Over at Slate, Matt Yglesias insists that President Obama doesn’t have to give an inch to House Speaker John Boehner on taxes in the upcoming fix everything we didn’t fix before lame-duck session. Because Republicans under Bush passed “temporary” tax cuts rather than permanent ones, and because those tax cuts are set to expire, Obama…
Author: Alan Vanneman
How about that Charlie Sheen? I hear he gets more tail than General Petraeus!
Glenn Greenwald devotes perhaps too many column inches to the otherwise valid point that usually when a public figure gets caught with his pants down he’s the recipient of delighted, scurrilous ridicule, but that when it’s a four-star general named Petraeus, the rules are different. So, Glenn, I’m helping. More seriously, Petraeus has one major…
New at Bright Lights: Final Fred and More
My review of Fred Astaire’s TV specials, only available on YouTube, is up at the not entirely safe for work Bright Lights Film Journal. I have additional reviews of The Hunger Games and High Noon. Links to my reviews of Fred Astaire’s 27 dancing films can be found here.
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here. “At least you don’t have squirrels. Am I right or am I right?” “Nah, pinching them off just stimulates new growth. You have to go for the tap root with these babies—a special little something I like to call “Essence of Beaver Tail.” “The hell of it is, if we were just…
Uniquely bad, though better than all the rest
“Mitt Romney was a uniquely bad candidate for 2012. The best of a very weak field. … Obama could hardly have had a better opponent if he had ordered him from central casting”—Megan McArdle, explaining why Obama shouldn’t have won, even though he did.
And what do they know about it?
“The only group that majority-identifies as “Pro Choice” is women of childbearing age”—Megan McArdle, explaining why Democrats don’t own the future.
Outreach to Blacks, A Republican’s User’s Guide
In the last election, Republicans have noticed that no black people voted for them, and, since they lost, they have started to worry about it. I am not black myself, but I am a sport, and so I have decided to provide a few pointers. Stop trying to prevent black people from voting. They hate…
“What’s the matter, asshole? You oblivious or something?”
New York magazine has a nice bit about execs at Random House and Penguin working out a merger as mighty hurricane Sandy bore down on Gotham. At Random House, communications director Stuart Applebaum stayed at his desk overnight on Sunday to help complete the deal. When he left Monday morning he found the street outside…
Glenn gets one wrong
If you read this blog at all, you know that I’m a huge fan of Glenn Greenwald, who’s worn out half a dozen keyboards recording the countless violations committed by the Obama Administration to truth, civil liberties, the rule of law, and simple common human decency in its endless war on terror, and just about…
Suck on it, Hillbillies
Am I a bad winner? Suck on it. Suck on it, Peggy Noonan. Suck on it, George Will, for predicting a Romney landslide. Suck on it, political “expert” Michael Barone, for doing the same. Suck on it, Charles Krauthammer. Suck on it, William Kristol. Suck on it, Weekly Standard. Suck on it, Bibi Netanyahu. We…