Archive for August, 2010
Being Out-Of-Attune
If you think you might have some money left over in your Christmas gift budget this year, would you please consider making an early Christmas gift to the Associated Press? They are badly in need of some dictionaries. It is currently the consensus of their headline writers and editors that the word attuned means “holding [...]
The Glenn Beck Rally: Hype Versus Reality
CNN had this headline Saturday morning, before Glenn Beck’s thoroughly misguided rally at the Lincoln Memorial: “Glenn Beck rally plans cause a stir“. Nobody was saying afterward that the rally itself had caused much of a stir. This, incidentally, was the modest prediction made by the rally’s low-key (and entirely sane) architect-in-chief: What’s going to [...]
A Disingenuous And Dishonest Collaboration Between Mark Zandi And The Washington Post
(1) The Washington Post has a report alleging that: …some senior Democrats are having second thoughts about raising taxes on the nation’s wealthiest families and are pressing party leaders to consider extending the full array of Bush administration tax cuts, at least through next year. Here’s the rationale put forward (by the WP, I should [...]
Who Says There’s No Such Thing As A Stupid Question?
(1) There’s stupid, and then there’s stupid. Mike Crapo, Republican senator from Idaho, has now left no doubt whatsoever how crushingly stupid he is. He wrote to the Congressional Budget Office with a question that must have perplexed him no end. Passing certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act was estimated to reduce the deficit [...]
Meditations On The Mehlman Revelation
(1) Ken Mehlman, President Bush‘s campaign manager in 2004 and former chairman of the Republican National Committee, came out of the closet yesterday, and announced that he is gay. He gave the scoop to Marc Ambinder, who duly wrote up a very sympathetic post. I don’t have any problem with that. I do have a [...]
Get Your Plump And Juicy Gulf Of Mexico Shrimp Now!
This little sign of the times is from an email that the Harris Teeter grocery chain sent out to members of the Fresh Catch Club yesterday morning: This week’s Fresh Catch feature item is fresh wild caught 13-17ct Head-On Gulf White Shrimp, harvested from the crystal clear waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf [...]
Calling The GOP Alaska Senate Primary
TPMDC jumped the gun yesterday. The post was headlined “Why Sarah Palin Is About To Lose Big Time In Alaska’s Primary“. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has had plenty of successes this year, but might be about to rack up a big fail tonight as voters in her home state decide whether to oust Sen. [...]
Bitch-slapping Boehner
One of the standard-bearers of the asshole contingent of the Republican Party is John Boehner. On his best days, he looks like a pathetic little hack. On his worst days, he really has them rolling on the floor laughing their asses off. This was Boehner yesterday, pretending to be a grown-up among politicians, attacking stimulus [...]
The CBO Stimulus Report: The Bad News
The bad news is that, looking forward, the stimulus is going to be more and more of a spent force: The effect of the stimulus, officially known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), will be smaller in coming quarters, as much of the money has already been spent, CBO said. “The effects of [...]
Calling The Florida Primaries
It struck me on Monday that, in the polling for the Florida primaries, one pollster’s predictions stood out from the rest: • With Florida’s high-profile primaries on deck for tomorrow, there’s a flurry of new data to consider. In the Republican gubernatorial primary, Mason-Dixon shows state Attorney General Bill McCollum out in front of Rick [...]