Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

You know he’s going to shit a cat.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

We do not need to pander to people who do not like what we stand for.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

“But what about the lurkers?”

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

The revolution will be supervised.

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Archives for 2009

Playing Games With the Law

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This really irritates me:

The state Senate passed a bill this afternoon that would allow Governor Deval Patrick to name an interim successor to Edward M. Kennedy, potentially paving the way for appointment of a new US senator later this week.

The Senate approved the measure by a 24-16 vote, leaving one final procedural hurdle in both chambers before the bill heads to Patrick’s desk. The House and Senate are expected to enact the bill on Wednesday, a formality unlikely to derail the effort.

***

When the roll call had been tallied, it appeared that many state senators had switched their votes from the last time the issue came up. In 2004, the Democrat-dominated Legislature rejected a measure that would have allowed Republican Governor Mitt Romney to appoint an interim successor if Senator John F. Kerry had won the presidency. The state Senate killed the measure with a voice vote, so it is difficult to pinpoint who changed votes.

Last week, the House voted 95-to-58 to approve the successor bill. In 2004, the chamber overwhelmingly rejected the same measure.

There is no excuse for this kind of nonsense. I fully understand there are times for partisanship, but not when dealing with the law. This kind of gamesmanship, jiggering the law to put ideological allies in office, destroys confidence in the system, pisses away the moral high ground, and gives people the right to make arguments about “the Democrats are no better,” because in this case, they aren’t. If you can explain how this is any different from the Republicans and the right-wing blogosphere, after eight years of Bush, suddenly discovering the importance of oversight and minority party rights, I’m all ears.

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A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Big Pharm and the Insurance Industry

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Way to go, Mike Ross:

Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross — a Blue Dog Democrat playing a key role in the health care debate — sold a piece of commercial property in 2007 for substantially more than a county assessment and an independent appraisal say it was worth.

The buyer: an Arkansas-based pharmacy chain with a keen interest in how the debate plays out.

Ross sold Holly’s Health Mart in Prescott, Ark., to USA Drug for $420,000 — an eye-popping price for real estate in a tiny train and lumber town about 100 miles southwest of Little Rock.

***

In June the National Association of Chain Drug Stores issued a news release thanking Ross for introducing legislation authorizing payments to pharmacists to train patients in how to manage their medications.

Health-related interests have donated $342,475 to Ross since 2007, according to federal campaign data maintained by the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. No other business sector has given Ross as much.

Sure didn’t take long for the corrupt Dems to start bubbling up, did it?

(via the Great Orange Satan)

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Keep Digging

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Good:

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday that it will broaden its investigation into alleged wrongdoing at Bank of America and may seek additional charges as it prepares for a trial against the bank.

The move was the latest effort by the agency to combat the impression that it took a soft approach in a high-profile investigation stemming from Bank of America’s acquisition last year of Merrill Lynch. The SEC suffered a serious setback last week when a federal judge ordered a trial after rejecting a $33 million settlement in the case.

“[W]e will vigorously pursue our charges against Bank of America and take steps to prove our case in court,” the SEC said in a statement. “We will use the additional discovery available in the litigation to further pursue the facts and determine whether to seek the court’s permission to bring additional charges in this case.”

And don’t stop with them.

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Stay Classy, John Edwards

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Lovely:

Former Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards talked a campaign aide into claiming he fathered a child born to Edwards’ onetime mistress, sources familiar with the issue said Monday.
Andrew Young, former aide to Sen. John Edwards, claims Edwards knew all along his mistress was carrying his child.

Edwards admitted to his affair with Rielle Hunter in August 2008 after months of denials, but said he could not have been the father of Hunter’s daughter, who was born the previous February. Former Edwards staffer Andrew Young has said he was the girl’s father — but has recanted and says he made it because he believed in Edwards, lawyers and others familiar with the matter told CNN.

Young was married with children when he claimed to have fathered Hunter’s child. He never signed any affidavits or legal papers, however, and reversed his claim after Edwards, as one of the sources put it, dropped Young “like a hot potato.”

What married man would admit to an affair and a child to cover someone else’s ass? This is crazy. At least I can say I thought Edwards was a phony and a fraud from day one.

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Sounds Familiar

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For late nighters, another thought from Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic. This passage describes the early 1st century BC, a time when the Roman Republic extended its power through tacit support of pet kings (and knocked off their rivals, when necessary) rather than direct rule.

Philosophers, like every other legacy of the Athenian golden age, had become mere adjuncts of the Roman service industry. Those who did particularly well out of Roman patronage had long since learned to cut the cloth of their speculations accordingly. Typical was the age’s most celebrated polymath, Posidonius.

Although he had studied in Athens, Posidonius was widely traveled, and rationalized what he observed in Rome’s provinces – rather optimistically – as a commonwealth of man. […] In the new order that the Republic was bringing to the world, Posidonius somehow managed to catch a reflection of the order of the universe. He argued that it was the moral duty of Rome’s subjects to accept such a dispensation. Differences of culture and geography would soon dissolve. History was coming to an end.

Francis Fukuyama Posidonius was right! History did end and the Roman Republic lasted forever.

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