Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
by Tim F| 35 Comments
This post is in: Music
What happens when you throw together urban Native American revivalism, jam band millennial hippiedom and a fistful of mushrooms? Rusted Root happens.
I could brag about following Root around while they were playing in attics, but in my wisdom I chose the Affordable Floors.
There were days when Root and the Floors both played a club called Graffiti. Then I stopped smuggling booze into Floors shows, I left town and not long after Graffiti closed. I feel somehow responsible.
by Tim F| 35 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Open Threads
Kevin Drum on the economy.
This isn’t just a matter of social justice. It’s a matter of facing reality. If we want a strong economy, we can only get it over the long term if we figure out a way for the benefits of economic growth to flow to everyone, not just the rich. This is, by far, Barack Obama’s biggest economic challenge. Until median wages start rising steadily and consistently, we haven’t gotten ourselves back on track
In other words, the secret to sustainable economic growth is to make sure that a ton of people have a modest amound of disposable income. Having a few of people with a shitload of income, while the rest worry about medical bankruptcy, worked out less well.
As with so many things (to pick the most recent example, this) I have some thin hope that help is finally on the way.
by John Cole| 73 Comments
This post is in: Politics, Republican Stupidity
This is like deja vu all over again:
Senate Republicans have requested information about Attorney General nominee Eric Holder’s role in the Elian Gonzalez controversy as part of a broad probe into his tenure with the Clinton administration and potential ties to presidential scandals during that era.
Eight of nine GOP members on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote Clinton Presidential Library Director Terry Garner on Thursday to ask for 10 categories of material, and that includes any information on Holder’s involvement with the Cuban boy seized by U.S. agents in April 2000.
Maybe we can arrange for Clinton to get another blowjob from an intern somewhere to distract the GOP. I am sure Clinton won’t mind. Well, Bill won’t.
*** Update ***
I am reminded in the comments that the Elian Gonzalez affair is the source one of the all time classics of the wingnut genre, from Nooner herself:
The great unanswered question of course is: What was driving Mr. Clinton? What made him do such a thing? What accounts for his commitment in this case? Concern for the father? But such concern is wholly out of character for this president; he showed no such concern for parents at Waco or when he freed the Puerto Rican terrorists. Concern for his vision of the rule of law? But Mr. Clinton views the law as a thing to suit his purposes or a thing to get around.
Why did he do this thing? He will no doubt never say, a pliant press will never push him on it, and in any case if they did who would expect him to speak with candor and honesty? Absent the knowledge of what happened in this great public policy question, the mind inevitably wonders.
Was it fear of Fidel Castro–fear that the dictator will unleash another flood of refugees, like the Mariel boatlift of 1980? Mr. Clinton would take that seriously, because he lost his gubernatorial election that year after he agreed to house some of the Cubans. In Bill Clinton’s universe anything that ever hurt Bill Clinton is bad, and must not be repeated. But such a threat, if it was made, is not a child-custody matter but a national-security matter, and should be dealt with in national-security terms.
Was it another threat from Havana? Was it normalization with Cuba–Mr. Clinton’s lust for a legacy, and Mr. Castro’s insistence that the gift come at a price? If the price was a child, well, that’s a price Mr. Clinton would likely pay. What is a mere child compared with this president’s need to be considered important by history?
Was Mr. Clinton being blackmailed? The Starr report tells us of what the president said to Monica Lewinsky about their telephone sex: that there was reason to believe that they were monitored by a foreign intelligence service. Naturally the service would have taped the calls, to use in the blackmail of the president. Maybe it was Mr. Castro’s intelligence service, or that of a Castro friend.
Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to. A great and searing tragedy has occurred, and none of us knows what drove it, or why the president did what he did. Maybe Congress will investigate. Maybe a few years from now we’ll find out what really happened.
A classic.
This post is in: Assholes, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.
This really says it all about the last eight years:
Karl Rove, who refused to answer questions for years on the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA official, criticized Barack Obama on Monday for not being more forthcoming in the Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.) scandal.
Rove, a former top White House adviser to President Bush, said on Fox News, “[Obama] should have, right from the beginning, been more forthcoming.”
What can you add to that, really?
This post is in: Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.
As always, every attempt to justify torture inevitably returns to the mythical ticking time-bomb scenario, and we are now to the point that we need a sort of Godwin’s Law for this, as it is inevitable that any discussion of torture will lead to ticking time bomb scenarios. In the most recent version, Reuel Marc Gerecht takes us back to September 7th, 2001, and says, basically- “What about then? Then would you torture?”
It just never stops.
by John Cole| 74 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
I am stealing this title from Sullivan’s awards, but it seems appropriate for this:
As dessert ended, the woman in the red dress got up and stumbled toward the bathroom. Her husband, whose head had been sinking toward the bûche de Noël, put a clumsily lecherous arm around the reluctant hostess. As coffee splashed into porcelain demitasse cups, the woman in the red dress returned, sank sloppily into her chair and reached for the Courvoisier. Someone gently moved the bottle away. “Are you shaying I’m drunk?” she demanded. Even in the candlelight I noticed that the lipstick she had reapplied was slightly to the left of her lips. Her husband, suddenly bellicose, sprang from his chair to defend his wife’s honor. But on the way across the room he slipped and went down like a tray of dishes. “Frank! Are you hurt?” she screamed. Somehow she had gotten hold of the brandy. “S’nothing,” he replied, “just lay down for a little nap. Can I bum a smoke?”
That dinner party was almost 10 years ago; it was the last time I saw anyone visibly drunk at a New York party. The New York apartments and lofts which were once the scenes of old-fashioned drunken carnage — slurred speech, broken crockery, broken legs and arms, broken marriages and broken dreams — are now the scene of parties where both friendships and glassware survive intact. Everyone comes on time, behaves well, drinks a little wine, eats a few tiny canapés, and leaves on time. They all still drink, but no one gets drunk anymore. Neither do they smoke. What on earth has happened?
You got old. Plus, after reading this, I have concluded you were probably not much fun when you were younger.
by John Cole| 43 Comments
This post is in: Clown Shoes, I Read These Morons So You Don't Have To
Hugh Hewitt, still looking for dirt:
The statement from the president-elect’s office is, well, slippery. It does not detail what contacts occurred between Governor Blagojevich and Obama advisors and staff. Most of us had understood the president-elect to have committed to full disclosure of all the details.
The president-elect appears to be hiding the facts about contacts between his staff and advisors and Blagojevich, which leads to the conclusion that there is something to hide here. To end the speculation, the president-elect need only request that the United States Attorney release transcripts of all conversations taped between Blagojevich and and Obama staffer or advisor.
The facts, as usual, are not on Hugh’s side. Obama doesn’t need to simply ask Fitzgerald for permission to release the transcripts, as Fitzgerald has already asked Obama TO NOT RELEASE the internal report:
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said in a statement on Monday that he had asked Mr. Obama to delay releasing the findings of the transition team’s legal review so investigators could conduct interviews in the corruption case involving Mr. Blagojevich.
It goes without saying that if Fitzgerald does not want the internal review released, he certainly does not want the transcripts out there until he can finish his interviews. The craziest thing about this is that if the Obama team did violate Fitzgerald’s request and released everything, and it somehow hampered the investigation, who do you think would be the first person out there suggesting the Obama administration did it to defend another crooked Democratic politician?
Flop sweat is so unappealing, Hugh. Just wait a couple days, and when Fitz gives the green light to the Obama team, if they do not release the report then, you can go to town. Until then, stop being so silly.