What makes you so mad that you want to squash somebody like a bug?
I will go with people who don’t use right turn signals. Yes, I bike to work.
by Tim F| 179 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
What makes you so mad that you want to squash somebody like a bug?
I will go with people who don’t use right turn signals. Yes, I bike to work.
by Tim F| 73 Comments
This post is in: Politics
Politics like Voltron rewards the team that works together. Insipid point, sure. It bears reminding only because; A) that more or less explains why people want to get rid of Lieberman, B) that was the thesis for my second post on this site, and C) the GOP just lost it (via Americablog).
[I]n the aftermath of reports that Norquist served as a cash conduit for disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the irascible, combative activist is struggling to maintain his stature as some GOP lawmakers distance themselves and as enemies in the conservative movement seek to diminish his position.“People were willing to cut him a lot of slack because he’s done a lot of favors for a lot of people,” said J. Michael Waller, a vice president of the right-leaning Center for Security Policy who for several years was an occasional participant at Norquist’s Wednesday meetings. “But Grover’s not that likable.”
Norquist has lashed back at his critics, accusing them of dishonesty, personal vendettas and political gamesmanship. He has saved his choicest words for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), whose Senate Indian Affairs Committee last month stated in a report that for a small cut, Americans for Tax Reform served as a “conduit” for funds that flowed from Abramoff’s clients to surreptitiously finance grass-roots lobbying campaigns.
For basically a decade now the GOP has used the Abramoff-Norquist-DeLay nexis of money, ideology and power to keep the Specters and Chaffees on a tight leash. As much as these guys focused on defeating Democrats you could argue that they focused equal time on defeating and threatening to defeat GOP incumbents who stepped too far out of the party line on the critical issues (taxes, corporate deregulation and, since the rise of Gearge W. Bush the singleminded support of presidential power uber alles). Over its own caucus the GOP leadership kept hold of both carrots and sticks that the Dem leadership couldn’t begin to match.
How times have changed. Now with Abramoff cooperating with the feds and the Hammer facing the most humiliating sort of career denouement imaginable, the last standing leg of the stool is Grover Norquist. It seems somehow touching that Norquist, facing investigation and short on friends, thinks that he can stare down McCain on this issue. Sleaze has become an issue if not The Issue of ’06 and if only for that reason alone Norquist seems doomed to lose.
Looking into my crystal ball it seems likely that losing the sleazy triad of party enforcement will bring out the Republican Liebermans in force. The GOP may still keep one or both houses of Congress, but assuming that Democrats manage the most minimal sort of discipline (cough) the big threats like Social Security privatization and sending the tax code even further into ridiculousland should be more or less finished.
Necessary caveat: I would never say that the GOP isn’t a threat in general. They are. But rather, a good number of major legislative successes and near-successes of the last six years have demanded a party discipline that I think just isn’t possible without a big carrot and a big stick. Absent the Abramoff-Norquist-DeLay troika I suspect that the centrifugal forces of authoritarian theocracy versus laissez-faire corporatism verus increasingly incoherent neoconservatism could pull the party too badly apart to deliver on the Big Bills.
This post is in: General Stupidity
About some people in the blogosphere is that they are consistent. Like, for example, The Editors (whose name is public but I will not use since the victim card is such a choice weapon for lunatics), who even when it seems I agree with him, he remains a total and unequivocable asshole.
Not sure what I did to earn this latest personal salvo from the Editors (maybe he is on vacation or in between jobs and has too much time on his hands), but remember who you are dealing with the next time you run around gleefully quoting the Editors- nothing more than a small-minded punk with a mean streak a mile wide and a few cute cat pictures.
BTW- thanks for the traffic. Maybe I can earn a wanker of the day award and really please my masters at PJ Media.
by Tim F| 14 Comments
This post is in: Popular Culture, Blogospheric Navel-Gazing
Contrary to what The Editors says , I think that this clip from Blogslut proved so heinous that everybody else just sort of gave up.
Your choice is simple. Join us and live in peace or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.
by John Cole| 17 Comments
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
This site is getting great deal of spam (and I am not talking about PPGAZ*), so I may accidentally delete a comment that is in the moderation queue. If a comment of yours ‘disappears,’ t isn’t because I don’t love you (although that may be the case), or because I am a jack-booted fascist trying to stifle debate (if that were the case, I would turn off the comments section), but because your message got buried in 250 spam comments for free ringtones.
*That was a joke, PPGAZ.
by John Cole| 15 Comments
This post is in: Politics, Republican Stupidity
Another member of Ney’s staff has been subpoenaed:
A second member of embattled Republican Rep. Bob Ney’s staff has been subpoenaed to testify in the Justice Department’s investigation of influence-peddling in Congress.
John Bennett, who works in Ney’s eastern Ohio district office, notified House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., of the subpoena with a letter read Monday into the Congressional Record.
Ney has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but federal prosecutors have described him in court documents as having received gifts, trips and other things of value from disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Abramoff’s associates.
At my sister’s wedding reception, I spoke with a good friend of the family while having an extravagant (and not just by West Virginia standards) post-wedding meal. This person is a retired political science teacher, and he was friends with people within the political machinery of Ohio and who had worked for the GOP in general and Ney specifically, and he discussed how many of the former true believers in the GOP were just sick to their stomach aboutthe Ney affair. Many of Ney’s staffers (including the big three) have stepped down, and the general impression was that they were sick of defending the indefensible, and that they were disgusted with the current tactics- attacking and smearing anyone who might even question Ney’s behavior.
In short, this is just another area in which the attack-dog politics of Karl Rove and his ilk have soured people who were once unquestioning Republican supporters and voters.
by John Cole| 44 Comments
This post is in: Politics, Science & Technology
In the comments section of last night’s rant about stem cells, Krista posted a link to this Michael Kinsely piece outlining the false controversy that has been created regarding stem cell research. All in all, it was a great read, but it did contain this paragraph:
Even strong believers in abortion rights (I’m one) ought to acknowledge and respect the moral sincerity of many right-to-lifers. I cannot share—or even fathom—their conviction that a microscopic dot—as oblivious as a rock, more primitive than a worm—has the same human rights as anyone reading this article. I don’t have their problem with the question of when human life begins. (When did “human” life begin during evolution? Obviously, there is no magic point. But that doesn’t prevent us from claiming humanity for ourselves and denying it to the embryolike entities we evolved from.) Nevertheless, abortion opponents deserve respect for more than just their right to hold and express an opinion we disagree with. Excluding, of course, the small minority who believe that their righteousness puts them above the law, sincere right-to-lifers deserve respect as that rarity in modern American politics: a strong interest group defending the interest of someone other than themselves.
Evolution? What is that?
Seriously, when you are dealing with a group of people who think Adam and Eve rode to school uphill both ways on the backs of dinosaurs through the cold snows of the ice age, the evolution argument falls flat.