Flushing the Cheney Administration Down the Memory Hole
The drive to create reality transformed Soviet life into a masquerade. What became important was not what was true but what could be made to appear to be true as the structure of factual reality was...
View ArticleWorth It
Q But Mr. Vice President, getting from there to here, 4,500 Americans have died, at least 100,000 Iraqis have died. Has it been worth that?CHENEY: I think so.Dick Cheney Interview with Jim...
View ArticleObama at the Plate
Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.Barack Obama Inaugural Address January 20, 2009
View ArticleSame Day; Different Nations
Congressional efforts to impose stringent restrictions on executive compensation [at government-subsidized banks] appeared to be evaporating yesterday as House and Senate negotiators worked to...
View ArticleChocolate Covered Cotton
By providing the financing the private markets cannot now provide, this will help start a market for the real estate-related assets that are at the center of this crisis. Our objective is to use...
View ArticleGenerational Theft? Sorry, That Money's Already Been Stolen
I think this can only be described as generational theft . . . we’re going to amass the largest debt in the history of this country by any measurement. And we’re going to ask our kids and grandkids to...
View ArticleA Mad Tea Party
THE "AMERICAN TEA PARTY" MOVEMENT SEEMS TO BE GROWING, with plans for taxpayer protests in Dallas, Chicago, Fayetteville, NC, San Diego, Omaha, and elsewhere. (Plus Atlanta).UPDATE: By the way, if...
View ArticleCiti to Uncle Sam: For You We Make Special Deal
The government's larger stake in Citibank does not constitute a nationalization of banks, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) argued Monday."I think the American taxpayer deserves some...
View ArticleChocolate Covered Cotton: An Update
From the Financial Times, via the shrill one:Insight: Time to expose those CDOs
View ArticleModern Times
In the wake of the biggest financial shock since 1929, economists say the odds of a depression are less than 50-50 -- though still uncomfortably high. But even if a depression comes to pass, a...
View ArticleScalia's Nightmare
(From the diaries -- kos)Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.Anton Scalia Bush v....
View ArticleSecond Thoughts, or Rebellion Reconsidered
Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax "tea party" Wednesday with his stance against the federal government and for states' rights as some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouted, "Secede!"Later,...
View ArticleThe Chair Recognizes the Grand Dragon . . .
According to Capitol Hill sources, it appears that Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions will become the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee -- after former ranking member Arlen Specter switched...
View ArticleBlunt Instrument
[from the diaries - BarbinMD]MIKE FERGUSON: What is the proper role of government, and what are the potential impacts of the direction that we're going right now?BLUNT: Well, you could certainly argue...
View ArticleI guess I should have called it the "Addington Administration"
A report released on Friday by the inspectors general of five agencies about the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program makes clear that Mr. Cheney’s legal adviser, David S....
View ArticleA Tortured Excuse
SEN. McCAIN: We all know that bad things were done. We all know that the operatives who did it most likely were under orders to do so. For us to continue this and harm our image throughout the...
View ArticleFool's Goldman
This takes the Stockholm Syndrome to a whole new level:WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats and Republicans alike lauded Goldman Sachs on Tuesday after the company, which received taxpayer assistance last...
View ArticleThe [Redacted], the Whole [Redacted] and Nothing But the [Redacted]
The Inspector General’s review was launched by complaints coming from valued senior employees who felt that the Bush Program (as John Yoo has dubbed it) was wrong. One of them actually expresses his...
View ArticleTells You Everything You Need to Know
CLARIFICATION: An early version of this story referred to town hall protesters waving photographs of Barack Obama adorned with a Hitler moustache. While Republicans have used Nazi references to...
View ArticleGodwin Takes the Day Off
Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations . . . The committee in charge of updating the bestselling version, the NIV, is dominated by professors and...
View ArticleSpock with a Beard: The Sequel
For some years now, I’ve been morbidly fascinated by the political dark arts -- especially the very dark art of disinformation: the systematic creation and dissemination of false narratives designed to...
View ArticleWhat a Friend We Have in Lesbian Bondage
The Republican National Committee gave nearly $2,000 to a Southern California GOP contributor for meal expenses at Voyeur West Hollywood, a lesbian-themed California nightclub that features topless...
View ArticleThe Conservative Hippocratic Oath
A doctor who considers the national health-care overhaul to be bad medicine for the country posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Barack Obama to seek care...
View ArticleNew York Times: "Race" Means "Class"
Proving once again that no power on earth can force the "newspaper of record" to recognize what it is determined to ignore, the New York Times tonight released the results of a major survey of the...
View ArticleThe "Epistemic Closing" of the Conservative Mind
One of the more striking features of the contemporary conservative movement is the extent to which it has been moving toward epistemic closure. Reality is defined by a multimedia array of...
View ArticleSeparated at Birth?
Many politicians remind me of animals -- Tom DeLay was a snapping turtle; Joe Biden a badger; Bill Clinton the B'rer Rabbit (for several reasons, not just his skills as an escape artist), and so on.For...
View ArticleDear Teabaggers
Your stupidity, fanaticism and all around mean spiritedness continue to astound, with your bizarre and – dare I say it – unpatriotic defense of British Petroleum only the latest example.While I realize...
View ArticleDotty Harry
Scene: The 2012 Republican National Convention. There's chaos in the hall; delegates are fleeing in panic, the floor is littered with shot-up teleprompters and other debris. Off to one side a water...
View ArticleGallup Signals Sizable Obama Bounce
Not by historical standards, maybe -- but then they don't make 'em like they used to.Frank Newport, Gallup's head of polling, has a post up talking about today's tracking results, which show a 3 point...
View ArticleThe Elephants Grow Restless
Last night I came across an interesting column in a Florida paper by Matt Towery, the head of Insider Advantage, a GOP-affiliated polling firm. He sure doesn't sound very happy about the way things are...
View ArticleThe Washington Post Lies About Its Own Poll
A few hours ago the Post put up a front page story reporting the results of the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll. And said story appears to be baldly misrepresenting -- and by misrepresenting I...
View ArticleSkewed polls and the paranoid style
Fourteen-year-old Eggert Stolten’s mother was an ardent Nazi. She did not try to stop her son from listening to the BBC and Radio Switzerland, but instead maintained a withering commentary on the...
View ArticleJack Welch, Dick Nixon and the Great BLS Jobs Conspiracy
Unbelievable jobs numbers . . . these Chicago guys will do anything . . .can't debate so change numbers. Jack WelchTwitter October 5, 2012Paranoia, paranoia, everybody's coming to get me just say you...
View ArticleCan You Tell Me How to Get, How to Get to Glengarry Glen Ross Street?
Scene: The set of Sesame Street. Except instead of an urban neighborhood, we see it is now a smallish, dingy office: a typical boiler room sales operation with cheap fluorescent lights and no windows....
View ArticleMourning in America
By now, most of you have probably seen the Tumblr page entirely dedicated to pictures of white people mourning the Republican defeat last Tuesday.I realize how easy it is to make fun of those people...
View ArticleThe GOP tax plan: Leave no billionaire behind
Amid the endless (and endlessly confusing) Beltway chatter about the deal that supposedly will keep the U.S. economy from gunning it over the fiscal cliff on New Year’s Day, one thing has already...
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Right-Wing Extremism and Obama’s Reelection: Will There Be Blood?
Despite similarities to the climate of the 1990s, the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years. In addition, the historical election of an African...
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Guns of December: Have the Apologists For Slaughter Finally Gone Too Far?
“It’s no secret that women are now engaging in hunting and the shooting sports in record numbers. My wife Susan and I are especially excited about the immediate success of the NRA Women’s Network,”...
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House broken: How the GOP legislative machine turned into a doomsday device
If it wasn’t already obvious, the past few weeks surely have made it so: The House of Representatives has collapsed. Sure, the buildings are still there: The chamber in the right-hand wing of the...
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Lives of the party: Looking past Obama for a progressive Democratic coalition
I think it’s fair to say that the outcome of the latest battle in America’s endless fiscal war hasn’t done anything to improve President Obama’s image with what Paul Wellstone used to call the...
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Of Blazing Saddles and platinum coins: Why minting a $1 trillion one is...
By now I'm sure you’ve probably heard more than you want to know about the platinum coin—although if you like learning fancy new words, you have to admit, “seignorage” is a pretty cool one. But I want...
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Obituary
Died, after long struggle with infectious reality, Hastert Rule:For the second time this month, Boehner broke the Hastert Rule. The issue was Hurricane Sandy relief, a follow-up vote to a smaller...
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Jack Lew and the premature descent from heaven: A tale of the American...
“As a reward for a quarter-century of patiently fulfilling their duties, career bureaucrats may expect a second career as . . . an executive of a large firm or bank. Their delayed rewards as amakudari...
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Mea Culpa
Now that we’ve reached the 10th anniversary of the Iraq invasion, it seems only fit and proper that those of us who opposed the war from the very beginning explain how our errors in judgment led us to...
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Insider Threats: Desperately Seeking Winston Smith
In an initiative aimed at rooting out future leakers and other security violators, President Barack Obama has ordered federal employees to report suspicious actions of their colleagues based on...
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Heroes of the motherland: How the NSA won the war in Iraq (or wants you to...
“Under Andropov, the KGB grew noticeably in political power, in personnel, and even in the number of buildings its occupied . . . Andropov was probably not deliberately pursuing any evil goals and was...
View ArticleTaking the Pledge
Good morning. My name is [name redacted] and I'm from the extremely beautiful state of South Carolina. I intern for Republican Senator Tim Scott. I've had the pleasure of coming into different offices...
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Help! Police!
Two women, as shown in a Texas state trooper’s dash cam recording, are probed in their vaginas and rectums by a glove-wearing female officer after a routine traffic stop near Dallas. A few days later,...
View ArticleWhat's Past Is Prologue . . .
“We have not yet made a decision.”Barack Obama August 28, 2013“I've not made up our mind about military action.”George W. Bush March 6, 2003
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