Over at Bloomberg, Christopher Flavelle asks the excellent question “Why Are Corporate Titans So Clueless at Politics?” Chris covered a recent Business Roundtable shindig, and here’s what he has to say: The Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of the largest U.S. companies, held a lunch for reporters this week on what’s wrong…
Author: Alan Vanneman
Obama, losing credibility in order to gain it
“He kept us out of Syria!” sounds like faint praise indeed for an American president, but it’s an encomium one can no longer utter in good conscience regarding Barack “the Disappointer” Obama. The only pleasure one can take in this latest administration folly—and it’s grim indeed—is how gracelessly the administration has gone about announcing and…
Fat Republican Congressman from Texas talks like a fat Republican Congressman from Texas with his hand between his legs
Right-wing Texas lard-butt Rep. Michael Burgess raises self-parody to a new level by explaining why fetuses are just like us: “Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful,” said Burgess, a former OB/GYN. “They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their…
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here. “I won’t lie to you, Mr. Thorten. This was not the reaction I was expecting.” “As a matter of fact, Mr. Thorten, it does have something to do with that Obamacare you’ve been hearing so much about.” “Nothing here that a hundred pennies in each pocket won’t cure. No one will be…
Brad Mehldau Larry Grenadier Jeff Ballard — “We See”
Posted by emmadetten
President Obama: I’ll be the judge, I’ll be the jury
Should being the editor of the Harvard Law Review be a disqualifier for the presidency? One can wonder. A couple of years ago, when pressed on the point of his administration’s disgraceful mistreatment of alleged (and certainly probable) mega-leaker Bradley Manning, the president had this to say: “I have to abide by certain classified information,”…
Don’t Know Much About Communist Spies
Several months ago, in a posting at the American Conservative, bearing the snappy title “Our American Pravda,” Ron Unz bemoaned the many failings of the American media, claiming that, among other things, the media had conspired to conceal the fact that communist penetration of the federal government was rife during the Roosevelt Administration, “Over the…
Oy, those crafty country folk!
Aviva Shen of ClimateProgress notes a distinct lack of progress in programs designed to encourage farmers to conserve water. Shen points us to a New York Times story by Ron Nixon, “Farm Subsidies Leading to More Water Use,” which gives us the inside skinny: Millions of dollars in farm subsidies for irrigation equipment aimed at…
Emily Bazelon, treading lightly
Over at Slate, Emily Bazelon, speaking of le affaire Snowden, minces a few mots while remarking that “Snowden’s revelations seem to catch Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in misleading testimony.” Here’s the testimony that, to Bazelon, “seems” to be “misleading.” “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds…
Barack Obama, sending the Machiavel to school. Again.
Is there glee in the White House over the latest revelations of National Security Agency mega-snooping? I wouldn’t be surprised. Sen. Rand Paul has another arrow in his quiver, and daddy Ron Paul even praised leaker Ron Snowden, saying that Snowden has “done a great service for telling the truth.” That kind of crazy talk…