August 2010
69 posts
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“Saturday night, when the event is done, the Lincoln Memorial will still be the...”
– Eugene Robinson
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Co-inkydink →
Media Matters analyzes Glenn Beck and the remarkable coincidences surrounding the rally he’s hosting. The level of work and detail on display here is really awe inspiring.
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“I happen to think that liberals should be open to Social Security cuts as part...”
– Jonathan Chait, spewing the purest form of horseshit possible.
Social Security is not in crisis. All our problems should be like Social Security. Social Security is a rounding error in comparison to the demands of Medicare and Medicaid going forward.
Rest assured, though, The Democrat will engage...
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Douthat: asked and answered
ross douthat:
Would Friedersdorf and others really like to live in a world where the two-thirds of Americans who oppose the [Park 51] project just had their sentiments ignored, because of the bigotry woven into the anti-mosque cause?
tom socca:
Is this a rhetorical question? Here’s one in return: how do you get onto the New York Times op-ed page without a sixth-grade civics...
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Spread
Well, it’s only online (MSM read: world wide interweb-log, or “blog”) commentary for the moment, but for the MSM this appearing (and staying) on the NYT site amounts to a clarion call:
In the much-discussed Pew poll reporting the spike in ignorance, those who believe Obama to be Muslim say they got their information from the media. But no reputable news agency — that is,...
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“I understand the impulse to find another location for the mosque and community...”
– Michael Bloomberg, far and away the best voice on this non-mosque not located at Ground Zero.
Why should a former Republican who is a mayor (albeit of a very large city and the city in question) be absolutely crushing what should be the utterly obvious Democratic position here? And why is it that...
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Five Easy Tweets(es)
Looking at how Ruth Marcus addresses Boehner’s nonsensical output in her column this morning, dare I say that I see signs of actual progress. Perhaps even the Villagers are growing tired (and maybe even a little afraid) of the GOP’s shtick?
There are times when I flirt with the notion that the country would be better off with divided government.
She starts, ominously and...
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Pundits blame the victims on Obama Muslim myth →
southpol:
[…] Dave Weigel came the closest, writing that “At some point it became acceptable to question Obama’s American-ness, which naturally begged the question of whether he was a secret Muslim… and the WorldNetDailys, tabloids, and Drudge Reports of the world were ready to keep begging that question.”
This is the Overton Window in action. Republicans have a host of...
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Never confuse "plan" and "scenario"
Alyssa Battistoni notes the creeping cost of “privatization” (read: funding cuts) that is resulting in kids being sent to school with their own toilet paper because the school will not be providing any:
The worst-case scenario, though, is that reduced public spending on essential goods and services will continue to hollow out our infrastructure and reduce our capacity to meet the...
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“When you see frightened Americans turning on brown-skinned people they see as...”
– Adam Serwer
Unfortunately, these instances of terrorism working are being aided and abetted by one of the major political parties in this country. It’s one thing to combat al Qaeda or the Taliban or whatever group out there and quite another to combat this outgrowth of invincible ignorance...
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“No, this has nothing to do with sound economic policy. [It’s] about a...”
– Paul Krugman summarizing in 50 words or less exactly why all of us on drugs out here are dispirited.
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“To choose and be so adamant about this exact location just a block or two away...”
– Sarah Palin to Greta van Susteren. You know who else talked a lot about “that knife”? Hitler. I demand Palin refudiate the Dolchstoßlegende.
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Lockbox! →
Kevin Drum provides (perhaps) the most lucid explanation of the Social Security Trust fund I’ve ever read:
Group A overpaid and built up a pile of bonds in the trust fund. Those bonds are a promise by Group B to repay the money. That promise is going to start coming due in a few years, and it’s hardly surprising that Group B isn’t as excited about the deal now as it was in...
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Modern Conservatism →
I think it basically explains why Palin believes that there’s something offensive about American Muslims building a community center on private property while [Dr. Laura] Schlessinger telling a black woman she should stay out of interracial relationships if she doesn’t want to have n-bombs lobbed at her every day is the height of free expression. The point is that Constitutional...
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Sorry State of The Atlantic →
Don’t know how I missed Glenn Greenwald’s take on Jeffrey Goldberg’s idiotic spew in The Atlantic (Now! More neoconservative than ever paired with incisive stories about the End of Manliness!).
Jeffrey Goldberg, in the new cover story in The Atlantic, on an Israeli attack on Iran:
Israel has twice before successfully attacked and destroyed an enemy’s nuclear...
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“The central question raised by this controversy is the same one raised by...”
– Glenn Greenwald nailing it. Also worth checking out for Dean’s more nuanced explanation of himself.
If only we had a rhetorically skilled President that could go out there and make a powerful case for this. Of course, a growing fraction of Americans think he’s a Muslim. Probably better...
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“There’s no point in trying to do something good if it’s met with enormous...”
– Howard Dean, on the Park 51 Islamic community center
If this is what he truly believes, then really, to hell with him. (via savingpaper)
Agreed. This quote is so astonishing, it’s hard to believe it hasn’t been Breitbarted. But it hasn’t. If this building which, amongst many...
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“As Robert Altman once told me, “If you never gave me a bad review, what...”
– Roger Ebert in “Ebert’s Little Rule Book” on reviews, integrity, and Robert Altman
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Teachable Moments
Steve Benen plucks out another Angle clanger amongst a NYT interview:
Q. Did Keynesian economics, the stimulus spending, work in the Depression of the ’30s?
A. No. And I think history has really proven that to be true. Most economists agree that the thing that really worked, which is a sad commentary, is the war.
Benen notes the foolishness of this, but dances by the real point...
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CNN and Free Speech
Lemon: Don't you think it's a bit different considering what happened on 9/11? And the people have said there's a need for it in Lower Manhattan, so that's why it's being built there. What about 10, 20 blocks . . . Midtown Manhattan, considering the circumstances behind this? That's not understandable?
Patel: In America, we don't tell people based on their race or religion or ethnicity that they are free in this place, but not in that place --
Lemon: [interrupting] I understand that, but there's always context, Mr. Patel . . . this is an extraordinary circumstance. You understand that this is very heated. Many people lost their loved ones on 9/11 --
Patel: Including Muslim Americans who lost their loved ones. . . .
Lemon: Consider the context here. That's what I'm talking about.
Patel: I have to tell you that this seems a little like telling black people 50 years ago: you can sit anywhere on the bus you like - just not in the front.
Lemon: I think that's apples and oranges - I don't think that black people were behind a Terrorist plot to kill people and drive planes into a building. That's a completely different circumstance.
Patel: And American Muslims were not behind the terrorist plot either.
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“If the purpose of this mosque, as we are lead to believe, is to create this...”
– Sarah Palin politico (via brooklynmutt, liberalsarecool, robot-heart-politics)
You know which country has a lot of churches and cathedrals? Germany. If the supposed purpose of all those structures is spreading the word of this supposed Jesus who supposedly is all about loving thy neighbor and...
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“Because there is a difference between what you can do, and what you should do....”
– John Oliver, the Daily Show.
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“I can type reliably up to about 2.5 mph.”
– Stephen Wolfram, discussing his setup.
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Hallowed Ground →
Just a few of the things going on at or near Ground Zero. (via Daring Fireball)
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High Cost of Free Parking →
If developers were allowed to face directly the high land costs of providing so much parking, the number of spaces would be a result of a careful economic calculation rather than a matter of satisfying a legal requirement. Parking would be scarcer, and more likely to have a price — or a higher one than it does now — and people would be more careful about when and where they drove.
The...
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I've got a little list
From digby:
Tea Party’ers are not more likely to have racist tendencies than other conservatives.
(Except they are.)
Democrats are scheming to hit 94 percent of small business owners with tax increases.
(Except they aren’t.)
Bloody violence is out of control along the Mexican border, and illegal immigrants are streaming into America at record levels.
(Except it’s not and...
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“It’s up to Republicans to decide if they agree with this strategy. Do they want...”
– Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Statements like this boggle the mind. Welcome back from Mars, Jim, how has the weather been on The Red Planet? Much rain since your arrival there in the early-70s?
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“The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward...”
– Edward M. Kennedy, in an undelivered paragraph written for his RFK eulogy. Print out and post in the White House if you please because we are not on drugs. We have judged the evidence and find you timid and fearful in the face of old ideas and positively cowering in the face of anything like a new...
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“In that spirit, let me end by saying I don’t pretend to have all the...”
– Barack Obama sounding oh so 2005 on the Great Orange Devil, and apparently Gibbs would agree: that was all a bunch of meaningless horseshit aimed primarily at the center-right that is so desperately underserved by American “politics.”
Abandon those that put you there and then blame them...
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“In 18 short months, we went from “hold me accountable” to “get drug tested.”
– Glenn Greenwald, once again pointing out that which is painfully obvious to everyone but those raving socialists in the White House. Must be all that socialism. (via apsies) (via jasencomstock)
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Nothing that Does Matter →
So good:
It does not matter where presidents or their wives go on vacation. IT DOES NOT MATTER. Presidential approval, election outcomes, support in Congress — nothing that does matter depends on where presidents go on vacation. It did not matter when Clinton apparently polled to figure out where he should go. It did not matter when Bush decamped to Crawford. It did not matter when the...
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“To the privileged, equal treatment feels like discrimination.”
– Adam Serwer, The American Prospect (via abbyjean)
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“Saying to a senator, ‘You can’t bring up your amendment,’ is...”
– Lamar Alexander, trying to explain Republican obstructionism in the Senate.
Close, but no cigar. It’s actually that The Democrat warned of the painful repercussions of touching this hot stove, but GOP Johnny, upon touching the stove and finding it not only cool and delightful, but even...
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Obama's Watergate
This paragraph from Yglesias got me thinking:
This is the oddity of American politics in 2010. To simply appropriate funds to give to poor foreigners (”foreign aid”) is hideously unpopular and politically unthinkable. To appropriate funds to give to state governments to keep the public sector operating is also politically untenable. But to appropriate the funds to build facilities for...
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“Douthat’s piece makes clear [that] the status quo is really a cop out. Instead...”
– Matthew Yglesias, on the marriage double standard.
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“Tough lesson for Obama team: trying to please everyone, you end up pleasing no...”
– Peter Daou, pretty much defining leadership.
And, win lose or draw, I feel like if the Obama administration had taken hard stands on something, anything, the excitement gap yawning between the Tea Party and the progressives simply would not exist; the simple fact is that the Democratic majority...
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Summer of Dick
This post contains Moby-Dick related spoilers, I suppose, but they’re getting on towards 200 years old and are as such almost indistinguishable from common knowledge. Read on at own risk.
For unclear reasons, this summer I decided to read Moby-Dick, or The Whale by the very late Herman Melville. Like many of its 19th century compatriots, it’s (at times) beautifully written and but so...
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We'll Always Have Venice
Anthony Gottleib reports on the electoral process of the Venetian Republic:
Thirty electors were chosen by lot, and then a second lottery reduced them to nine, who nominated forty candidates in all, each of whom had to be approved by at least seven electors in order to pass to the next stage. The forty were pruned by lot to twelve, who nominated a total of twenty-five, who needed at least nine...
jonathan-cunningham asked: Is that George Carlin quote just on your page or is it a tumbl because I want to reblog the hell out of it
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“And now, they’re coming for your Social Security money - they want your...”
– George Carlin
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Pause
unsolicitedanalysis:
I’m a fucking nihilist, because the thought of saving all of this evil from itself makes me shudder. Let’s hasten our own demise, for the good of the rest of the world. Stop listening to people like Paul [Krugman] who can’t seem to get it through their thick skulls that a functioning American economy is no more likely to serve the poor than it ever has...
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“At Mr. Ryan’s request, [the CBO] produced an estimate of the budget effects of...”
– Paul Krugman grinding the aforementioned Paul Ryan into a fine powder-like substance.
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Second House Indistinguishable from Health Care
Shatner: “Here’s my premise, and you agree with it or not. If you have money, you are going to get health care. If you don’t have money, it’s more difficult.”
Limbaugh: “If you have money you’re going to get a house on the beach. If you don’t have money, you’re going to live in a bungalow somewhere.”
Shatner: “Right, but we’re talking about health care.”
Limbaugh: “What’s the difference?”
Shatner: “The difference is we’re talking about health care, not a house or a bungalow.”
Limbaugh: “No. No. You’re assuming that there is some morally superior aspect to health care than there is to a house. …”
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“I think it’s ok if gays can get married, I just wish they’d call it...”
– Random NPR man on the street which Atrios refers to as “Great Moments In Random Dumbassery”.
Dumbassery it may well be, but it’s critical for progressive hopes going forward that this phenomenon is understood and planned for. To the vast, vast majority of Americans, marriage as a...
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“The main criticisms of the piece have come from Republicans, and their argument...”
– George Packer, defending against criticisms for his article here (via jonathan-cunningham)
This is exactly right. And, not just on health insurance reform. There is no example available in which the Democratic majority pushed legislation for which the GOP presented “Our Conservative...
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