Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s possible to be a liberal firebrand without crapping on the party.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Come on, man.

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

How stupid are these people?

Let there be snark.

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Stand up, dammit!

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

You are here: Home / Archives for 2009

Archives for 2009

I’m just chilling like Jeff Skilling

by | 36 Comments

This post is in: 

I kind of hope the Roberts gang overturns this, just so I can read about what kinds of alternative rough justice (here; here; here) the pundits will suggest:

The Supreme Court will consider throwing out the convictions of former Enron Chief Executive Officer Jeff Skilling for his role in the collapse of the one-time energy giant.

The court said Tuesday it will hear Skilling’s appeal of lower court rulings that upheld all 19 of his 2006 convictions of conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading and lying to auditors involving the 2001 collapse of Enron.

Update. Obviously, I think Skilling belongs in jail. But I really would enjoy reading all the crazy shit the media would come up with if he walks. And, also, to be honest, I think there’s too much of an attitude of “the Enron guys got nailed, so it means our system is fine now” out there.

I’m just chilling like Jeff SkillingPost + Comments (36)

Big Tent Party

by | 72 Comments

This post is in: ,

Anyone surprised by this needs their head examined:

Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine) is risking a shot at becoming the top Republican on an influential Senate committee by backing Democratic healthcare legislation, according to senators on the panel.

A Senate Democrat on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee said Republicans on the panel are threatening to vote against Snowe, who is in line for the senior GOP post that is about to come open.

“Wake up,” the Democrat told a reporter last week when questioned if the Republicans would retaliate against Snowe for crossing party lines.

As much as I bitch about the sheer chaos of the Democratic party from all the noisy voices (and it truly is maddening, as some days I hate Democrats more as a Democrat than I did as a Republican), it is far better than the alternative.

Big Tent PartyPost + Comments (72)

Rick Perry’s Cover-Up

by | 99 Comments

This post is in: , ,

I simply can not believe this is not a bigger story:

Orwell once wrote, “[He] who controls the past, controls the future.” Texas Governor Rick Perry has apparently taken the lesson to heart. He’s now removed a fourth member of the Texas commission responsible for investigating whether Texas (and Perry) executed an innocent man. It’s whitewashing at its worst.

As it is, this story already reads like a Grisham novel- allegations of murder and arson, the execution of an innocent man, corrupt politicos What exactly does the media need before they cover this?

Seriously, there is a Pulitzer in this story.

Rick Perry’s Cover-UpPost + Comments (99)

The Light Goes On

by | 228 Comments

This post is in: 

It took a WaPo editorial, but Sullivan is finally on board:

The WaPo is right about this: the president is not responsible for not legislating something; and everything the gay rights movement wants is a legislative act right now. So aim the pressure at the appropriate people. Why does Nancy Pelosi believe the US should still be firing soldiers solely because they’re gay? Has anyone put her on the spot about that lately?

The last few days have been crazy. I was talking to a friend via email, and he said, essentially, that the squeaky wheel gets the grease- look at the NRA. To which I can only respond, I never recall Wayne LaPierre going on television, or writing a story, or screaming from a blog, that Bush was “just words” and “worse than Clinton.” He would never do that, because he recognized that Bush was on the NRA’s side on these issues. Instead, he and his establishment would lobby congress and spend money trying shape public opinion. A crazy idea, I know. There is a lesson here.

Meanwhile, it turns out that outside the chorus of the professionally angry, people who are actually in the know understood that the administration was working to end DADT and wasn’t just words:

Shortly after President Barack Obama pledged Saturday to end “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the Administration’s highest-ranking LGBT official said the White House is speaking with certain senators about strategies for repealing the policy — specifically Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“On ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ this administration is talking directly to the Hill — we are in direct discussions with Senator Lieberman,” John Berry, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, told The Advocate.

***

Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the repeal lobby group Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said during a symposium two weeks ago that he believed a bill was only weeks from introduction.

Though Sarvis said he preferred a bipartisan track, he added, “A number of other Democrats are ready for bill introduction and I suspect we may soon have a Senate bill introduced.”

Now I’m sure the usual suspects will claim that the little shit fit from the last 48 hours is the driving force behind this (I’m imagining fifty self-congratulatory and misguided “SEE, THEY LISTENED” posts), but as you can see, the head of the SLDN has known for quite some time that work was underway for a repeal of DADT.

I suppose it is probably pointless to note that the people who have been most obnoxious the last 48 hours probably were also berating Obama for not knee-capping Lieberman a while back.

The Light Goes OnPost + Comments (228)

Early Morning Open Thread

by | 33 Comments

This post is in: 

Good news for John McCain angry activists! The Boston Globe says that psychologists Tim Kasser and Malte Klar find “activism”, however futile, makes people feel better about themselves!

Psychologists curious about what fuels human happiness have looked at political engagement and political activism, and they’ve found that it provides people with a sense of empowerment, of community, of freedom, and of transcendence. Political activists, in other words, are all happy warriors…

Kasser and Klar ran a study in which they sought to get subjects to think like activists, then measured how it affected their short-term happiness. They gave their subjects, again college students, a survey about the food in the dining hall. Some were given questions that primed them to think about what Kasser and Klar call the “ethical-political aspects” of the food: For example, they read a statement asserting that the cafeteria should offer fair trade products, then were asked to rate the importance of two different rationales offered for that decision. Another group was given suggestions that focused on apolitical aspects like the variety and the taste of the food. Both groups were then asked to write a note to the cafeteria director about the aspect of the food that was most important to them.

The students were then tested on a variety of psychological well-being scales. And while there were not appreciable differences on most of the scales, on one, “vitality” – a measure of both well-being and motivation – the students primed to think like activists did indeed outperform those who were primed simply to think about food quality.

“What we found,” says Kasser, “was that the activist felt significantly more vital and alive and energized than did the nonactivist group.”

Complaining about cafeteria food is probably the perfect example of Sisyphean futility, after all. Being dreadful is the whole point to cafeteria food (“Cheap, fast, good: pick any two”), so if complaining about its political incorrectness is more satisfying than complaining about its tastelessness, might as well go with the whine that gives you a warm glow!

True happiness, Thomas Jefferson insisted, is private, not political, something found “in the lap and love of my family, in the society of my neighbours and my books, in the wholesome occupation of my farms and my affairs.” Of course, Jefferson himself, despite his family and farms and books and myriad private interests, was drawn time and time again back to public life and to politics, in a way that suggested a deeply personal yearning…

Hope you’re feeling better soon, John Cole.

Early Morning Open ThreadPost + Comments (33)

Are we really all Mayans now?

by | 124 Comments

This post is in: 

The fact that is one of the top stories on “Politico click” right now makes me wonder if we’ll make it to 2012:

091012_jenner_ap_392_regular
TMZ has a video of former Olympian and “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” reality star Bruce Jenner weighing in on President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize win.

And I say all of this as someone that was quite fond of the Bruce Jenner collection.

Are we really all Mayans now?Post + Comments (124)