In about the least surprising development one could possibly imagine, cardboard cutout Mitt Romney “won” Florida, or more accurately, “bought” Florida. Turns out that fetid swampland is more expensive than you’d think; Romney’s completely unrelated and totally coincidental Super PAC ponied up the cash for 13,000 television ads to battle Newt’s, uh, 200. 96% percent [...]
It was a telling moment when Mitt Romney said that niggling little things like the massive income inequality that’s turned out so phenomenally well, for him anyway, ought only be discussed in “Quiet rooms,” where, presumably, the servants couldn’t hear. It seems that after the recent unpleasantness, the rich are hurriedly drawing the portieres [...]
One of the presidential candidates came out today to argue for lower corporate tax rates, increased domestic drilling for fossil fuels, and less government regulations on business, following an earlier push to get rid of whole departments of the federal government. Rick Perry? Naw, everything was pronounced correctly. Mitt Romney? Nope, too straightforward. Gingrich? Much [...]
The GOP has a knack for invoking desperate times, which invariably call for desperate measures, as a last-ditch effort to sell the unpopular and damaging policies they’ve espoused for more than a hundred years. Of course, this approach is considerably more problematic when times are good: take the 2000 election, when George W. Bush [...]
“On an occasion of this sort, it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one’s mind. It becomes a pleasure.” –Gwendolyn Fairfax in The Importance of Being Earnest “Ain’t it delicious, being so pernicious; fuck those Mormon sons of bishes.” –Ida Richilieu, in The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon [...]
It’s impossible to escape the breathless (and brainless) reporting of the sad, sad, spectacle that is the Republican Presidential primary, but what’s most painful, not to mention infuriating, is watching the media treat it as a serious exercise, when it’s anything but. Last week the New York Times bothered to run a two-page foldout on [...]
When I walked into the Bureau of Development Services, finding it packed as usual, I filled out my form to place in the first of five boxes, and settled in for a long wait. The plans I was submitting were for an extensive remodel, a rebuild, really, of a house that, had it not been [...]
As we approach the 2012 elections, I have to admit grudgingly sympathizing with the poor Republican contenders on some level; everywhere you look, one (hilarious) presidential aspirant after another has to deal with the fact that large blocs of their party hates them, for one reason or another. The reasons, to a sane person at [...]
I recently read a ridiculous “analysis” of the 2012 election that stated, not entirely incorrectly, that it amounted to a contest not of political philosophies but of purchasing preferences: Cracker Barrel vs. Whole Foods. Great swaths of data were trotted out about the voting habits of those residing near one or the other of these [...]
Whenever I’m working out of town, it’s always a treat to listen to a different lefty talk station; when I was in Napa over Thanksgiving I tuned in daily to Green 960, a San Francisco-based Clear Channel station which, though lacking any local programming, has a good mix of national shows I don’t generally hear [...]