Month: June 2010

Montel Williams – in a courageous burst of sanity.

She’ll charm her way to the nomination at this rate.

Drum is feeling it. Sprung not-so-much:

Could it be that Obama's moving the country left about as fast and far as it can bear?  Maybe it's selection bias on my part, a comforting personal myth, but I recur repeatedly — hopefully (ad nauseam?)– to Frederick Douglass' 1876 assessment of Lincoln: Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.

Are they all bunk? Moulitsas himself believes so.

The first hurricane of the season is disrupting clean-up efforts, but it could be a net gain:

[National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spokesman Chris Vaccaro] said the winds and higher seas may help “weather” the oil, breaking it up into smaller droplets that are more easily consumed by microbes. While some weathering occurs in all conditions, he said, a major storm “helps by stirring up the water and literally pounding away at it.” … The rainfall may flush marshes and other sensitive coastal areas, Mr. Vaccaro said.

When Andrew Breitbart offers $100,000 for a private email list-serv archive, essentially all bets are off. Every blogger or writer who has ever offered an opinion is now on warning: your opponents will not just argue against you, they will do all they can to ransack your private life, cull your email in-tray, and use whatever material they have to unleash the moronic hounds of today's right-wing base.

Yes, the Economist was right. This is not about transparency, or hypocrisy. It's about power. And when you are Andrew Breitbart, power is all that matters. There is not a whit of thoughtfulness about this, not an iota of pretense that it might actually advance the conversation about how to deal with, say, a world still perilously close to a second Great Depression, a government that is bankrupt, two wars that have been or are being lost, an energy crisis that is also threatening our planet's ecosystem, and a media increasingly incapable of holding the powerful accountable.

Meanwhile, the GOP leaders, having done all they can to destroy a presidency by obstructing everything and anything he might do or have done to address the crippling problems bequeathed him by his predecessor, are now also waging a scorched earth battle to prevent the working poor from having any real access to affordable health insurance. 

This is what the right now is: no solutions, just anger, paranoia, insecurity and partisan hatred.

A reader writes:

Maybe this is a quibble. But as the son and grandson of gunsmiths, and a former military expert rifleman, I just wanted to point out how godawful that Palin wannabe’s shooting form is. Especially with the pistol: she leans back, doesn’t square her stance, and squeezes the trigger indiscriminately before the muzzle is settled. We call that “sprayin’ and prayin’”.  (Also, I wonder if she or the shooting range had the required federal licensing for that Thompson submachine gun.)

This, to me, is the ultimate in Tea Party posturing: someone who has no clue about guns, their lethality, or their regulations, trying desperately to appeal to gun nuts as their savior. It’s about as sensible as Rick Barber, a guy who’s never read history, trying to claim the mantle of the Founding Fathers.

Does anyone know for real if Sarah Palin has ever used a gun for hunting? My own fear on all this is that eventually, all GOP nominees will be indistinguishable from the Fox Fembots. And I guess if you want the over 50 white guy Southern vote, it can’t hurt. So when will Carrie Prejean be running for Senate?

I'm not sure why anyone is surprised that Elena Kagan now renounces her previous view that hearings for SCOTUS nominees should actually explore, well, anything. This is the most conventional careerist you are likely to meet in a town of conventional careerists – you think she's going to take a risk now? Kinsley notes that this reversal is the only one possible for Kagan, since it is the only legal opinion she has ever really expressed. So the one actual opinion we have from this person with no personal life and no actual views on anything is now erased from history. I guess she had no choice given …  well, I cannot compete with Kinsmo here:

Now she says that, after her own nomination, she was persuaded by Senator Orrin Hatch (and this sentence is already pretty hilarious, no matter where it might be going, isn’t it?)…persuaded, as I say, by Senator Hatch that she should reconsider, which she did.

You now have to go across the Atlantic to find them:

The government is poised to announce the details of a judge-led inquiry into claims its secret agents were complicit in the torture of terror suspects after a spate of allegations, the BBC reported Tuesday. Prime Minister David Cameron has agreed the terms of the probe, which include possible compensation if there is proof someone was tortured with the knowledge of British secret services, said the broadcaster.

Compare Cameron with Obama on these primary matters of the rule of law and the character of the West: one has integrity, the other reeks of fear.

The case against prohibition: