Recent items in the news: The commandant of the marine corps said a few days ago U.S. forces will likely be at the “war on terror,” or whatever it’s called now, for a bit longer, maybe another decade. Or more. The marine leader’s remarks echo those by an obscure defense official overseeing undercover doo doo. [...]
Against my better judgement, I wandered over to Politico for a little look-see at what was passing for Village Conventional “Wisdom” on this dreary Tuesday, and boy howdy, should I have stayed home. Although there was, at the top of the page, one article that mentioned the, uh, President; except for an irrelevant smidgen of [...]
Ever since Reagan, Republicans have chosen Presidential candidates the same way an ad agency might cast a beer commercial. Literally. Remember all the talk about who voters would want to “have a beer with” when attempting to sell a slow-witted, overprivileged ne’er-do-well who didn’t even drink, back in 2000? They never bother to find [...]
Perhaps one of the most loathsome disasters left to us by Dick Cheney (and there are a lot of them) is the elevation of the criminally incompetent Halliburton he once led to the cash-soaked tippy-top of the Military Industrial Complex. Flush with no-bid contracts even before the bonanza of the Iraq War Cheney so coveted, [...]
As most readers of this blog know, I have been a car-free, dedicated transit user for over a decade, something that to the outside observer ought to be easy and natural in Portland, America’s supposed sustainability Mecca. The truth, unfortunately, is a little more complicated in this new era of austerity. Like all public amenities, [...]
In a stunningly unsurprising development, NBC’s “Meet the Press,” formerly the Sunday morning leader, has reached a 20-year nadir in its ratings. Thus, people who are too lazy on a hungover morning to drink poison or gouge out their eyeballs prefer George fucking Stefanopoulous over Karl Rove’s B-girl, David Gregory, and his laughably execrable show. [...]
Allen West should take a cue from another House Negro of the racist right, Clarence Thomas, and STFU. Better to, as they say, keep your mouth shut and be thought an idiot than to open it and remove all doubt. Today in The Hill, West is given enough rope to hang himself, and unsurprisingly he [...]
Never have I been happier to be wrong about something as I am now, having so confidently predicted what would happen, nothing, to the Bloated Bloviator as a result of his, uh, improperly chosen words, all twelve thousand of them. AOL and Allstate were the 11th and 12th advertisers to leave, effective today, and a [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]