Archive for January, 2010
Distinguished Crackpottery In The Time Of Bush
It may not surprise you to learn that in the time of Bush, the Pentagon hired a crackpot to provide deep insights into al Qaeda. Said crackpot, Laurie Mylroie “was paid roughly $75,000 to produce a 300-page study, “The History of Al Qaida,” for the Defense Department think tank, known as the Office of Net [...]
Television Breakthrough In The UK
After the depressing events of last week — inexplicable Democratic jelly-wobbling on healthcare reform after the Massachusetts special election, incomprehensible Supreme Court decision — here’s a story from the BBC that’s worth a little laugh. The headline listed under “Top Science and Environment Stories” reads: “Movie made by chimps shown on TV“. Could any American [...]
The Party Of “No Can Do”
Shell-shocked by Scott Brown‘s victory, how dysfunctional has the Democratic party become? I think Steve Benen summed it up nicely: What I find interesting is the sizable group of progressive champions — allies of the Democratic Party who have no interest in steering Dems in the wrong direction — who are all urging the House [...]
The Defining Civil Rights Struggle Of The 21st Century
Guess what? Corporations have first amendment rights, just like regular people. And Republicans across the land offered up a mighty chorus of “Glory, glory, hallelujah!” when the Supreme Court righted decades of discrimination by recognizing — and protecting — the essential people-ness of our corporate citizens. Now, at long last, corporations will enjoy a level [...]
Jelly-wobbling
Apparently, there was an earthquake on Tuesday night that registered way up there on the Richter scale, an earthquake that was felt all over the country but which affected only the Obama administration and Democratic members of the House and Senate. Since then, these Democrats have been stumbling around, fearful, confused, and pathetically frightened of [...]
Hysterical Overreaction
What’s with all the hysterical overreaction to the Massachusetts special election? The NYT talks wildly of “a drastically altered political environment”. Is it so hard to keep things in perspective? One year ago, as Obama assumed the presidency, the Democratic caucus had 58 seats in the Senate, plus Al Franken in the incubator. After holding [...]
Unforced Error In The War Against Terror
AP: The nation’s top intelligence official says the Christmas Day airline bombing suspect should have been treated as a high-value terror suspect when the plane landed. That would have meant questioning by special interrogators rather than civilian law officers. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (OO’-mahr fah-ROOK’ ahb-DOOL’-moo-TAH’-lahb) was interviewed by federal law enforcement investigators when Northwest Flight [...]
Scott Brown And Your 401k
Yesterday morning, a certain fair and balanced news network exhorted viewers to make calls to Massachusetts in support of Scott Brown, because a Scott Brown victory would push the stock market up: GRETCHEN CARLSON (co-host): Well, are you concerned about the money in your 401(k)? Who’s not, right? Well, you may want to make a [...]
The Honorable Nude Model From Massachusetts
When Barack Obama assumed the presidency, exactly one year ago, many Democrats felt that yes, we can, and maybe we will. Now, with enough voters in the Massachusetts special election having stuffed their votes into Scott Brown‘s g-string, we would seem to have come to the end of that phase of Obama’s presidency. What we [...]
The Future Of Healthcare Reform
Yesterday, TPM Live Wire had a post titled “Dem Lawmakers Begin Backing Away From Health Care Reform“. I thought the title was a clear over-reach, since the post only referred to one single Democrat, and that too a no-name member of the House, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota. But we have now seen at [...]