Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Everybody saw this coming.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Ah, the different things are different argument.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Second rate reporter says what?

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

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When I am Wrong, I am REALLY Wrong

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This thread about Democrats planning strategy and accidentally broadcasting their meeting was kind of amusing:
The conversation was transmitted to roughly 500 “squawk boxes” around Sacramento that political staff, lobbyists and reporters use to listen in on legislative proceedings.

….”Since this is going to be a crisis, the crisis could be this year,” Goldberg said, according to a transcript. “No one’s running [for reelection]. And maybe you end up better off than you would have, and maybe you don’t. But what you do is you show people that you can’t get to this without a 55% vote.”

….After about 90 minutes, a staffer interrupted to alert lawmakers that their meeting was not private at all:

“Excuse me, guys, you can be heard outside,” an unidentified staff member said.

“Oh [expletive], [expletive],” Goldberg said.

That is amusing enough, but it started to make me think about the California problem again. I have decided that if there was ever one thing I was wrong about, it was term limits. And, boy, was I wrong. Is there anyone out there who thinks that if a competent legislature with experience were in place, California would be in half as bad a mess as it is now?

As much as it hurts me, I am with Willie Brown. Term limits are not the answer.

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Kobe Bryant

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What does everyone think about the rape shield laws? Is it acceptable to drag Kobe through the mud with a mere accusation, or should the accuser’s name be published? I have already seen a picture of her, and I know her name and all that- anyone with a cursory understanding of usenet could find it rather easily. The question is, should her name be out in the open?

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It’s The Economy, Stupid

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Take this with the usual grain of salt:

A key measure of future economic activity increased slightly in June for the third month in a row, in line with analysts’ expectations.

The report lent support to the view among economists that the worst was over, although it did not alter their opinion that consumers and businesses still are on shaky ground.

The Conference Board reported Monday that its Index of Leading Economic Indicators rose by 0.1 percent in June to 111.8, after a 1.1 percent rise in May and a 0.1 percent rise in April. However, the board said it was too soon to declare the start of a period of steady economic growth.

“I still think we need to be a little cautious,” said Ken Goldstein, an economist for the board.

“But,” he added, “we may finally, after a year and a half delay, be moving into a real recovery.”

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Projection 101

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Amusing analysis of polls:

This is important. The 75% who say the WMD doesn’t matter are simply the hardcore Bush supporters and Bush haters. But of that middle 25%, 20% of them say they are less likely to vote for him if the WMD isn’t found. That’s a huge number when you consider that presidential elections are normally decided by only a few percentage points, and my guess is that it’s based as much on questions of Bush’s honesty as it is on the WMD itself.

That growing doubt about Bush’s honesty is what the president’s supporters are really concerned about, and that’s why they pretend to think that Democrats are loons for continuing to press their doubts over George Bush’s trustworthiness. Don’t listen to them.

For the record, I think the Democrats are loons because I don’t think Bush is lying. I am waiting for this to blow up on them- shoujld be really entertaining- and then when they reap what they have sowed, they will blame it all on a Rove plot.

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Walter Pincus- Go Read Spinsanity

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Walter Pincus concludes in today’s WaPo piece:

On March 16, Cheney appeared again on “Meet the Press” and reiterated his views of the previous August about Hussein’s nuclear program. “We know he’s been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.” The war began three days later.

Clearly Pincus does not read Spinsanity, because once again, a member of the press fails to use the quotation in the appropriate context. From Spinsanity:

Finally, a dispute has arisen over a quote from Vice President Dick Cheney, who said on the March 16 edition of NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “we believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.” To date, the assertion remains unproven, and has drawn heavy criticism in the dispute over statements made by the administration in arguing on behalf of a potential war with Iraq. However, as UCLA law professor and blogger Eugene Volokh points out in an article on National Review Online (echoing a point made by a several bloggers), commentators such as New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Slate’s Tim Noah and Salon’s Joe Conason have neglected to point out the context of Cheney’s statement. Specifically, Cheney said four times in the same interview that Saddam was pursuing nuclear weapons, not that he already possesses them, and the phrase “reconstituted nuclear weapons” makes little sense on its own (why would Saddam give up nuclear weapons if he possessed them?). Volokh argues that Cheney likely misspoke and that he meant to say “reconstituted nuclear weapons programs” or something similar, which is exactly what his aides told the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank (see his May 20 White House Notebook column). Cheney’s critics may believe his statement was intentional, but they owe their readers a clearer picture of the context in which he said it, as do too many other journalists and pundits of late, it seems.

But, as the Daily Howler has pointed out, the press has made up their minds.

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Here’s Mud In Your Eye

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Although it does not rise to the level of deceit and incompetence that riddled the NY Times under Raines, the Washington Times had their own little crisis to deal with:

A letter to the editor of The Washington Times, purported to be from a senior U.S. diplomat with scathing criticism of the Foreign Service for lack of loyalty to the Bush administration, was exposed yesterday as a forgery.

Wesley Pruden, the editor in chief of The Times, said the newspaper learned “from the highest level at the State Department” that the letter was a hoax and the newspaper fully accepts “as true that the ambassador was not the author of this letter.”

Stephan M. Minikes, ambassador to the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, writes in an authentic letter to The Times, published in full this morning on Page A18, that the forgery was a “complete and utter fabrication. It was not written by or for me and it expressed views that are diametrically opposite to the views I hold.

“The fact is that never in my long career have I worked with a more dedicated group of professionals than those I have encountered in the Department of State led by Secretary Powell

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The Paper of Record

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Why is the Washington Post the new ‘paper of record?’ Balance:

In the absence of evidence, there has been an extraordinary amount of attention paid to marginal issues — most recently, those 16 words in President Bush’s State of the Union speech that said, accurately, that British intelligence believed Iraq had been seeking to obtain uranium in Africa. In fact, British intelligence did believe that — and still does, even though one set of documents purporting to show an Iraqi procurement mission in Niger proved to be forgeries. Last week the White House announced that the sentence should not have been included in the speech, because the CIA knew of the Niger forgery and had not been able to confirm the broader British report. The claim was deleted from other administration statements, but some White House officials, banking on the British, apparently pressed for its inclusion in spite of the CIA’s doubts. If so, that would represent one of several instances in which administration statements on Iraq were stretched to reflect the most aggressive interpretation of the intelligence.

The piece is titled “Wait for the Facts.” Fat chance.

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