our school district. Even though she was Republican she was disheartened because she says she never looked at the party from that perspective...

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

The Second Bill Of Rights

The right is wrong about rights - Salon.com:
...Here are FDR’s proposed additional subsidiary rights, from his Second Bill of Rights speech in 1944:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return that will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

FDR’s Second Bill of Rights, and similar proposals, are not intended to replace the original bill of rights, but only to supplement it. Progressives believe that we should have both the right to free speech and the right to minimal healthcare at public expense...

Scalia And Ginsburg

Ginsburg and Scalia’s Supreme Court complaints: Do they agree about what’s wrong with the Roberts court? - Slate Magazine:
...Which brings us to how real their respective fears really are. In spring Nathaniel Frank suggested that Scalia’s arguments about moral opprobrium and approval in the law have been disproved by time, and also overtaken by history. Whereas Ginsburg’s prediction in the Voting Rights Act dissent–that the assumption that the law works and is thus no longer needed “is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet”—has proven prescient, as Richard Hasen recently noted. The speed with which states like Texas and North Carolina sprinted to make voting more difficult in the weeks after the decision suggests that Ginsburg was correct in her assessment: The court badly misread the status quo.


The true nature of their grievances is more subtle, and reflects all the interesting ways in which both Scalia and Ginsburg are of an era that is rapidly coming to an end: Scalia longs for a time in which the courts stayed out of it. Whereas Ginsburg longs for a time in which the court could properly redress social injustices—in matters of race and of gender—with a real-world understanding of how that plays out on the ground. To put it another way, despite the fact that only three years separate them chronologically, Scalia seems to want to reinstate the legal worldview of the 1980s and Ginsburg wants to reinstate that of the 1970s. With the exception of perhaps Clarence Thomas, they are the last two sitting justices who are so completely of another era—in each case an era whose legal hopes were never fully realized. No wonder they’re both feeling so frustrated. And no wonder they’re both so willing to say it so loudly.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Quotes To Raise The BP

6 wildly offensive comments from America’s titans of industry - Salon.com:
...So as the rich continue to inherit the earth, we’ll be hearing a lot more the wealthy people who, like Zuckerberg and Mayer, want to corrupt the political process; those who are aggressively ignorant of political and constitutional principles, like Schmidt and Loeb; and the ones who are just loudmouthed jerks like the other guys on this list.

Crazy In NC: Powell Edition

RALEIGH: Colin Powell slams NC’s new voting law in speech at Raleigh CEO forum | Economy | NewsObserver.com:
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell shook up North Carolina’s annual CEO Forum on Thursday with pointed criticisms of the state’s new voting law, which critics say was designed to make it harder for minorities and students to vote...

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Bank Tries To Stop Home Seizures

...or when eminent domain may be a good idea.

Desperate Calif. city looks to use 'eminent domain' to seize loans to ease homeowners burden | Star Tribune:
When the mayor of Richmond, Calif., and a gaggle of activists and homeowners showed up at the Wells Fargo Bank headquarters in downtown San Francisco this month, they were on a mission to speak with the bank's chief executive.

They wanted the bank to drop a lawsuit aimed at stopping Richmond's first-in-the-nation plan to use the government's constitutional power of eminent domain to "seize" hundreds of mortgages from Wells Fargo and other financial institutions...

Saturday, August 24, 2013

The Real Outcome Of The ACA

Kentuckians Hate Obamacare But Love It By Another Name:
...The reelection of President Obama which makes it impossible to kill Obamacare before implementation is the best thing that has happened to the uninsured, the poor, and the working middle class. The pilfering of the last disposable dollar by insurance companies will eventually end. Medical bankruptcy will cease and families’ economic stabilization will begin.

Feudal Washington

Punditry Trumps Productivity in 'Celebritized' Culture of Washington Politics | PBS NewsHour | Aug. 22, 2013 | PBS:
... First of all, Washington has become, in the words of Tom Coburn, the senator from Oklahoma, a permanent feudal class of insiders. These are people who are in office, people who are formerly in office, staffers, journalists, hangers-on.

And you have this insider class that becomes self-perpetuating, and you have a Congress in which 42 percent of former members of Congress become lobbyists, 50 percent of former senators become lobbyists. That compares to 2 percent or 3 percent back in 1974. So, you have people coming here with no intention of going back to the farm, like George Washington would have...

Friday, August 23, 2013

O Sez "Make My Day"


Coburn raises possibility of impeachment at town hall - First Read:
A Republican lawmaker on Wednesday appeared to suggest that President Barack Obama is “getting perilously close” to meeting the criteria for impeachment.

“I think those are serious things, but we’re in serious times,” said Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn during a town hall in his home state.

“And I don’t have the legal background to know if that rises to ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,’ but I think you’re getting perilously close...”

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Buying The Lie

Obamacare Not To blame For Job And Insurance Loss, Corporate Greed Is:
... Sadly this means the American taxpayers subsidize all employers that pay wages that keep folks poor. They also subsidize all those employers not insuring their workers. There is no free ride. Every corporation operating solely out of corporate greed does it on the back of the middle class, the American taxpayer. The American taxpayer pays the health cost for those corporations who won’t insure their workers. The taxpayer pays for the food stamps and subsidies for the Wal-Marts, Subways, and other employers paying poor wages.

Americans must stop buying into the narrative of appeasing corporate greed in order to get the crumbs left over for their labor. Americans most assert their worth and demand their share of the economy.

Perry The Hypocrite

Forward Progressives — Rick Perry is Now Asking President Obama for Funds From Obamacare:
Texas Governor Rick Perry is at it again, and by “at it” I mean acting like a complete hypocrite. The governor who has made a career out of attacking Washington is once again seeking money from Washington...

O Gets Blame For Katrina

This is almost funny. Almost.

A Third Of Louisiana Republicans Blame Obama For Hurricane Katrina Response Under Bush:
A large number of Louisiana Republicans think President Barack Obama is to blame for the federal government's poor response to Hurricane Katrina, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey released Wednesday -- despite the fact that the storm occurred three years before he took office...

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Real Evil Skates Free

Bradley Manning Headed To Prison, While Those Who Authorized Torture Go Free:
Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Wednesday for releasing 700,000 documents about the United States' worldwide diplomacy and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Manning was a 25-year-old Army private first class at the time of his arrest. He saw himself as an idealist acting to end the wars, and said in online chats with hacker Adrian Lamo that he was particularly concerned about the abuse of detainees in Iraq. No political or military higher-ups have ever been prosecuted for detainee abuse or torture in Iraq, Afghanistan or at Guantanamo Bay...

O Hatin' On Honkies

Report: Maine Gov. Paul LePage says Obama ‘hates white people’ - Hadas Gold - POLITICO.com:
Maine Gov. Paul LePage told a group of Republicans last week that President Barack Obama “hates white people,” two Maine Republican lawmakers told the Portland Press Herald.

According to the Press Herald, the two lawmakers, who spoke to the newspaper on the condition of anonymity, said LePage talked about how Obama could have been the best president ever if he had highlighted his biracial heritage and that “LePage said the president hasn’t done that because he hates white people...”
So he hates Mom and her family?

Monday, August 19, 2013

ACA Will Work

One Reform, Indivisible - NYTimes.com:
...I guess that after all the years of vilification it was predictable that Republican leaders would still fail to understand the principles behind health reform and that this would hamper their ability to craft an effective political response as the reform’s implementation draws near. But their rudest shock is yet to come. You see, this thing isn’t going to be the often-predicted “train wreck.” On the contrary, it’s going to work...

Sunday, August 18, 2013

The End Of The Islamist

Insight: Egypt seen as graveyard of Islamist ambitions for power | Reuters:
...In power, Mursi and his backers in the Brotherhood proved unable to collaborate with either Islamist allies or secular adversaries and fatally alienated an army they first tried to co-opt. They have left the country more divided than at any time since it became a republic in 1953.

"They have no understanding whatsoever of the way democratic politics operates," says George Joffe, an expert on North Africa at Cambridge University. "It is difficult to imagine how anyone, given the opportunity of power, could in any circumstances have behaved as stupidly as they did. It is staggering incompetence."

The 2011 upheavals promoted Islamist groups affiliated with or similar to the Brotherhood to the heart of politics across the Arab world, and most observers say events in Egypt are not just a national but a regional setback for the organization.

Will Rush Moderate GOPer Debates?

Rush Limbaugh’s looming presidential debate disaster - Salon.com:
If some shortsighted conservatives get their way, we may soon be treated to Rush Limbaugh quizzing Republican presidential candidates about which liberal activists should be thought of as sluts. Now that’s the way to appeal to swing voters.

In case you missed it, the Republican Party has pledged to boycott NBC and CNN from their 2016 nomination debate schedule. They are also planning to cut back on the total number of debates. And even if Republicans don’t really decide to spotlight the conservative talk show hosts most likely to remind swing voters about what they don’t like about the GOP, the above is still enough to convince many observers that Republicans have lost all interest in talking to anyone beyond their most dedicated voters...

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Fox Caves To GOP

Fox TV Studios Won't Produce NBC Hillary Clinton Miniseries (Exclusive) - The Hollywood Reporter
The tantalizing spectacle of Fox Television Studios producing a Hillary Clinton miniseries
for NBC has been canceled, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.
our editor recommends

It was reported last week that Fox, also the home of the cable news channel with conservative-leaning programs, might produce the planned four-hour miniseries to be written and directed by Courtney Hunt (Frozen River) and to star Diane Lane...

GOP Causing ACA Troubles

Obama: GOP trying to 'gum up' ACA - Jennifer Haberkorn - POLITICO.com:
President Barack Obama criticized Republicans for trying to “gum up the works” in the health care reform law and for refusing to help constituents sign up for coverage.

“A lot of Republicans seem to believe that if they can gum up the works and make this law fail, they’ll somehow be sticking it to me. But they’d just be sticking it to you,” Obama said in his weekly address...

Friday, August 16, 2013

Evil Apple: Jobs Worship Edition

Steve Jobs biopic is boring, but maybe Ashton Kutcher’s fans will like it | Montreal Gazette:
...Jobs, who co-founded Apple with Steve Wozniak, seems more like a dictator, or a small child, who wants everyone to say “Yes” to him. He doesn’t want to hear any discouraging words, so it’s mildly amusing when he tells a designer that he should always give his honest opinion, not to hold back. Even though he talks about a device that will work right out of box, for plumbers and grandmothers in Dubuque, making a profit seems more important to him than anything else. Steve Wozniak seems to have had more of the ideas and done more of the work, while Jobs was a fast-talking hustler/salesman, who would blithely promise to produce more units than asked for, and more quickly, too, leaving Wozniak to pull those rabbits (Apples) out of a hat.

(When Jobs was still working for game maker Atari, he lacked the expertise to rework a video game. He got Wozniak to fix it for him. Jobs promised Wozniak $350, half of the $700 that he said he was getting for the work. In fact, Jobs received $5,000. If that’s how he treated his friends. . .) In an opening scene, Jobs introduces the iPod to Apple employees. The insistent music tells us that This Is An Important Event! and the employees look at him with stars in their eyes, as if he is some combination of Jesus, the Dalai Lama, their favourite pop star and the cutest kitten they have ever seen. This is just too much. And after seeing how nasty Jobs can be, it is darned near incomprehensible...

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Crazy Comments Collection

6 of the nuttiest right-wing statements from this week alone - Salon.com:
The right-wing crazies may have truly outdone themselves this week. With Congress taking its summer break, Tea Partyers and other kooks were suddenly uncorked (that word will come up again in another context, so look for it), taking to the airwaves, appealing to their bases and saying some of the nuttiest things we have ever heard. With straight faces! Things like, “tanning beds are racist,” “Wendy Davis is an ‘Abortion Barbie,’” “climate change is a religion” — you cannot make this stuff up. And if you did, no one would believe you...

Bemoaning The New Status Quo

African-American Woman Tells Reince Priebus, Newt Gingrich GOP Ignores Black Minority (Video):
During the Q&A session at the Republican National Committee Summer Meeting on Wednesday, an African-American woman stood to confront Newt Gingrich and Reince Priebus for not addressing her community.

“Everybody’s talking about Hispanics, but African-Americans built this country, and continue to be ignored by everybody,” she said. “I don’t hear [African-American] voices resonating.”

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Noonan Waxes Stupid

Noonan: Obama should defend blackface rodeo clown - Salon.com:
The vibrations have spoken once agains through their instrument at the Wall Street Journal, columnist Peggy Noonan, who today advises President Obama to defend the Missouri State Fair rodeo clown who this weekend wore an Obama mask before getting run down by a bull for cheering fans. The state’s Republican lieutenant governor condemned it, state fair officials called it “inappropriate,” and the head of the Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association resigned over the controversy, but Noonan totally understands why the crowd would cheer the trouncing of a president in effigy, because: Obamacare.

“This is the reason many people don’t like ObamaCare. It’s also part of why people wind up making fun of the president at state fairs,” she writes today, linking to a story about disability rights advocates raising concerns about the health care law. On the blackface rodeo clown thing, “everyone should breathe deep” and calm down, she adds...

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

O'Impeachable

GOP pol: House could impeach president - Ginger Gibson - POLITICO.com:
Rep. Blake Farenthold thinks the House of Representatives has the votes to impeach President Barack Obama in response to an inquiry about the authenticity of the president’s birth certificate, but said at a town hall meeting he doesn’t think it would be the best approach.

“A question I get a lot, ‘If everybody is so unhappy with the president, why don’t you impeach him?’” Farenthold, a Texas Republican, said at a town hall meeting Saturday according to a video posted on YouTube. “I’ll give you a real frank answer about that, if we were to impeach the president tomorrow, we would probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it...”

Monday, August 12, 2013

Bananas Growing In The Appalachians

How's that climate change going at your house? Weaverville Woman Goes Bananas - WLOS News13 - Top Stories

The Noose Is Too Good For The Bankers

Your mortgage documents are fake! - Salon.com:
If you know about foreclosure fraud, the mass fabrication of mortgage documents in state courts by banks attempting to foreclose on homeowners, you may have one nagging question: Why did banks have to resort to this illegal scheme? Was it just cheaper to mock up the documents than to provide the real ones? Did banks figure they simply had enough power over regulators, politicians and the courts to get away with it? (They were probably right about that one.)

A newly unsealed lawsuit, which banks settled in 2012 for $95 million, actually offers a different reason, providing a key answer to one of the persistent riddles of the financial crisis and its aftermath. The lawsuit states that banks resorted to fake documents because they could not legally establish true ownership of the loans when trying to foreclose...

The Theocracy Strikes Again

This Judge Forces Parent To Change Child’s First Name - Next? (VIDEO):
This story seems unreal in the United States of America. In short, Lu Ann Ballew, the Child Support Magistrate who serves the 4th Judicial District of Tennessee that includes Cocke, Grainger, Jefferson, and Sevier counties, renamed a Tennessee’s mother’s child’s name. She did this based on her own religious beliefs and the preponderance of the Christian religion in the child’s surroundings.

This is more serious than it seems on the surface. Many in the Right Wing get upset when they are compared to the Taliban, yet the type of control they attempt to take on the civil liberties and freedoms of citizens is immediately visible. The attempt in Tennessee and in various states governed by Right Wing politicians to pass laws against non-existent Sharia Laws as cover for their attempt at their own theocracy and ideological dominance is dangerous...

Scammer Not A 99%er

Detroit doctor charged in $35M Medicare scam gave fake diagnoses, feds say | Fox News:
 A Detroit-area doctor has been charged with bilking the government of tens of millions of dollars by deliberately misdiagnosing patients with cancer and illegally billing Medicare for the treatment...

From The About Time Department

Judge rules New York police's 'stop and frisk' tactics unconstitutional | Reuters:
The New York City Police Department's controversial "stop and frisk" crime-fighting tactics violate the U.S. Constitution, a federal judge ruled on Monday.

U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin said the city police adopted a policy of "indirect racial profiling" by targeting racially defined groups for stops...

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Clinton Tougher Than O Sez Furhead

Trump: Hillary Tougher for GOP to Beat Than Obama:
Donald Trump warned Iowa Republicans in a speech Saturday night that Hillary Clinton would be a tough candidate to beat in the 2016 presidential election.

"Hillary is going to be tougher to beat" than Obama's 2012 reelection campaign, Trump said, and he urged Republicans to choose "the right person, the perfect person" at their next convention, ABC News reported...

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Tea Party Mystics

Yes, this quote has something to do with politics. Go forth unto the link to figure.

The Tea Party’s paranoid aesthetic - Salon.com:
...For my money, the supreme expression of paranoid narcissism in recent popular culture is “The X-Files,” the science-fiction series that ran on FOX television from 1993 until 2002. For those of you who spent the ‘90s in suspended animation, the series follows two FBI agents, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), as they slowly unravel a multilayered conspiracy in which elements of the intelligence community work with rapacious industrialists to turn over the planet to even more rapacious aliens. (At least, I think that’s the conspiracy; it had grown so incredibly baroque by the series’ end that I can’t be entirely sure.)In the final episode of the first season (“The Erlenmeyer Flask”), there is a scene that perfectly embodies the combination of nearly infantile self-obsession with barely suppressed panic that constitutes paranoid narcissism. Agent Mulder has devoted himself to exposing the conspiracy, largely because he blames it for certain tragedies in his personal life (the disappearance of his sister, the collapse of his parents’ marriage). He receives information that leads him to a decrepit warehouse on a bleak industrial boulevard. (Wonderfully, the warehouse is “Zeus Storage,” the boulevard is “Pandora.”) He makes his way inside, wanders down a dark corridor, then enters what appears to be an equally dark chamber. But as he moves forward, the gloom and silence give way to the green glow of instrument panels and the soft gurgling of water. He stops and stares at the scene before him: neatly organized rows of glass tanks, each of which contains a fully submerged, apparently human body, sound asleep and breathing effortlessly in its liquid bed...

Friday, August 09, 2013

What Congress Has Earned

Nothing. They deserve no time off, no pay raises, and no exemptions from ACA or sequestration.

Fox News Poll: Congress Doesn't Deserve a Recess:
More than eight in 10 voters say Congress hasn't worked hard enough to take five weeks off, according to a new Fox News poll.

Thursday, August 08, 2013

Clinton And The Deep End

Oh, Shut Up - Esquire:
...But, more important is the fact that NBC News has an awful lot of bad stuff to "own" just by itself without worrying about whether or not Chuck's stand-ups from Iowa will undermined by the work of Miss Diane Lane. The continued employment of the self-refuting Joe Scarborough comes immediately to mind. (Hint For Joe: your very presence on MSNBC every damn morning proves that MSNBC and Fox are not "exactly" the same, not even "at night." Where's the outright disinformation coming from Chris Matthews or Rachel Maddow? What precisely has Chris Hayes said that reminds you of something Sean Hannity said? C'mon, Squint. I'd like an offer of proof here. Man up.) Why not "own" the fact that the departed, saintly Tim Russert took a dive on the fakery surrounding the run-up to the Iraq War?

It is nice to know that some things in American politics never change. The Clintons continue to have an amazing capacity to drive otherwise reasonable people insane.

Wednesday, August 07, 2013

Turncoat Dem GOPer Quits

I quit! GOP Congressman fed up with partisan posturing — MSNBC: )

Rep. Rodney Alexander, a six-term Republican from Louisiana, said Tuesday that he will step down at the end of his term due to congressional gridlock.

“Partisan posturing has created a legislative standstill,” Alexander said in a statement. “I have decided not to seek reelection, so that another may put forth ideas on how to break through the gridlock and bring about positive change for our country...”

Tuesday, August 06, 2013

Why Mitch Has No Chin

Mitch McConnell gets barbecued: Politics at its weirdest, Kentucky-style - Salon.com:
... As a native Kentuckian, I always had Fancy Farm on my radar as potentially interesting to attend, on a lark. My interest perked in ‘08, when it was rumored Barack Obama might schedule an appearance during his campaign; it’s clear to me now that it wouldn’t have been wise strategy for a presidential candidate, assuming it was ever under serious consideration. The level of decorum required of speakers at Fancy Farm is so low that it’s considered only marginally tacky for Ed Marksberry, an Owensboro contractor running in the Democratic primary and the least of McConnell’s threats from the left, to state the cruel but undeniable truth about the 71-year-old minority leader’s appearance (“People say he looks like a turtle!”) and make a political joke at the expense of his wattle (“After years of kissing the butts of corporate elites, he rubbed his chin right off!”). People cheer and jeer, journalists scribble in their notebooks. This year, I was curious to hear Alison Lundergan Grimes, the 34-year-old secretary of state who, having painted only the broadest of policy brushstrokes in the primary, has the full backing of the Democratic National Committee and endorsements from the likes of Bill Clinton and actress/activist Ashley Judd...

The Post-Racial Kool-Aid

Cooper presents an intelligent and thoughtful critique of recent events. She will probably have her house burned down.

Jay Z needs better race politics - Salon.com:
...Though I, too, found the president’s remarks on Trayvon Martin to be moving, powerful and important, we can’t lose sight of the bigger picture. Hope is not enough. A compelling narrative of African-American exceptionalism is not enough. The fact that the presence of a black president and a black attorney general could make no material difference to the reality of a young black male teen walking down his street in Florida demonstrate the limits of the symbolic.

This is why no one gets a gold star simply for showing up. To act as though you should suggests that not showing up is a legitimate option. But in political times like these, truancy is child’s play.

Monday, August 05, 2013

The Toad Thinks Anew

Newt Gingrich sees major Mideast mistakes, rethinks his neocon views on intervention - Washington Times:
...Mr. Gingrich said it is time for Republicans to heed some of the anti-interventionist ideas offered by the libertarian-minded Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, and Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, tea party favorite and foreign policy skeptic.

“I think it would be healthy to go back and war-game what alternative strategies would have been better, and I like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul because they are talking about this,” Mr. Gingrich said.

Mr. Paul, a longtime critic of neoconservatives on foreign policy, argues that war must be a last resort and never should be used for nation-building...

Sunday, August 04, 2013

Orange Alert Because Of Snowden?

Cannonfire: "Has Uncle Sam partnered up with Al Qaeda?"
...As I suspected would happen, we're seeing stories designed to emphasize the wonderful, heroic efforts of our noble NSA eavesdroppers, thereby justifying the great anti-Snowden campaign.

Remember the heightened terrorist "threat level" alerts throughout the 2004 campaign? Remember how those orange alerts completely disappeared after the election? ...

Saturday, August 03, 2013

Useful Leakers

In Defense of Leakers: Snowden and Manning : The New Yorker:
On the day that Edward Snowden finally left Moscow’s airport in a taxi to take up Russia’s offer of temporary asylum and the sentencing portion of Bradley Manning’s trial continued, it is worth restating what should be obvious. Leaking classified information is a crime, and it can be damaging to the national interest; but, in some circumstances, it can also be a patriotic and useful act that helps bring about necessary reforms...

Thursday, August 01, 2013

More GOPer Corruption

Is there no area of American life that is safe from the cancerous corruption of GOP politics?

No matter how angry I get over liberal bigorty about the South, I keep coming back to the fact that the GOP is worse-- about everything.

Florida education chief resigns over role in Indiana grade scandal | Nation & World | The Seattle Times:
Florida’s education commissioner, a rising star in a national movement pushing for test-based accountability in public schools, resigned Thursday amid accusations that he changed the grade of a charter-school run by a major Republican donor during his previous job as Indiana’s schools chief...

McConnell Faces Election Challenges

A New Poll Suggests Trouble for Mitch McConnell - David A. Graham - The Atlantic:
With Congress gearing up for the August recess, Mitch McConnell can focus on his reelection campaign in Bluegrass State. It looks like the Senate minority leader will have his work cut out for him.

McConnell faces fights on two fronts in his quest for reelection. First, businessman Matt Bevin announced a primary challenge from the right last week. Bevin's an underdog, but he's got the backing of influential conservatives including Erick Erickson, and as we learned in 2010, longstanding GOP senators can't take reelection for granted these days. Rand Paul also upset establishment pick Trey Grayson in the 2010 primary for the other U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky...