Archive for April, 2010
Spinefullness
What is the world coming to? Now political blackmail doesn’t work the way it used to just a few months ago, when the healthcare reform bill turned into a multi-ring circus. And it doesn’t work even on Democrats, who practically had it written into their party constitution: “Thou shalt capitulate to any and all blackmail [...]
Long Live Democracy! And Journalism!
(1) Isn’t democracy wonderful? (Note: the article has been revised slightly since I pulled the quotes used here.) Seven weeks after Iraqis went to the polls, a special elections court disqualified a winning parliamentary candidate, likely reversing the narrow defeat of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s coalition and possibly allowing him the first chance to [...]
Swami Sarabeth Speaks
When the Republicans have taken Congress (in 2010) and the presidency (in 2012), and repealed the Affordable Care Bill, what happens then? Alas, we cannot paint you a complete picture, but we offer one important prediction, and analyze its downstream effects. Whatever else he does, President Scott Brown will have to replace the individual mandate [...]
Monkey See, Monkey Do?
TPM: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says he’s pulling his support for a bipartisan climate bill — seemingly killing its chances in this Congress — because, he says, President Obama has abandoned climate legislation in favor of immigration reform. So let me see if I’ve got this right. Lindsey Graham thinks that President Obama has abandoned [...]
The Guthberg Test For Galloping Stupidity
Brian Bilbray is a Republican congressman. Not even from Arizona, mind you, but from California. But he just couldn’t resist defending Arizona’s new racial profiling law, the one that inspired John McCain to babble about “the drivers of cars with illegals in it (sic) that (sic) are intentionally causing accidents on the freeway.” (Bilbray’s eagerness [...]
Forgery Or Just Dishonest Journalism?
(1) This has got to be, without question, the most bizarre paragraph of political news I have read in a long, long time: The investigation also found that the RNC has allowed employees to forge Finance Director Rob Bickhart‘s initials on expense-reimbursement request approvals, according to an RNC member who spoke on the condition of [...]
Republican Bailout Rhetoric
Mike Pence is a member of the Republican Congressional leadership, specifically, chairman of the House Republican Conference. That seems to mean he lies for a living. This is how he characterized the Wall Street reform bill yesterday morning: The American people are tired of runaway federal spending, borrowing and bailouts. The legislation being considered by [...]
How Would A Politician Do it?
Sue Lowden is the leading candidate in the Nevada Republican primary to pick a challenger to Harry Reid. She was widely expected to win the primary, and go on to defeat Reid in November. But that was before she began to spell out her views on how the American health care system can be improved. [...]
Proof Of The Pudding
You probably did not know this, because the mainstream media doesn’t believe in telling us the truth about such things, but our freeways are full of cars with illegal immigrants in them, and the drivers of these cars (who are apparently not illegal immigrants themselves) are intentionally causing accidents. Okay, maybe I exaggerated. Our freeways [...]
The Continuing Implosion Of The Republican Party
(1) For a few weeks now, it has been looking increasingly likely that Florida governor Charlie Crist will pull out of the Republican Senate primary to run as an independent. This makes sense, because polls show him getting creamed by right-wing challenger and darling of the Tea Partiers, Marco Rubio in the primary, but he [...]