Your mission, should you choose to accept it: humorously analogize something that itself sounds like a humorous analogy. Sure, it’s easy to say “Newt Gingrich talking about family values is like Abe Foxman writing about the Muslim Brotherhood,” but what do you do when Abe Foxman writes about the Muslim Brotherhood? Well, hotshot? What. Do. You. Do.
Entries will be judged by, uh, criteria. Winner gets to be the target of a boycott over something anodyne they said about the financial sector.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/01/12 at 04:06 PM
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Eerie, right? A simple rule of thumb for telling them apart: one is a soulless bloodsucker whose nebbishy exterior belies his mission to spread evil, pestilence, and death; the other one’s Michael Gerson, and he’s also pretty terrible.
Here’s the newest volley from Radio RWaPo (“It’s not hate speech when white men wearing neckties say it”), and just in time! No use fomenting resentment and distrust among the populace after the election.
Serving the poor and healing the sick are regarded as secular pursuits — a determination that would have surprised Christianity’s founder.
See, this is why Gerson’s on the op-ed page and the rest of you schmucks are slaving away in the “On Faith” section. A lesser propagandist would’ve claimed explicitly that Jesus invented altruism and that non-Christians can be charitable only in the sense that dogs can stand on their hind legs, but Gerson knows how to imply it.
Hmm. Blockquoting isn’t terribly satisfying for some reason, maybe because it ignores Gerson’s long history in Washington power circles, and that context seems relevant. I’ve got a better idea, lemme try something:
“Both radicalism and maliciousness are at work in Obama’s decision — an edict delivered with a sneer,” wrote the former chief speechwriter for George W. Bush.
Above: an impassioned, well-reasoned plea on behalf of bodily integrity, but not the skanky kind
(RRNN)—Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, son of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul and recurring Kids in the Hall character Kevin McDonald was born to play, was detained by the TSA this morning after setting off a full-body scanner and subsequently refusing a pat-down. Guess where he was going at the time! Go on, take a stab.
Yeah, of course it was a March for Life rally, I should’ve made that one harder, huh?
So to clarify, a little over-the-pants groping: Demeaning and invasive. Federal intrusion into a woman’s decision-making vis-a-vis her reproductive system: Not only acceptable but necessary. I had a high school girlfriend whose Irish Catholic mother espoused roughly the same philosophy, but that’s neither here nor there.
Before things get too heated around the issue, I propose a solution in the spirit of exemptions to anti-abortion statutes: Rand Paul should never have to submit to pat-downs by family members or convicted sex offenders. In all other circumstances, I’m sure Agent McFeely will do his best to give you a “speedy delivery” through the line, Senator!
I can’t imagine why you don’t come to me with all your problems, America. I am Mr. Sensible Compromise over here.
Follow me on Baby-Spwitter
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/23/12 at 04:39 PM
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I’ve got plenty to say about this but can’t at the moment, so while I’m waiting for everyone else to leave the room, I’ll pass to Jon Soltz:
There are no words to express my disgust at the video making the rounds today, of U.S. Marines apparently urinating on the dead bodies of the Taliban. As an Iraq War veteran who works with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans every day, I can truthfully say that the Marines in the video have undermined everything that I and those who served with me tried to do.
First of all, I apologize for assuming that you paid any attention to the speeches given by candidates in the New Hampshire Republican primary last night. Hell, most Americans weren’t watching, and practically none of us pay any attention to your elections, even the ones conducted in countries with which we share a border.
Maybe one in 20 of us could name the leaders of our neighboring countries, and a not-insignificant percentage would respond with a blank stare if asked to name those countries. That’s how we roll. But I am assuming that many of you do follow our elections—perhaps in the same spirit that the driver of a Mini Cooper keeps tabs on the movements of a semi-truck that is fish-tailing wildly in the traffic ahead.
Anyhoo, if you did see the speeches, you may have noted that all the candidates agreed on one thing: America is the greatest country in the history of the planet—nay, the galaxy! Nay, the universe! The candidates didn’t deliver this observation in a perfunctory way to scratch their listeners’ patriot-itch: They asserted it and repeated it and returned to it again and again. And most of all, they compared their own bug-eyed devotion to that notion to the president’s and found his pride in his homeland wanting.
Much virtual ink has been spilled in the past few days about Ron Paul’s leftier-than-thou credentials, especially regarding warfare. What does his campaign’s senior adviser, Doug Wead, have to say about all that?
Megyn Kelly: You know, one of the issues, obviously you know, that Congressman Paul’s most controversial on is his foreign policy stance, and in particular Israel and Iran, and whether he would allow Iran to get the bomb. He’s said he doesn’t want it, but he doesn’t want it because he’s worried that the United States will then go to war with Iran, and he doesn’t want that, just the same as he didn’t want the Iraq War, he thinks we’re too ... too prone to attacking other countries and to ... injecting ourselves militarily .... Newt Gingrich came out and said given that kind of attitude and policy stance, it would be a tough choice for Americans if the choice came down to Barack Obama versus Ron Paul, and Ron Paul is to the left of Barack Obama on certain issues, including foreign policy with respect to Iran. To those voters and to Newt Gingrich, what do you say?
Doug Wead: Yeah, yeah, I totally disagree with ... that idea he’s to the left or the right. He’s pro-Constitution. He’s in favor of taking the idea of war ... he’s not against war. He was the only public figure in 1981 to stand up and defend Israel’s right to defend herself and take out those Iraqi nuclear facilities. He’s not against war, he’s in favor of going to the US Congress as the Constitution says, debating it, committing to war, getting in, winning it, then getting out. He’s against these endless wars that just happen ... at a whim because somebody ... believes that someone’s a threat to the United States. If they’re a serious threat to the United States and/or our allies, then let’s take it to Congress, let’s discuss it, let’s commit, and let’s get in and win it and get out.
The Iraq War is over, at least officially. It was, as then-Illinois State Senator Barack Obama said in 2002, a “dumb war:”
I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.
The “cost in lives and hardships borne” Mr. Obama accurately predicted is impossible to fully reckon, as is the monetary cost. Well over 100,000 people are needlessly dead, tens of thousands more physically and psychologically scarred for life and around a trillion sorely needed-dollars poured down a rat hole.
How did this happen? There are many reasons, but the short answer is that it was a perfect storm of assholes. It was an event that brought together a small but influential group of arrogant neo-con dick-swingers eager to impose their vision on the world, profit-seeking conglomerates yearning to cash in, a supine media and a nation insane with fear in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
But none of it would have been possible without the insecure, not-too-bright scion of a prominent political family who was then in the Oval Office and burning to prove to his patrician daddy that he is too smart and capable, not dumb, not like people say. So now we know what happens when Fredo Corleone leapfrogs his smarter brother to become the Godfather—only of a nuclear-armed superpower instead of an organized crime family. Not pretty, is it?
Nothing about the NDAA? Seems to be a liberal blog blackout regarding the official death of the Bill of Rights.
Uh… why, no, Raven Rant, I was um, I was just going to address that! I mean, I certainly haven’t been bought off by the Obama administration, if that’s what you’re implying… hey! Bill Daley, what are you doing in my apartment? In that apron? Get the hell out and take your delicious-smelling homemade treats with you!
(SLAM)
The nerve, thinking my silence could be purchased with their filthy blood money, or in this case, toffee and confectioner’s sugar.
Did you know that today is the 220th birthday of the Bill of Rights? Well, don’t put on that little hat and blow that whistle with the rolled-up paper attachment that unfurls just yet, because it’s also… its deathday! There, Raven, happy? Or do I have to specify that I’m not in favor of the NDAA? Because I’m not, I think it’s bullshit.
Hey waaaiiit a minute. I just cursed. In public! Hold on, lemme try something.
(assembles freely, plays with Voltron toy)
(regulates militia, and pretty darn well, I might add)
(takes dog out, observes doo process)
Clearly the Bill of Rights’s death has been greatly exaggerated.
Anyway, here’s Rachel Maddow talking with someone who knows more about the NDAA than I do, a bar he clears by knowing it’s not the governing body for dodgeball:
I’ve always found neocon retread John R. Bolton somewhat fascinating—not only because former President Bush (recess) appointed him US Ambassador to the United Nations after Bolton had explicitly denied the existence of that organization—but because of his weird, carpet-don’t-match-the-curtains cranial hair.
As it turns out, his views on occupations are as contrasting as his forelock and mustache:
Now, Wired’s Danger Room is challenging its readers to brainstorm an equally unhinged backup stratagem to spread fear and destabilize the Global Hegemony.
Yeah, it’s a sick, cynical, silly exercise. But it’s Friday…and I don’t know anyone who couldn’t use a laugh right now.
The attrition rate among the vast crop of GOP presidential candidates is only rivaled by that among their staff, what with Gingrich and Bachmann losing large chunks of their hired help in the last couple of months.
Des Moines, Iowa (CNN) - The communications director for Herman Cain’s presidential campaign has resigned, CNN has learned.
Ellen Carmichael told CNN on Saturday her decision is firm but not yet finalized.
“I have resigned but the paperwork’s not final,” Carmichael said.
Carmichael explained her decision is a personal one and that she’s pursuing other professional opportunities. She also said that her assistant, Francis Boustany, is also leaving for professional reasons.
All parties claim the split is amicable, though there are rumors otherwise. The Cain team’s replacement is ex-Defense Department spoke from the Rumsfeld era J.D. Gordon, whose résumé is, uh, colorful:
While in the Pentagon, he served as the Press Team Leader for Operations, Policy & Intelligence and was responsible for Western Hemisphere Affairs and U.S. Southern Command; Asia-Pacific Security Affairs and U.S. Pacific Command; and Detainee Affairs. In this capacity, he was DoD’s principal spokesman for all facets of Guantanamo detention operations and detainee-related litigation, to include lead media escort and on-scene spokesman for military commissions, the war crime trials for alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban combatants and supporters.
Gordon has reportedly already been helping out with Cain’s communications strategy. I’m not clear how much the recent change in tone of messaging from the Cain campaign is down to his influence and how much is just Herman Cain being Herman Cain.
The Reuters newsfeed on a Monday morning isn’t usually a barrel of laughs. But still reeling from the tortuous to-and-fro on securing the US-Mexico border in the last couple of weeks’ Republican Presidential Debates—which saw Newt Gingrich proposing that these efforts be handed over to American Express, Rick Perry branded a traitor by Jon Huntsman for saying that you can’t just box the whole country in, and the likes of Michele Bachmann seeking to hand fence manufacturers the biggest Keynesian stimulus they’ve ever seen—I was left wondering how this development will play out in the next one:
(Reuters) - To Mexican drug traffickers, the tall new steel fence now carving along the southern boundary of this Arizona border city looks more like field goal.
Since its completion in July, police on the U.S. side of the 18 to 30-foot-tall fence have retrieved dozens of football-shaped bundles of marijuana.
They say the tightly wound packages are being lofted over the new bollard-and-steel mesh barrier from Nogales, Mexico to rogue receivers in the namesake city in Arizona.
“They are quarterbacking them (the bundles) over the fence and hoping the receivers are in the right spot to pick them up,” said Santa Cruz County Sheriff Antonio Estrada of the new trend at the start of the U.S. football season.
The cannier candidates may seek to join the dots and put some of the unemployed to work as blockers, kick returners, quarter and zone defense, scrimmagers, or indeed anyone capable of delivering a slobber-knocker in aid of homeland security. Hell, if they televise it, it could be self-funding.
The former president of Afghanistan - a major figure who was leading peace talks aimed at ending the war - was killed in his home Tuesday by a suicide attacker wearing an exploding turban.
Burhanuddin Rabbani died when he hugged his assassin, who triggered the bomb, officials said.
This is, incidentally, a very bad thing, and not just for Mr. Rabbani.
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