Archive for April, 2009
Stupid Is As Stupid Does?
Allow me to introduce North Carolina senator Richard Burr. On Monday night, he decided to share with the public “his immediate reaction the week the (financial) crisis began.” And that immediate reaction was panic. In other words, he decided that he didn’t have much faith in the full faith and credit of the U.S. government: [...]
Tea Bag Surveillance
Fox News 2009: I’m looking at the report and it says, among other things, that the federal government is going to begin gathering information on right-wing extremist activity in the United States. Does that mean they’re going to be sending spies to these tea parties? MSNBC 2005: A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House [...]
On Tea-baggery
(1) Footsoldiers First, “Journalists” Second Somebody should tell those jokers over at Fox News that they need to stay in character at all times: Fox News host Neil Cavuto regularly claims that when he aggressively advocates for the anti-Obama “tea party” protests on air, he is simply covering them as a journalist. But Stuart Varney, [...]
Fighting Tyranny, Texas Style
I can’t help wondering if Republican governors have a contest on to see who can say or do the stupidest thing. Take Texas governor Rick Perry. This is his latest entry: “Millions of Texans… are tired of Washington, D.C. trying to come down here and tell us how to run Texas,” Perry said at a [...]
Depends on the Definition of We
Treasury Secretary and self-proclaimed free-market ideologue Tim Geithner (1/29/09): “We have a financial system that is run by private shareholders, managed by private institutions, and we’d like to do our best to preserve that system,” he said. President Barack Obama (4/14/09): The reason we have not taken this step has nothing to do with any [...]
Outsourcing Presidential Obligations
President Barack “The Buck Stops Here” Obama is facing a novel outsourcing charge—outsourcing the enforcement of U.S. laws. America is a nation of laws — laws enforced by Spain. John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, William Haynes and Douglas Feith wrote, authorized and promulgated the Justice Department “torture memos” that the Bush Administration [...]
Innocent As Charged?
Trying to spin Ted Stevens as a wrongfully accused innocent, who should never have been charged and tried for the crimes that he is alleged to have committed, would appear to be a thoroughly idiotic notion. Which must be why the Republican machine has embraced it with both arms, and kissed it on the cheek. [...]
And The Beat Goes On…
We take no joy in this, but it comes as no surprise to anyone who has maintained from the beginning a healthy modicum of skepticism whether the Obama reality would live up to the Obama hype: The Obama administration said Friday that it would appeal a district court ruling that granted some military prisoners in [...]
Can You Smell the Change?
Donald Rumsfeld, press conference at NATO, (6/6/02): Now what is the message there? The message is that there are no “knowns.” There are thing we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are [...]
Battle Of The Aphorisms
Which aphorism trumps the other: “takes one to catch one” or “the fox guarding the henhouse”? One of these days, we’ll find out. But that will be down the road. And, as the recent history which provides the context for this battle of the aphorisms brings home so painfully, finding out down the road can [...]