progressive politics and regressive entertainment. like peanut and butter.
December 18, 2012 Leave a comment
I do wish more people who manage to fully comprehend the broad trauma a mass shooting can have on our country would consider the consequences of a decade of war.
- Atrios, “War” (December 18, 2012)
November 2, 2012 Leave a comment
America will either vote to re-elect President Obama. Or elect a President Romney, which doesn’t sound quite right, and that’s largely because it wouldn’t be.
- Jon Oliver (Bugle 211 – Electoral Labour)
November 1, 2012 Leave a comment
It doesn’t matter your status in life, it doesn’t matter your job, your trade. What matters is how you treat people, how you treat yourself. Do you act kindly? Do you speak with love or kindness or honesty? Or do you speak with deceit or with manipulation or with unkindness? How you are is what’s really important.
- Gil Fronsdal (“Right Intention,” October 15, 2012)
September 11, 2012 Leave a comment
But if you want to understand why Ben Bernanke can’t adopt the policies that would repair the American labor market, all you have to know is this. If he fixes the problem, then people will (rightly) ask why he didn’t do it two years ago and his reputation will be in the toilet. He needs it to be the case that the only tools at his disposal are risky and of questionable efficacy.
- Matthew Yglesias (September 11, 2012)
Ben Bernanke, Vampire Chairman (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)
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Not By Rights: DeMarco, Bernanke and Draghi protect unemployment and recession
September 10, 2012 Leave a comment
It’s not a matter of individual speeches or strategic positioning. The Republican Party is where it is because that’s where the base is. You’ve watched that whole primary process. The Republican candidates had to appeal to their base, which is by and large elderly white people arguing with empty chairs.
- Paul Krugman on ABC News “This Week” (September 9, 2012)
SEE ALSO
Lioness: VIDEO: Clint Eastwood’s “Empty Chair Obama” Speech at the GOP Convention (Transcript, too!)
therileyreilly: The Real Empty Chair: Mitt Romney
September 6, 2012 2 Comments
My favorite quotes from Bill Clinton’s speech last night nominating Barack Obama for re-election. The quotes are as delivered, which is not necessarily as prepared, given that the Big Dog doesn’t always stick to the script.
CLINTON: I want to nominate a man whose own life has known its fair share of adversity and uncertainty.
September 5, 2012 Leave a comment
I’ll never understand why Democrats stopped fighting after Obama won election, and ran to cower in the middle during that disastrous 2010 election. Neither does Deval Patrick. From yesterday’s opening ceremonies…
PATRICK: It’s time for Democrats to grow a backbone and stand up for what we believe.
I would add that it’s actually possible to have a backbone and also pay attention to the polls. The polls keep telling Democrats that populism is not just the right policy — populism sells. I hope they listen.
…adding further that today’s cowardly attempt to cater to conservative criticism that the Democratic platform is not Godly enough in exactly the right way is not a smart move or a good sign.
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Live streaming of the Democratic National Convention
September 4, 2012 Leave a comment
Discovered via Informed Comment…
August 23, 2012 Leave a comment
You got duped by some dude who told you he was a doctor and gave you advice that women can keep sperm away from themselves when they’re, you know, “legitimately raped.” You really think you should be making a judgment call on anything? You should question everything about yourself.
- Howard Stern on his radio show (August 22, 2012)
August 19, 2012 11 Comments
Paul Ryan’s love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades. Charles Manson loved the Beatles but didn’t understand them. Governor Chris Christie loves Bruce Springsteenbut doesn’t understand him. And Paul Ryan is clueless about his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine.
…
Don’t mistake me, I clearly see that Ryan has a whole lotta “rage” in him: A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment. Basically the only thing he’s not raging against is the privileged elite he’s groveling in front of for campaign contributions.
English: Rage Against The Machine End of set, before leaving stage July 30 2011 L.A. Rising Music Festival 2011 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
August 15, 2012 Leave a comment
It’s unfair to say, as some might, that Mitt Romney believes in nothing except his own ambition. He believes, with shining certainty, in his own success, and, more broadly, in the American Gospel of Wealth that lies behind it: the idea that rich people got rich by being good, that the riches are a sign of their virtue, and that they should therefore be allowed to rule.
- Adam Gopnik in “I, Nephi” (The New Yorker, Aug. 13 & 20, 2012)
Mitt Romney – Caricature (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)
August 14, 2012 5 Comments
Look, Ryan hasn’t “crunched the numbers”; he has just scribbled some stuff down, without checking at all to see if it makes sense. He asserts that he can cut taxes without net loss of revenue by closing unspecified loopholes; he asserts that he can cut discretionary spending to levels not seen since Calvin Coolidge, without saying how; he asserts that he can convert Medicare to a voucher system, with much lower spending than now projected, without even a hint of how this is supposed to work. This is just a fantasy, not a serious policy proposal.
- Paul Krugman on his blog (August 13, 2012)
