All Blog Posts (411)

The next time your favorite local wingnut starts waxing apoplectic regarding "activist judges," point them immediately in the direction of today's decision by…

Have you ever been having a conversation with a free-market ideologue and referred, in exasperation, to things like fire-department services and roads as examples of why some things are simply better accomplished through taxation by a government than through private "entrepreneurship?"

Well, now the industrious little gnomes at the American Enterprise Institute are even trying to take THAT one away. No, really. The article's…

Specifically, the Hatch Act, and primarily (though not exclusively) during the 2005-06 period:…

From Rick Ungar in (of all places) Forbes magazine, who actually went and did the research himself, comes the story of the founding fathers themselves (who, as Ungar observes, didn't have to speculate much about what the…

...but for a very different set of reasons (via Roger Ebert, whose time in purgatory ought to be lengthened for making me watch this):

In fact, the above clip is right up there on the all-time wall of shame with…

Made you look. ;o) -- Not THOSE kind of "adult conversations."

I'm talking about the kind of adult conversations the GOP both ran on last fall, and came into power in the House last week claiming they wanted to have. Here's Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) using the phrase referring to Medicare "reform" last November,…

I got the following notice by e-mail:

 …

Three things I know:

1) I know that in Arizona six people were killed and 14 other folks were injured by gunshots in a single incident this past weekend. (Also, I'm pissed off and upset about it.)

2) I know that a good number of pundits and politicians have been using gun metaphors and violent language lately to talk about their opponents. (And I'm pissed off about that, too.)

3) I know coverage for mental health care in this country suuuuuucks. (Also,…

(cross-posted at PTL)

Because although Jared Lee Loughner appears to have been fairly mentally disturbed indeed, his actions did not happen in a vacuum. Since Barack Obama became the Democratic nominee in 2008, and especially since he was inaugurated in 2009, the right wing has ramped up the violent imagery and rhetoric…

**UPDATE** 1/8 6:53PM

I should make more clear that my point in posting this (other than simply posting news) is to highlight how harmful the rhetoric which makes use of violent imagery and suggestions can be - regardless of the political motivations (if any) of the shooter, who has now been identified as Jared Loughner. …

No, really, they did - so says CNN.

Is ANYONE even mildly surprised about this?

Oh, also? That great GOP oracle (so they've consistently said over the years, anyway)…

***UPDATE, 1/6 1:30PM*** Oops...I was not aware yesterday when I hurriedly posted Greg Sargent's overview of what the filibuster reform package contained that it did not include a reduction in the number of votes required to invoke cloture (overturn the filibuster). In my haste, I'd been assuming that - since the abuse of the sixty-vote threshold was literally the very raison d'etre for the concept of filibuster reform to begin with,…

***UPDATE; 1/3/11*** 

Oh, how FUNNY. A chance intersection of two of my most recent stories. Eric Lach over at Talking Points Memo catches the very same Judith Miller on FAUX "News" Sunday, complaining that Julian Assange is a "bad journalist," apparently "because he didn't…

When I was in college, my friends and I would often sit around and watch things like early computer animation videos set to electronic music, computer fractal screen savers and Liquid Television. So I was pre-disposed to like a sequel to Tron, in…

Of course I don't know the full answer to that question. I suspect, with this many variables, no one does with 100% accuracy.

But as you probably know, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke died yesterday in Washington after a 21-hour surgery to repair a tear in his aorta. I'm kind of lukewarm on Holbrooke - while he brokered the Dayton peace accords that ended the genocide in the Balkans, he also was a bellringer for going into Iraq and has much other bad stuff on his résumé,…

Part of the fun of being movie-obsessed these days is trying to predict the business of show business. Much like those guys who like sports with their fantasy leagues that I hear so much about, I like to sit around with my friends and discuss movies and box office numbers.

Two movies are coming out on Friday that are generating a lot of talk amongst people who care about these…