When you enter the alternative universe of Politico, it’s always a good idea to steel yourself against infantile false equivalencies, stunningly obvious conventional wisdom, and drearily repeated Republican talking points. That way, you’ll suffer through far fewer poorly written articles that, like watching Fox News, will make you dumber than if you’d spent your time [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
America’s Dumbest State, Alabama, continues to be unfairly pilloried by the liberal media for its demented and draconian immigration laws. Last month, Alabama police arrested a Mercedes Benz executive for the newly-minted crime of driving without his papers; later, an Honda execuive was similarly jailed. Of course, to find any such liberal media, you do [...]
Now, I’ve read some dumb things in my life at the Atlantic (especially since Megan McArdle came along), but this is ridiculous. Wendy Kaminer, an “author, lawyer, and civil libertarian,” which in plain English means “wingnut welfare queen,” leapt into the fray with one of the silliest “slippery slope” arguments against OWS I’ve ever heard, [...]
They’re everywhere – these little men. No tendentious description of the phenomenon is required, nor is a detailed and boring historical context necessary, since they (like the poor) “have always been with us.” But the sudden “surge” of poseurs, fakers, demagogues, deadbeats, and crooks stands out right now, as our vaunted world economy teeter-totters, [...]
UPDATE: (4:00pm) Reinforcements have been brought in from enlightened places like Salem, and the cops are really rolling up with rubber bullets, tear gas, and what not. Another busload of cops is heading in. More news later; the protesters are heading right here to Park Ave. Bowing to the bleatings of The Oregonian and [...]
I was a little worried, as I prepared to head to the waterfront to assemble for Occupy Portland; I had just gotten an email from Daily Kos asking me to “pledge” to occupy, and it said I would be joining 37 other hardy souls. “Really?” my friend Denise asked, “there’s only going to be 37 [...]
Well, it’s been finally settled, what ails America. You see, the richly overpaid media stars who spout errant nonsense to us each day disguised as news seem to agree with the plutocrats that even words that might hurt that the delicate feelings of those who make, say $50,000 per hour, must be censored at all [...]