November 2010
41 posts
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“…conservatives and Republicans who had no problem with strong-arm security...”
– James Fallows on liberals, conservatives, and maintaining a consistent foundation to one’s thoughts no matter whose party may be in charge of executing the policy in question.
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What Digby Said
Paul Begala: Yes but I do think his point about capitulating [and just offering up a freeze on federal pay] rather than negotiating is a valid one with this president. The pay freeze is probably a good idea but should have come out of negotiation. What do the Republicans give, when the president gives...
Gloria Borger: Why not give something first though? People don't like government and this is an easy gimme for the president.
Begala: What are the Republicans proposing? Then you get it on the Republicans turf. Why don't you say I'll freeze federal pay and cut this in return for this and that program but you guys need to come with taxes on the rich at least say people who make over a million bucks don't get a tax cut. My Lord ...
Borger: Well maybe there's something else he can negotiate.
Digby: I'm sure there is. Why not throw in debtor's prisons? It wouldn't be enough to totally appease [the Republicans], but it would go a long way toward proving they are "responsible."
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Throwing Stones →
John Kampfner makes some excellent points about the media’s own docility in the face of institutional power being what’s ultimately behind their suspicion of and outright derision towards Wikileaks:
All governments have a legitimate right to protect national security. This should be a specific, and closely scrutinised, area of policy. Most of our secrecy rules are designed merely...
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A Waste of Money and Time →
Bruce Schneier gives a cogent opinion:
Exactly two things have made airplane travel safer since 9/11: reinforcing the cockpit door, and convincing passengers they need to fight back. Everything else has been a waste of money. Add screening of checked bags and airport workers and we’re done. Take all the rest of the money and spend it on investigation and intelligence.
This is exactly right,...
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“It’s like eating a spoonful of Drano: Sure, it’ll clean you out, but...”
– Sergeant Frank Drebin, Detective Lieutenant Police Squad, better known as Leslie Nielsen.
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“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom...”
– Frederick Douglass, 1857.
Maximum yep.
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“The Republicans are joining the Central Bank of China in criticizing [Fed...”
– Barney Frank, letting other Democrats see how it’s done. Now say it every day for a few months. On your one millionth repetition, when you can’t stand to say it again: you will have reached somebody for the very first time.
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“I want to help clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism.”
– Sarah Palin, criticizing the media for biased reporting. Palin said she will not waste her time with another interview with CBS’ Katie Couric. (via officialssay) This is precisely the sort of thing that up with which she will not put.
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The Authoritarian Media
Los Angeles Times: Shut up and be scanned
Boston Globe: The new "enhanced" patdown by airport screeners has sparked an unfortunate backlash among some fliers and privacy advocates
Springfield Republican: Let's consider these searches the 21st-century equivalent of a WWII rationing card.
Spokane Spokesman-Review: TSA is on our side. [...] [M]odest traveler inconvenience is a reasonable price to pay for a little added peace of mind.
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The Wrath of the Bond Vigilantes →
At first, the vigour with which Dublin wielded the spending axe won plaudits from bond markets. But the deflationary impact of the cuts has since seen the deficit widen.
Clearly the answer to this is simply deeper cuts. But only to services for the poor and unemployed. Couple that with a massive tax cut for the top 2% and you’ve got yourself a recipe for runaway growth…
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John Boehner, Man of the People →
John Boehner flies commercial, just like you and me:
As he left Washington on Friday, Mr. Boehner headed across the Potomac River to Reagan National Airport, which was bustling with afternoon travelers. But there was no waiting in line for Mr. Boehner, who was escorted around the metal detectors and body scanners, and taken directly to the gate.
I really don’t see what all the hubbub...
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“Got a message today via some tin cans, and dig this, there wasn’t even any...”
– Chris in the Morning ruminates on the meaning of the day.
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TSA Enhanced Pat Downs : The Screeners Point Of... →
Molester, pervert, disgusting, an embarrassment, creep. These are all words I have heard today at work describing me, said in my presence as I patted passengers down. These comments are painful and demoralizing, one day is bad enough, but I have to come back tomorrow, the next day and the day after that to keep hearing these comments. If something doesn’t change in the next two weeks I don’t...
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Another Good Time →
jasencomstock:
lemkin:
This is probably another good time to remind you all that all of us were carrying actual assault rifles, and some of us were also carrying pistols.
Well worth a read to see just how far the TSA goes, even when dealing with soldiers returning from one of our forever wars. Setting the CIA aside for the moment, I’m hard pressed to come up with a better example of a...
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Another Good Time →
This is probably another good time to remind you all that all of us were carrying actual assault rifles, and some of us were also carrying pistols.
Well worth a read to see just how far the TSA goes, even when dealing with soldiers returning from one of our forever wars.
Setting the CIA aside for the moment, I’m hard pressed to come up with a better example of a rogue and seemingly...
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“Mr. Obama still has immense power, if he chooses to use it. At home, he has the...”
– Paul Krugman, shrill as always.
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“Glenn Beck is the moderate center of Fox News; Bill O’Reilly is its...”
– Adam Serwer in response to Roger Ailes latest maundering about NPR and Nazism. I mean, you knew they both started with an “N” didn’t you? How clear do they have to make it?
I’d say that about sums it up.
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“[My study] found the exposure [from millimeter wave scanners] to be about...”
– Peter Rez, a physicist and professor at Arizona State University. This is exactly the way we should be talking about this. You are trading one minuscule risk for another, and are doing so with no measurable impact on the overall risk in terms of either health or the likelihood that you can actually...
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Oh, I don't know, maybe you should ASK
Former Half-Term Governor Sarah Palin: There’s nothing different today than there was in the last 43 years of my life since I first started reading. I continue to read all that I can get my hands on — and reading biographies of, yes, Thatcher for instance, and of course Reagan and the John Adams letters, and I’m just thinking of a couple that are on my bedside, I go back to C.S. Lewis for inspiration, there’s such a variety, because books have always been important in my life.
Jonathan Chait: Does anyone find this remotely believeable?
Lemkin: No, I do not, but unlike you and your brethren I don't have access to ask her a (fucking) follow-up. Howsabout you pry ever-so-gently for a little plot information from "The Screwtape Letters" or for a particularly moving or trenchant letter from Adams? I know, I know: shrill. Sorry. But, honestly, it's hard to tell just what journalists spend their time doing. That time certainly isn't spent preparing.
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In which Ron Paul and I Agree →
Imagine if the political elites in our country were forced to endure the same conditions at the airport as business travelers, families, senior citizens, and the rest of us. Perhaps this problem could be quickly resolved if every cabinet secretary, every member of Congress, and every department head in the Obama administration were forced to submit to the same degrading screening process as the...
“Obama should announce immediately that he will not be a candidate for reelection...”
– Democratic pollsters Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell argue in The Washington Post that if Obama makes himself a one-term president he will be able to make unpopular choices for the national good, and get Republicans to go along by depriving them of their “highest priority” — defeating him.
What?
...
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WHY THEY FAIL →
[Axelrod said that] separating out different categories of tax cuts now — extending some without extending others — is politically unrealistic and procedurally difficult
God almighty Christ is there a clearer possible enumeration of why this administration is failing in the eyes of the public? This sentence alone should cost Axelrod his job. Period
Procedurally difficult? How?...
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“Does EPA propose we stop breathing?”
– John Shimkus, (R, IL), showing the intellectual rigor on carbon emissions that he will bring to the Energy Committee, which he hopes to chair.
Similarly, Shimkus believes that God’s Biblical promise not to destroy the Earth again after that whole flood unpleasantness singularly disproves any...
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Roadmap to Catfood for Dinner
GREGORY: But then, but where, but where do you make the cuts? I mean, if you’re protecting everything for those, the most potent political groups like seniors who go out and vote, where are you really going to balance the budget? DEMINT: Well, look at Paul Ryan’s Roadmap to the future. We see a clear path to moving back to a balanced budget over time. Again, the plans are on the table. We don’t...
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“I really want to see that we can come together and agree upon the notion that...”
– Eric Cantor apparently solved this year’s 1.3 trillion dollar deficit.
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Of the Zillionaires, by the Zillionaires, and for... →
C.E.O.’s of the largest American companies earned an average of 42 times as much as the average worker in 1980, but 531 times as much in 2001. Perhaps the most astounding statistic is this: From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.
[…]
The richest 0.1 percent of taxpayers would get a tax cut of $61,000 from...
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“We had a whole generation of journalists who sat by and did nothing while, for...”
– Matt Taibbi, nailing it.
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GOP: Party of Compromise
Greg Sargent talks Bush tax cuts and GOP/Democratic comity and compromise:
There is a way a one-year or two-year temporary extension could represent a compromise of sorts: If Republicans signal a willingness to at least entertain the idea of letting the high end cuts expire after that temporary extension. But many of them aren’t doing that. Their position is that the high-end cuts need...
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“I have said it before and I will say it again: Impeachment is off the table.”
– Nancy Pelosi. I wonder if we will be so fortunate with Speaker Boehner. (via jonathan-cunningham) I’d say it’s actually more important to recall that Pelosi was fairly literally dragged in front of cameras and forced to make this statement before it was even entirely clear just how...
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TSA implements Newspeak
TSA: Take everything out of your pockets. If you have a wallet, take it out. A handkerchief, out.
Passenger: Can you explain the reason for the new process?
TSA: [This is nothing new.] We have always done this.
Passenger: [I did what they told me to. But on the other side of the metal detector, asked the head-screener]: ‘Could you explain to me why the procedure is now different at this airport, like having to remove a wallet that never set off the metal detector?’
TSA: No, no. The process has always been the same, at every airport.
Lemkin: There is no process, there are no rules, the entire operation is so clearly defined by the whim of the officials at every particular security point. And now they want to require images of your naked body as prerequisite for boarding a plane. When does it stop? When will people have had enough? What happens when a bomb or a weapon is smuggled aboard inside a bodily cavity? http://yhoo.it/cgw7o2
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“This year, though, right-wingers barely even pretended to have [a serious...”
– Mark Scmitt, writing for The American Prospect.
I’d say that about sums it up. To me, the most breathtaking one is that recurrent bit about Medicare: keep your government claws off of it, and/but don’t cut a penny; we are, however, against any and all forms of government intrusion by...
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“If Obama stood there and said ‘Republicans lied to you and now we’re...”
– Peter Daou
Nope. In fact, this is the one and only way to defeat them over the next two years. A few tweaks around the edges on Daylight Savings Time start dates and such aren’t going to pull voters any more than a year long sausage making festival over a bill that won’t enact until...
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One More Thing...
John Boehner, amidst his tear strewn recitation of the robotically, preternaturally, hypnotically exact four things that he and all of his GOP cronies claim to believe the election results told them, accidentally let slip the next great product we can expect from the GOP:
While our new majority will serve as your voice in the people’s House, we must remember it’s the president who...
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“…granting ad arguendum that the 111th Congress engaged in liberal...”
– Matt Yglesias makes a point that far too few will. They fail not because of some mythical “liberal overreach” (which really translates into “not enacting a GOP-approved slate of policies”) but because they operate from such a terrified, defensive crouch that every policy that...
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Comfort the Afflicted →
This is almost too obvious to point out, but this type of story is great for [former half-term governor Sarah Palin]. It feeds her narrative about how she’s the prey of pointy headed coastal lamestream media elites who have nothing but disdain for her and all the real Americans she speaks for. Having unnamed Republicans express concern about her presidential candidacy only sweetens the...
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“To the extent that Democrats do worse even than the economy explains, one can...”
– Paul Krugman, giving us some non-BINGO based analysis.
I tend to agree, but word it differently: shit sandwich. That the GOP was not forced to eat one each and every legislative day is your two-word, non-BINGO analysis of the 2010 cycle. Instead, the Democrat whisked in, grabbed said sandwich,...
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