Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

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

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

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

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

When I was faster i was always behind.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

Optimism opens the door to great things.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

The revolution will be supervised.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

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

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

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

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

… gradually, and then suddenly.

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Archives for 2009

It’s the Little Things

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I was showering this morning and thinking how negative the tone of this blog is so much of the time, when really things are pretty damned good. Blogging pushes you to point out everything that irritates you, and you gloss over or forget about all the really good stuff- the hot cup of coffee in the morning, the scalding shower, the clean shave, the freshly laundered sheets, the cold pillow, the purring cat, the really spicy burrito, the phone calls to mom and dad, the Steelers, and the happy dog. With that in mind, this:

thelittlethings

A lazyboy, a dog, a book, a quilt, and the mindless chatter of the food network (and because I know there will be forty people yelling “WHERE IS TUNCH,” he is in his own chair to my right).

It is all pretty good when you think about it.

*** Update ***

I’m thinking we should steal an idea from Sully and have “The View From Your Couch/Lazyboy” series.

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Fluffing John Thune

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As DougJ noted, the campaign to launch John Thune into the spotlight continues. I know Chris Cilizza has been applying suction lately with several posts, David Brooks has chimed in, CNN has tried to get to second base, and now this at Politics Daily.

What I find the most amusing is that there is rarely any commentary about his governing philosophy or his voting past, but instead nothing buut straight up HoYay! Brooks:

The first thing everybody knows about him is that he is tall (6 feet 4 inches), tanned (in a prairie, sun-chapped sort of way) and handsome (John McCain jokes that if he had Thune’s face he’d be president right now). If you wanted a Republican with the same general body type and athletic grace as Barack Obama, you’d pick Thune.

Matt Lewis:

South Dakota Sen. John Thune has $5.5 million in the bank, a handsome face, hoop skills that rival the president’s and an upward trajectory in the U.S. Senate.

A couple of things:

1.) Have you seen any mention in any of those regarding Thune’s political philosophy?

2.) Any mention of his signature issues?

3.) His voting record?

I can’t be the only one to note that most of the articles about Thune read like the introductions to Penthouse Letters. After Rich Lowry’s starbursts and the tingling leg of Chris Matthews over Obama and the general sighs of longing over Commander Codpiece, is it possible that the only thing that can save this nation is a shot of ass for our political scribes? If Tiger Woods truly wants to repent, maybe he will pass on some phone numbers to our national press corps, although if the coverage of Thune is any indication, Tiger’s choice of partner might play for the wrong team for these guys.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

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Move Over Oliver Stone

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There is another America-hating leftist movie mogul moving up the wingnut most wanted list- James Cameron’s Avatar is apparently worse than being force-fed a Hitler sandwich with Stalin mayonnaise after a mandatory abortion.

Not everyone can make a cinematic masterpiece with the right political values like An American Carol.

PS: Michael Moore is fat. Also, too.

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Drone War

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Truly informative spot on PRI’s The World this afternoon about the ongoing drone warfare in Afghanistan and Pakistan featuring Wired magazines Noah Shachtman. Here is a link to the PRI piece, here is a link to Wired magazine’s coverage, and here is the interview itself (.mp3) in case you have problems reaching it. Money quote in the interview (about 4 mins in):

“There are certainly very different rules that apply in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Afghanistan, the air strikes have got to be very tightly constrained. You really can’t drop a bomb in Afghanistan without layers and layers and layers of approval and you have to be very careful about civilian casualties. In Pakistan, if the media reports are at all correct, you’re having two-three-four dozen people get killed at a time in these drone attacks, and let me tell you, they are not all terrorists or militants. There’s gotta be some civilians involved when you’re getting that many people killed at once. So there’s a very different feel to the air war in Pakistan and they don’t seem to be taking the kind of care that they do in Afghanistan.”

The reason I tell you this is because of this report:

A senior U.S. counterterrorism official has confirmed the identity of a top Al Qaeda operative killed in Pakistan on Friday.

The U.S. official told Fox News that the operative is Saleh al-Somali, the network’s external operations chief for plots outside Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A U.S. government official said early Friday that an American drone strike killed an Al Qaeda operative in western Pakistan. The official did not identify the target of the attack. Meanwhile, intelligence officials confirm that the pace of attacks by such unmanned aircraft has increased during the Obama administration.

While you hear all the anchors giddily report Saleh’s demise, remember what Shachtman said about the outcome of our drone policy- dead civilians. I’m just not sure that killing a few people in leadership is worth radicalizing the entire Pakistani public, which is what I suspect is happening when you are killing dozens of civilians at a time. We have near riots in the US when we try to discuss providing health care coverage for everyone in the country. Can you imagine the reaction if every couple of days we lost twenty people to a foreign air strike?

*** Update ***

Here is a thought experiment for you. How many Israeli citizens were killed by rocket attacks before Israel could no longer tolerate it and launched the brutal Gaza incursion at the beginning of the year?

Take a guess.

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Your Liberal Congress

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I’m sure this is all Obama’s fault, too:

In a win for the banking industry, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Friday to reject a measure that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to change the terms of mortgages for distressed homeowners.

Known as “mortgage cramdown,” the measure was defeated in a 188-241 decision as a proposed amendment to a broader financial reform bill expected to win House passage later on Friday.

The House had approved a mortgage “cramdown” measure in March over the objections of Republicans and bank lobbyists, but it died in the Senate.

Mmm. Blue dogs. Against the bailout, against preventing another crash. The rest of the bill passed, though. Now we send it to the Senate where Presidents Lieberman, Nelson, Baucus, and Conrad can neuter it beyond recognition.

I’m sure you will be surprised to learn that Bart Stupak voted against the overall bill. Apparently one of his other firm principles beyond opposing abortion is turning a blind eye to the bankers.

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Here Is What You Are Missing

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A kiss on the lip with tongue to Mitch Daniels from the Washington Post’s Steve Pearlstein:

The good Mitch, by contrast, is a principled but practical conservative who respects the intelligence of voters and would rather get something done than score political points. Daniels is a genuine fiscal conservative who took a $600 million state budget deficit and turned it into a $1 billion surplus but managed to do so without cutting spending for education and even increased funding for child welfare services. He pushed hard to lower property taxes but didn’t hesitate to propose temporary hikes in income and sales taxes to keep the state in the black. He privatized the state’s toll road and then used the $4 billion proceeds to launch a major public works investment program.

Tellingly, both Mitches like to talk about the Department of Motor Vehicles. The Washington Mitch conjures the image of long lines and uncaring bureaucrats and asks, cynically, whether you want folks like that determining your medical care. The Indiana Mitch, by contrast, rolled up his sleeves and transformed his DMV into an efficient, consumer-friendly operation.

Pearlstein spends a bit of the time comparing Daniels to Mitch McConnell, who if you remember, had a closer than expected race last election.

But the real problem is this- Daniels is concerned with good governance because he actually has to govern. He is accountable for his actions. Republicans in the House and Senate aren’t, and they couldn’t care less about governance, let alone good governance. Anything that goes wrong, they will just blame on Obama and the Democrats. Hell, they spent the first few months of this year blaming the DOW on Obama, a tactic that got dropped as soon as the DOW recovered.

Add to it that if Daniels were running in a house seat, the idiot teabaggers would probably work to oust him because he did raise taxes. As one of the wingnuts admitted yesterday, even St. Ronnie of Reagan would not pass the purity test these days. Add to it the completely rigged House seats where only the most extreme candidates on either side stand a chance, where screaming “You lie” in a join session of Congress gets you millions in campaign funds, and you whittle away any and all Republicans concerned with governance.

Add to that a Senate held hostage by ridiculous rules that a small group of corporate whores “moderates” exploit to funnel money to their states and to shake down the lobbyists, and you end up with what we have now. When the Republicans get back in power one day, it will be back to business as usual- tax cuts and praising Jesus. They won’t be led by a group of good government conservatives, and this is even assuming Pearlstein is even right about Daniels.

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