In response to The media doth protest too much: That Politico story on White House media manipulation is incredibly galling. There is nothing in it which bloggers (myself included) were not saying almost 4 years ago. Here’s one of Politico’s
In response to Dresden Bombing: I went to the Dresden room once about 12 years ago. As I remember it, the food was great. Marty and Elayne, who were playing that night, were already a well-worn act but surprisingly feisty
President Obama has been giving the sequester plenty of negative attention recently. Two weeks ago he made a statement about the sequester in which he called it a “self-inflicted wound” to the economy. Ten days ago he focused on it
In response to Reviewing the Comments to CNN’s Article on the Poop Cruise: If you draw a Venn diagram showing a circle titled strained critiques of capitalist excess and another circle titled class snobbery toward bargain travelers, there is in
If there’s anything that may help mitigate some of the anger the right currently has toward Gov. Christie, it’s the anger the left has toward him. Last Week Gov. Christie made a campaign swing through Califiornia. It concluded Wednesday night
Federal law specifies that government employees be granted so-called “official time” to work on union duties. The Office of Personnel Management defines official time as “time spent by Federal employees performing representational work for a bargaining unit in lieu of
In response to Deb: I think Rosie Gray was fairly clear that the mainstreaming of Dorner support was on the left. However, she and others have fuzzed up the lines just enough that, if it’s not corrected, it will come
Last week Rosie Gray wrote a post at Buzzfeed titled “The Christopher Dorner Fan Club Is More Mainstream Than You’d Think.” Mainstream, yes. Bipartisan, not so much. The article attempts to make the case that the #teamDorner phenomenon is spread across
In response to ‘Homeland,’ ‘Rockford’ and Why I Love the 13-Episode Arc: I was less troubled by the politics of “Homeland” than John S., but the plot was ridiculous, especially season two. “SNL” captured the show’s contrivances perfectly… I hadn’t
In response to It Only Gets Worse, John: I agree with you about the nature of story. The show that comes to mind is Lost. They decided to tell dozens of small stories but they only had one way to
I am going to give some big spoilers for Season 1 of “Homeland” so skip the rest of this post if you haven’t seen it. A few weeks ago I ordered Season 1 of “Homeland” on Blu-ray. Finally finished watching
I’ve published this once but I think it’s worth re-emphasizing. This is a bit wonky but it’s really important so please stick with me. In April 2011 President Obama proposed his own deficit reduction plan. In that plan he defined,
The GOP video team posted this clip of Sen. Harkin reassuring the nation that, despite our $16 trillion in debt, growing entitlements and massive deficits, we are not broke: This argument sounded so familiar, but it took me a moment
In response to John: The Tesla S does look like a beautiful car. I would happily take the car for a test drive if Tesla wanted to offer. But it strikes me as similar to a lot of $100K cars:
Tuesday I wrote about the public spat between Tesla’s co-founder Elon Musk and John Broder, a writer for the NY Times. Broder wrote a negative story about Tesla’s $100k electric sports car (the Model S) and Musk responded by accusing
Kevin Drum was for universal pre-k long before it made it into the President’s State of the Union speech this week. Today he has a post at Mother Jones titled “The Biggest Value of Pre-K Can’t Be Found in Test
It appears energy policy in New York state is now being guided by Yoko Ono. Gov. Cuomo has once again delayed a decision on whether or not to allow fracking in New York, a decision which garnered him a pat
A Swedish TV special recently examined threats directed at high profile women, including journalists, actors, authors, etc. The special made the argument that the problem was so severe it led to self-censorship by those who decided voicing their opinion just
A friend sent me a link to this Yahoo News article ostensibly praising the White House app. Yes, apparently there is an app that gets all the media content being produced by the White House. As the review goes on
The Guardian has an interesting graphic showing the duration and reading level of every SOTU since the nation’s founding. I can’t paste it here because it’s interactive so you’ll have to click over and take a look. It seems that
In response to Priorities, priorities: Yes it would be terrible if the country missed Obama’s 16th pivot to the economy. And I’m sure we’re all excited to hear about his “balanced approach” for the 27th time. Personally I’m looking for
Last week, New York Times reporter John Broder took a top of the line Tesla Model S for a road trip from Washington DC up Interstate 95 to Connecticut. The trip started out fine, but as the weather got cold, the
Occupy Harvard, like the rest of the Occupy movement, came and went abruptly. For a few months it turned Harvard Yard into a squatters camp until one particularly windy day last January when it all came down. This winter the
Budget charts created by the House Progressive Caucus are being touted as proof that deficit reduction has been heavy on cuts and light on revenue. In fact, they prove that the President has gotten a better deal than the one
In response to White House rules out raising Medicare eligibility age: In case you missed it yesterday, the White House’s announcement of the debt ceiling deal (which created the sequester as a motivator toward cuts) said the bipartisan commission would
Can the President possibly believe that the Grand Bargain he proposed less than two years ago is somehow a raw deal? He is acting as if that’s the case. Progressives are once again claiming the problem in deficit negotiations is
There’s a clever loaves and fishes trick going on with today’s major anti-GOP narrative. It begins with a sequester story Politico published last night. The story opens with the splashy claim, “Republicans open to letting billions in sequester cuts go
Illinois has the worst debt rating in the US thanks to out-of-control union pensions and health care costs. And yet, police unions in Chicago are asking for consecutive 6 percent annual raises plus a cost of living adjustment: Union president
Those who believe government run health care is preferable to being at the mercy of rapacious insurance companies need to focus on what is happening in the UK this week. A new report offers a glimpse of substandard care which
In response to SPLC’s “Hate” Map Doesn’t List FRC Shooter: Here’s the NY Times story on Christopher Dorner. The authors devote a little space to his “manifesto”: The 6,000-word manifesto was bristling with anger and explicit threats,naming two dozen police
Ace has some thoughts on the Floyd Corkins/SPLC issue over at his site. Actually, he goes beyond the current issue to shed some light on the media response to all of these incidents of political violence. The whole thing is
CNN is very concerned about Chris Christie’s health. They asked a former White House doctor–one who has never met or examined Christie–to comment and she suggested he could drop dead in office. This led to a calm but firm “shut
According to a story at the Examiner, attempted mass shooter Floyd Lee Corkins told the FBI he picked his targets off the Souther Poverty Law Center website: He told the FBI that he wanted to kill anti-gay targets and went
If you caught some of Hagel’s performance last week you know it was awful. The Chicago Tribune says it was so awful that Hagel should be rejected. But one paragraph in their editorial caught my attention: Sen. John McCain grilled
In response to DC tops list of nation’s worst traffic: I’ve been living in SoCal for 15 years now. Traffic here can be bad. A one hour trip can become a two hour trip if you don’t plan ahead. That
In response to Video: Obama Debunks John’s “Outrageous Myth”: It should be impossible to square this circle. On the one hand Obama’s promise that you could keep the plan you currently have if you like it (Period.) On the other
During Tuesday’s press briefing, White House spokesman Jay Carney was asked about a legal memo used by the Obama administration to justify drone strikes against American citizens. Carney gave a prepared response which was reminiscent of the “Bush Doctrine.” There
One of the most consistent promises the President made when selling health reform was that those who liked the insurance plan they had could keep it. For instance, on March 23, 2010 he said “If you like your current insurance,
Yesterday the Times published an editorial titled “More Jobs, Higher Pay.” It’s is a plea for Obama to turn from the “premature austerity” that has supposedly gripped Washington for the last several years. What the Times wants instead is an
In response to Chris Christie’s national future: I made a similar case last week. Christie’s appearance on the show is even more striking when you recall that Letterman repeatedly begged Romney to come on his show last year. By October