;)
The Commentariat -- Jan. 15, 2015
Internal links removed.
Circumstances force me to remind commenters that this is a site about politics & at least loosely-related topics. Kindly keep your comments somewhere in that realm. Thanks. -- Constant Weader
Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Obama will announce Thursday that he is directing federal agencies to give their employees up to six weeks of paid leave after the birth or adoption of a child, a benefit he wants to extend to all American workers. He will also call on Congress to pass a bill that would allow workers across the United States to earn up to seven paid sick days a year and would create a $2 billion incentive fund to help states pay for family leave programs, officials said late Wednesday."
Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "The United States transferred five more detainees -- all of them Yemenis -- from the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Wednesday, the Defense Department announced. Their release intensified the dispute between the Obama administration and several Republican senators over President Obama's recent flurry of transfers as he seeks to empty the American-run prison. The latest transfers came one day after several Republican senators, including John McCain of Arizona, proposed legislation that would place a moratorium on the release of most of the prisoners held at Guantánamo. The move was widely interpreted as an attempt to halt the recent surge in releases."
AP: "The Obama administration says new rules to significantly loosen the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba and open up the communist island to greater American travel will go into effect Friday. They are the next step in President Barack Obama's plan to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba. They come three days after U.S. officials confirmed the release of 53 political prisoners Cuba had promised to free. Only Congress can end the five-decade U.S. trade embargo of Cuba." ...
... The New York Times story, by Peter Baker, is here.
Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "The House on Wednesday voted to undo major provisions of President Obama's immigration policy, approving legislation that would revoke legal protections for millions of undocumented immigrants. The vote drew outrage from Democrats and led more than two dozen Republicans, many worried about the perception that their party is hostile to immigrants, to break away.The most contentious measures in the bill will most likely die in the Senate.... The White House has said President Obama will not sign any bill that blocks his executive actions on immigration.... In the House, 26 Republicans voted against an amendment that would effectively end Mr. Obama's 2012 order that allowed immigrants who entered the country illegally as children ... to stay. The amendment passed by the thinnest of majorities, 218 to 209, with no Democratic Party votes. The overarching funding bill for Homeland Security passed 236 to 191, with 10 Republican defections." ...
... ** Cruel & Usual Punishment. Dara Lind of Vox: The amendments to the bill the House approved today..., would return to a world where unauthorized immigrants lived in constant fear of deportation -- but they don't do much to ratchet up deportation itself." ...
... Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg View: "Today House Republicans voted for what might be called 'comprehensive anti-immigration reform.'... Democrats and their immigration allies are eager to emphasize what, in an e-mail to me, immigration analyst Marshall Fitz of the liberal Campaign for American Progress called the 'whites-only' electoral path that House Republicans have endorsed with today's amendments. (The Tea Party has met the 21st century and decided to pass.)" ...
... "Whites-Only" Party, Ctd. Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "House Republicans have concluded that it's not 'necessary' to restore the portion of the Voting Rights Act that was struck down by the Supreme Court, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said Wednesday." ...
If you look at what Mr. Scalise said, in the context of no voting rights bill and no immigration bill, you start to see an attitude. That really is bothersome. -- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
... White Supremacists' Party. Steve Benen: "it's important to realize that voting rights weren't a partisan issue up until very recently. Remember, when Congress last considered the VRA -- the law was reauthorized in 2006 -- support for the law was nearly unanimous. In the Senate, it was literally unanimous. President George W. Bush held a nice signing ceremony to celebrate it. In the House, a young congressman by the name of Bob Goodlatte even voted for it." Benen notes that the Urban League challenged Steve Scalise -- the House whip -- to push VRA legislation. Not gonna happen.
David Jackson of USA Today: "Governments should help expand access to high-speed broadband Internet, President Obama said Wednesday, calling it more of a necessity than a luxury in today's wired world. 'This is about helping local businesses grow and prosper,' Obama said during a visit to Cedar Falls, Iowa. Obama said he will ask the Federal Communications Commission to 'push back' on laws in 19 states that prevent local governments from creating municipal Internet services":
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (RTP-Tenn.) reacts to President Obama's speech on expanding broadband Internet service.... Alex Byers & Brooks Boliek of Politico: "Obama's speech Wednesday -- backing efforts to spur city-run broadband networks as an alternative to private-sector providers like Comcast and Verizon -- incensed Republicans who see it as just another attempt to over-regulate the industry with a Washington power-grab."
** Upward Redistribution. E. J. Dionne: "the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) has issued a report showing that, at the state and local level..., the poorest fifth of Americans will pay, on average, 10.9 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes and the middle fifth will pay 9.4 percent. But the top 1 percent will pay states and localities only 5.4 percent of their incomes in taxes.... In well-to-do countries...., the good old USA soars to first in inequality.... The five states with the most regressive systems are Washington, Florida, Texas, South Dakota and Illinois." Read & send to your right-wing brothers.
** David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "On Thursday, an all-star commission of economists and policy experts from several countries is publishing a detailed analysis of the great wage slowdown. It is a defining challenge of our time, the report argues, before offering a meaty list of possible solutions.... The report is meant to shape the political debate -- both in this year's British general election and the 2016 presidential campaign in the United States.... it's hard not to see the report partly as the first draft of an agenda for a presumptive campaign by Mrs. Clinton. The commission was created by the Center for American Progress, a Washington research group founded by Clinton allies.... Politics aside, it is a deeply serious document -- one of the best overviews of income stagnation and inequality that I've read. Its central message is that the great wage slowdown is not inevitable."
Dana Milbank takes on the top dogs at the Chamber of Commerce, in person & on the page. A classic smackdown.
Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "The Secret Service has decided to remove four of its most senior officials while a fifth has decided to retire, the biggest management shake-up at the troubled agency since its director resigned in October after a string of security lapses, according to people familiar with internal discussions. The departures would gut much of the Secret Service's upper management, which has been criticized by lawmakers and administration officials in recent months for fostering a culture of distrust between agency leaders and its rank-and-file, and for making poor decisions that helped erode quality."
Elaine Ganley & Jamey Keaten of the AP: "Parisians lined up Wednesday to empty the newsstands of the first issue of Charlie Hebdo, a week after Islamic extremists attacked the satirical newspaper's office, and French justice officials began cracking down by arresting dozens of people who glorified terrorism or made racist or anti-Semitic remarks." ...
... Glenn Greenwald: "Forty-eight hours after hosting a massive march under the banner of free expression, France opened a criminal investigation of a controversial French comedian for a Facebook post he wrote about the Charlie Hebdo attack, and then this morning, arrested him for that post on charges of 'defending terrorism.' The comedian, Dieudonné..., previously sought elective office in France on what he called an 'anti-Zionist' platform.... Since that glorious 'free speech' march, France has reportedly opened 54 criminal cases for 'condoning terrorism' ... [which] underscores the utter scam that was this week's celebration of free speech in the west.... That's because last week's celebration of the Hebdo cartoonists ... was at least as much about approval for their anti-Muslim messages as it was about the free speech rights...."
The Bickersons. Scott Wong of the Hill: "One of [Jason Chaffetz's (R-Utah)] first acts since taking over the [House] Oversight [Committee chairmanship]: Removing portraits of [Darrell] Issa [R-Calif.] and other past chairmen from the walls of the Oversight hearing room, committee sources told The Hill.... Issa allies see the move as a slap in the face to the last chairman.... Issa's likeness, they note, had only been hanging in Rayburn 2154 for two months.... Chaffetz has been taking shots at Issa in the press since he was selected chairman by Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) Steering Committee....." ...
... Back Detail. Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post (December 9, 2014): "Before the Americans are 'stupid' [Jonathan] Gruber hearing really got under way Tuesday morning, ranking member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) mentioned that Issa's official portrait had been hung up in the committee room. 'Thank you for saying I was hung,' Issa said, without missing a beat. He then laughed.... Well, after today, Issa will become just another member."
Peter Hermann & Aaron Davis of the Washington Post: "A timeline of the emergency response to Monday's Metro tragedy that left one woman dead and scores of passengers injured corroborates riders' accounts that they waited at least 35 minutes trapped in a dark, smoky tunnel before firefighters began to rescue them."
Climate Science 2, Deniers 1. Ryan Quinn of the Charlotte (West Virginia) Gazette: "After widespread criticism from teachers, professors and others, the West Virginia Board of Education voted Wednesday to withdraw a set of science education standards containing controversial modifications to the teaching of climate change. The new version, which will be open for a 30-day public comment period, doesn't contain the alterations to the three standards on climate change the board earlier approved."
Michael Schwirtz & Michael Winerip of the New York Times: "In a review of 153 applications of people the [New York City] Correction Department recently hired, city investigators found that more than one-third had problems that either should have disqualified them or needed further scrutiny. Ten had been arrested more than once, and 12 had previously been rejected by the New York Police Department, six of them for 'psychological reasons', among other issues. Additionally, 79 had relatives or friends who were current or former inmates.... The investigation found hiring practices to be in disarray: There was no screening for gang affiliation; most of the application process was not computerized; and employment screeners did not monitor phone calls between inmates and applicants.... The findings underscore the profound dysfunction at Rikers Island and help explain how a culture of violence and corruption has come to flourish in the city jails.'" ...
... CW: Almost half of the applicants had "relatives or friends who were current or former inmates"??? Don't know what their recruitment program looks like, but "Obtain recommendations from inmates" must be a substantial part of it.
God News, Thursday Edition. De Blasio, rabbis near accord on penis-sucking; should help control potentially-fatal herpes in neonates. Thanks so very much, James S., for the link. CW: Why doesn't the city require that the blood-suckers be regularly tested for herpes? Wouldn't that greatly reduce the risk of the babies' contracting herpes, while still allowing adherents their Constitutional right to submit their innocent babes to this cringe-inducing practice?
On this day in history, the Constant Weader linked two unrelated penis stories. Pretty good evidence it isn't just some of the commenters who have veered off-topic lately.
Presidential Race
Jonathan Bernstein: Hillary Clinton may have just locked up the Democratic nomination.
Katie Glueck of Politico: "A Republican backlash against Mitt Romney that had been simmering for days boiled over on Wednesday as conservatives across the GOP spectrum panned the prospect of another presidential bid by the former Massachusetts governor and two-time loser on the national stage. Leading the anti-Romney charge was the voice of the GOP establishment wing, the Wall Street Journal editorial page. 'The question the former Massachusetts Governor will have to answer,' the newspaper wrote, 'is why he would be a better candidate than he was in 2012.... The answer is not obvious.'" ...
... CW: Because Bush III will be ever so much better.
Scott Conroy of Real Clear Politics: "Rand Paul is not a fan of the United Nations, and on a campaign-style swing through New Hampshire on Wednesday, the likely Republican presidential hopeful said that he would support dissolving the international governing body entirely. Speaking to a room full of gun rights advocates at the Londonderry Fish & Game Club, Paul said that while the concept of having a multinational body to 'discuss diplomacy' isn't necessarily a bad one, he objects to the current structure, in which the United States has to foot "a huge chunk" of the U.N.'s bill." ...
... Paul Waldman: "I think we're going to see a lot of this kind of thing -- a candidate not considered one of the extremists in the race looking for issues, even barely relevant ones, that can be used to signal the GOP base that he can be as nutty as anybody."
Gail Collins on the presidential aspirations of Chris Christie, Scott Walker & Mike Pence (who?).
The Short-Lived Career of President Dr. Ben Carson
** CW: This news occurred when I was travelling last week, & I'm disconsolate that I missed it. Andrew Kaczynski, et al., of BuzzFeed: "Several sections of potential Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson's 2012 book America the Beautiful [subtitle: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great] were plagiarized from various sources, BuzzFeed News has found.... In one instance, Carson cites wholesale from an old website that has been online since at least 2002, Socialismsucks.net.... Carson recently said a decision on a 2016 presidential run is coming before May, and has previously said 'the chances are reasonably good' that he will run for president." Here's an especially delicious detail: right there in America the Beautiful, he cites an incident in which his college professor caught him extensively plagiarizing a paper:
Even though I did not know the implications of plagiarism, I certainly should have known inherently that what I was doing was wrong. I had done it before without consequences and probably would have continued doing it if I had not been caught. Fortunately for me, the professor was very compassionate, realized that I was naïve, and gave me a chance to rewrite the paper. This raises another question: Is ignorance an acceptable excuse for unethical behavior?
CW: You cannot match the chutzpah of writing in a book you plagiarized that you had learned the hard way that plagiarism was "unethical" and "wrong." ...
... Well, you could try. It appears Carson attempted to shift blame for the plagiarism to his wife Candy Carson -- credited as the co-author -- and to his editors. Eliana Johnson of the National Review: "Candy Carson, the source says, 'relied heavily on the editor' to ensure all of the sources were attributed correctly." Being a winger means it's always somebody else's fault.
... Martin Longman of the Washington Monthly: "I think Dr. Carson needs to set aside his quest for the things that made this country great and focus on the things that made him a great surgeon. For some, plagiarism is the result of carelessness, but with people like Carson it is the act of a simple scoundrel."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Belgium stepped up its efforts against suspected terrorists on Thursday with police raids, arrests and a heightened alert level across the country. Two suspects were killed in a gun battle near the German border, and the authorities said that a man suspected of links to last week's deadly terror attacks in Paris had been arrested in southern Belgium.The gun battle happened in Verviers, a town about 75 miles east of Brussels."
New York Times: "With a renovated death chamber, new training and a higher dose of drugs, corrections officials in Oklahoma were ready Thursday to carry out the first execution there since April, when the slipshod, prolonged killing of Clayton D. Lockett forced the state to suspend lethal injections and make changes to its procedure."
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Reader Comments (30)
After what they went through in WWll, in France and much of Europe the concept of free speech does not include hate or the promotion of terrorism. In other words they are not going to allow a new version of Nazi. I understand this.
@Marvin Schwalb. I believe you're right. Still it is difficult to argue on a day that the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly for one particular form of racism (albeit one couched in "principled" terms) that in the U.S., overt racism is less permissible than in Europe, which has seen nationalist/fascist parties growing in popularity. These nationalists nowadays also find "principled" reasons for racist policies.
Here, hate speech is protected by the Constitution, unless it in intended or serves to incite immediate violence. In Europe it is not. I'm just not sure if it makes any difference. If I hate a group of people, will I hate them any less if I'm prohibited from saying so?
It seems to me there are better ways to discourage bigotry than by making expressions of it illegal.
Marie
And speaking of hate speech...other than that which occurs in our own House of Reps...
http://www.vox.com/2015/1/14/7541095/charlie-hebdo-muslims-threats
"Oral suction".... I was unaware of this God-approved practice. What a mighty translation that is too, by the way. I'm sure it sounds even better get God says it.
Between "oral suction" and "rectal rehydration" my vocabulary is getting richer by the day on this site. Thanks Marie!
Marie, I agree, and there are lots of ways to express hate and still sound sort of nice. That what defines politics. In any case the issue in Europe is still largely a cultural one. The Muslim immigrant community does not fit well with the classic sense of the host country.
Islam like some other religions is as much about culture as it is about belief. The ultra orthodox Jews are even worse. In any case, a large part of the problem is the fact that the French don't consider the immigrants as becoming French. One of my favorite Paris events is the Friday market in the Belleville neighborhood. I tell people it is like a free trip to North Africa. And that is the problem. Both sides need to adapt and accept their different realities. It is not going to happen.
And lastly, this is not a new issue. We seem to forget that when the Catholics first came to America, they were viewed as a attack on the American culture.
The United Nations, this morning, issued a resolution in support of dissolving Rand Paul. The sovereign island nation of Bongo Bong, pop. 1,790, abstained and issued an invitation to Sen. Paul to come live there. "We worship the Aqua Buddah too, so he would feel right at home" said the county's leader Won Mo Time, "and we are the sole supplier of custom made bongs to the world. With a name like that you thought we made silicon chips, maybe?"
Mr. Time also mentioned, as an additional incentive, that the second largest industry on Bongo Bong was the creation of custom hand woven wigs made from dyed palm fronds and sea grass. "I think" he added, "that he would be bowled over by our selection and quality. That thing he wears now would scare a shark."
Re; unrelated penis stories; this site has been exposing the dicks of the world since day one. Nothing new here.
And I forgot to add the biggest part o the cultural issue in France. It is not about Islam vs. Christianity. It is Islam vs. secularism. In France, unlike America, when they say separation of church and state, they really mean it.
Gail Collins wonders " if the entire course of modern American history would have turned out different if John Kerry had not wanted to conceal the fact that his academic performance at Yale was worse than George W. Bush’s." Good question and the answer would certainly be yes–––maybe after 9/ll we would go into Afghanistan, but I bet your booty, not Iraq. And thinking back to Kerry's run and how the Republicans portrayed him as an elitist, a wealthy patrician who fancied wind surfing, it was inevitable that enough "mericans" said, "He ain't my kind of people." Too smart for us–-who does he think he is? seemed to be the mutterings (same thing they say about
Obama who IS actually pretty durn smart and got purty good grades in all them schools he attended). Anyway, remembered something Jill Lephore wrote about what Americans seem to want in their presidents:
"East of piffle and west of hokum, the boy from Hope always grows up to be 'The Man of the People.' Will we ever stop electing Andrew Jackson?"
PD,
There is a pretty good chance that had John Kerry been elected, we might not have had a 9/11. I think most reasonable people seeing a report on their desk that indicated a serious terrorist threat was imminent, would alert all relevant parties, at the least, the FBI, FAA, CIA, and local authorities. There's no guarantee that we would have headed off those attacks, but at least we'd have had a shot. Instead, The Decider decided to stuff it in a drawer and go on one of his many vacations.
And had 9/11 occurred nonetheless, there is a good chance that Kerry, who, unlike either Bush or Cheney, or pretty much the entire Bush War Brigade, had seen war up close and personal, would not have selected Shock and Awe as his first response.
Anti-intellectualism, as a force in American social life and politics, has been with us, pretty much, from the beginning, and judging by the regular rise of numbnuts, from the McCarthyites to the teabaggers, there is no reason to believe that we will stop trying elect Andrew Jackson any time soon. Richard Hofstadter addressed the issue of anti-intellectualism in American life way back in '63 and reading his book today you'd be surprised how little has changed. Here, for example, is a brief part of Hofstadter's definition of an intellectual, or at least his impression of the mental state of intellectualism:
"It accepts conflict as a central and enduring reality and understands human society as a form of equipoise based upon the continuing process of compromise. It shuns ultimate showdowns and looks upon the ideal of total partisan victory as unattainable... It is essentially relativist and skeptical, but at the same time circumspect and humane."
Equipoise, compromise, circumspection, and an appreciation of acting humanely.
Sound like the current conservative mindset?
Hofstadter pretty much understood that anti-intellectualism, because it grows directly from democratization, isn't going away but he's not sure it should. His argument is worth reviewing, but let's leave it at the idea that he values balance and nuance, even if the AI forces don't.
He also points out early on in the book that one of the very few eras in which intellectuals were respected and had real power came during the period of the founders. There is no way any of those guys could get elected today. But my problem is not so much the forces of anti-intellectualism, there will always be those who are skeptical of the pointy heads, and they're not always wrong. Remember the Best and the Brightest? But typically, in the past, those who were suspicious of intellectuals did not demonstrate an equal antipathy towards intelligence. That's our biggest problem today.
Okay, so you don't read Henry Adams and you don't care for academic colloquies on the social history of equal rights, or the way language shapes our ability to frame issues. I get it. But that shouldn't necessarily mean you think stupidity is the answer. It shouldn't mean that you think science is hogwash or that the earth is only 6,000 years old, or that the biggest problems facing us today are mythological creatures and gay marriage.
The problem is that many of those same anti-intellectuals, today, have married their distaste for ivory tower thinking with a taste for medieval superstition. When politicians can win on running as the biggest idiot in the bunch, we're in very bad shape indeed.
Love Gail Collins for her exposing pols' contradictions and peccadillos. but there are a lot more interesting issues that she could dig into with flavor-of-the-week Scott Walker (who, in spite of attending Marquette for almost four years, is 34 credits short of a degree, so "dropping out in his senior year" is giving him too much credit).
Like his claims that he did not know of a secret wireless router installed by a top aide, about 50 feet from his office, and which SKW used to communicate with his staff in order to avoid FOIA requests.
And his claim that he did not know about a $700,000 donation to his campaign from Gogebic, a mining company that wrote a Wisconsin's new, irresponsible mining law ( clueless or lying? You decide)
His dissolving the pardon advisory board because he doesn't believe in pardons and won't give any (Walker is an evangelical Christian).
The sickening racist emails circulated by his staff and his own derisive jokes about public employees (some national reporter is allowing Walker to call himself "midwest nice", yikes).
Not to mention his illegal arrests and ardent prosecution/persecution of a small band of singers who dare to meet in the capitol (unintimidated, he says).
Probably all of these are of a piece, ie resulting from the smalltime petty nature of the man. That's what Collins is so great at exposing, and I hope she goes after it, if we are to be subjected to more national coverage of this ambitious and unqualified jerk.
So I've been reading that The Rat is thinking of going for the cheese again. They say three times is a charm but it also establishes a pattern: of psychosis, maybe?
Not to mention the fact that if the Mittster runs a third time we're gonna have to see this guy again.
Christ! Think he'll threaten to punch out Hillary?
Tagg, Ragg, Bagg, Josh, Craig, and all the other Romney brats, plus Trigger the Wonder Horse. They'll never go away! Them and Lady (We've given you people enough!) Ann. I also read that he's shining up his Average Guy image. If you're gonna adopt a new persona, might as well make it believable, right?
Maybe we can get an update from Average Guy Mitt on how well that garage elevator is working in his seaside mansion. Inquiring minds want to know just how many Ferraris that thing can lift at once.
@Ak
See more of what guy? Oh, Tagg! Whew!
I thought you meant Eric Fehrnstrom.
(He ought be called the Biggest Loser for his inept campaign management). Remember he also helped Scott Brown...lose to two women!
JJG,
Comment lede of the week, maybe the year:
"Unrelated penis stories."
Wow. But not nearly as "wow" inducing as the story about the practice of metzitzah b’peh, which puts "oral tradition" in a new light.
When Tevye, in "Fiddler on the Roof" sings "Tradition", I never knew he was including penis sucking. I guess that goes down as a related penis story.
The older I get the more often feel I'm lost in a time warp with dim and disturbing memories of a past that never was. So it is again this AM with discussion of a Kerry presidency that didn't happen in 2005, that had it occurred might have averted a 2001 terrorist attack on the United States or an Iraq invasion in 2003.
You may take this plea as more personal than political, Marie, but clearly I do need help. Sorry, but I just don't get it.
@AK: Good read–-thanks. Learned Hand also feared that in an age of mass communication (and his mass then was nothing compared to the mass/mess we have now) society could fall under "the power of the conglomerate conscience of a mass of Babbitts, whose intelligence we do not approve and whose standards we may detest." However––he fervently believed in the democratic process––less dangerous than any other, he thought.
The circumstances Marie was forced to remind us about had to do with all that pizza palaver although I did try to make it political by mentioning the markup. Nevertheless, we here must try not to veer off on various and sundry topics not related to politics. But––just one more teensy, tiny response to @Unwashed, please: Hummer (brand)––high gluten flour–-Baking goods supplier in Plainsville.
No wet noodles, please.
And the thought of wet noodles brings to mind the Jewish ritual of sucking the blood from an infant's penis. Like safari, I feel our lexicon lengthening day by day. What wonders await us.
@Akhilleus & @PD Pepe: You all are seriously confusing me. 9/11 occurred in 2001. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan a few weeks later & went into Iraq in 2003. Kerry ran for president -- & was the Democratic nominee -- in 2004; i.e., after both invasions.
So how, exactly, would his having taken a different tack on his military & school records have kept us out of Iraq? And what would he have done to stop the 9/11 attack?
Marie
Update: I see Ken Winkes is having the same problem I am.
Ken,
You're right. My only excuse is an early morning conflation of people and times.
It most certainly wasn't Kerry, who lost to Bush prior to 9/11, but Al Gore. I was thinking of Gore but typing Kerry. Sorry. Like Kerry, Gore was a Vietnam veteran, unlike Bush, Cheney and most of his war mongers, and I think Gore represented a reasonable person who would be less likely to dismiss out of hand, reports of terrorists flying planes into buildings.
Thanks for the catch. Sometimes the brain and the fingers, they don't work so good together.
Marie,
Sorry for the confusion....see comment to Ken. Out of sync this morning.
Thank you, Marie, for pointing out the 2 related penis sucking articles. It looks to me, though, that there are way more than 2 articles on penis suckers in today's Commentariat.
Another thought on one more possible source of parisian-muslim tensions: all over Paris, in what used to be the seedy margins of the city (Clignacourt, Belleville, Montreuil, the 10th, the 12th, the 19th, the 20th), there is very rapid yuppification happening. The previous inhabitants are being driven out by the rapidly rising real estate prices. The less BCBG people are being put out. This would naturally include the predominantly muslim immigrant population.
MAG,
Fehrnstrom, aka Mr. Etch-a-Sketch, helped a lot of people to lose. In addition, he seems like a first class douchebag. According to an extensive profile of his career a couple of years ago in the HuffPost, even his friends think he's an asshole.
Starting with his days as an "ankle-biter" at then the Murdoch owned, right-wing rag, the Boston Herald, Fehrnstrom lived for the "gotchas" with no real concern for the public commonweal. His goal was always the promotion of himself.
The story includes a revealing anecdote that establishes the oil slick covered moral ground on which Fehrnstrom has built his career. While working as a muckraker for the Herald, he pursued one particular Massachusetts politician, Joe Malone, who had a history of shady deals and ethical problems, many of which Fehrnstrom had gleefully depicted in print. When Malone decided to run for governor, Fehrnstrom approached him with a deal. He had a chance to quit the Herald and take a buyout being offered many reporters, and would do so if Malone hired him. In other words, hire me and I won't continue to dog you.
Malone described it as a "good opportunity". Looks to me like a form of blackmail. Not to mention the fact that Fehrnstrom had no problem working for a guy who had well documented ethical gaps, as long as he made money off the deal. This is the guy Romney hired to put him in charge of America.
The article also includes a looooong laundry lists of pols, in addition to Romeny, who lost badly with Fehrnstrom's help.
A prick anyway you slice it.
I guess that makes this an "unrelated penis story".
Ak
Unrelated penis story? Not so, thought we were talking about a dick!
@AK, you're killing me, oral tradition indeed. How about "members of Congress"? Blood suckers, yea. C$&ksuckers? Without a doubt. Sorry Marie
Pertaining to today's most popular topic I was shocked about this (un)Orthodox practice when I first read about it a few months back. It never fails to amaze me what some people do for religious purposes in their god's name. What is it about fundamentalists that makes them to want to continue to live in the past and refuse to want to step into the modern world, whether they be Christian, Jewish or Muslim? Just by definition of the word fundamental? At least the Jewish fundamentalists aren't chopping off peoples heads. Well, maybe just a small piece of the little one.
I've wondered, too, why CW continues to use headings such as the "Annals" of this and that given the nature of the articles linked under those rubrics. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to drop one of the ens?
(thanks PD)
Unwashed,
I would say that most fundamentalists are pretty conservative types, in which case a tradition that invokes both homosexuality AND pedophilia seems a bit off the charts, but you never know when it comes to religion. Who even came up with that? Can you imagine a bunch of guys a few thousand years ago sitting around reading the Torah and saying, "Hey, dudes, you know what's not in here that would be cool? Baby penis sucking."
In India they chuck babies off high towers, you know, for good luck. As in "Good luck with that landing, kiddo". Mormons have magic underwear and baptize dead people, even people who aren't Mormon. I recall reading that the relatives of some Jews who were killed in the Holocaust found out that they were being baptized as Mormons and weren't too happy about it. Maybe if they got some magic underwear in the mail they'd feel better? I know I would. Talk about an icebreaker. "Bet you don't know what I'm wearing under my clothes." Ah...okay, maybe not a good icebreaker.
Some sects in China chop up the bodies of the dead and scatter the parts around. A tad ghoulish for my tastes, but then again, so are open casket wakes. "Is that mom? Why is her face orange? What happened to her hair?"
Catholics who have undergone Confirmation remember being given a little slap during the ritual (I got a bit more than that; I think Fr. Murphy had been into the Jamesons that day) to remind them of their duties as a soldier of Christ. Or something. I don't know when that started but it's possible that in the past, confirmation candidates were smacked with a 2X4.
Still and all, baby penis sucking is right up there. You think it might show up on Jeopardy sometime? I'll take "Weird Religious Shit" for $1,000, Alex.
Yesterday I had a dead man be on hand for questioning at a current congressional hearing; today I confused Kerry's run for president when it was actually Gore. I can only plead a muffled brain with too many characters and too much history––or maybe I am literally losing it. We'll see, won't we.
I’ve never watched these things and I’ve never been convinced anyone whose job description omitted them did either. But The Hill thinks it newsworthy.
“Freshman Sen. Joni Ernst (Iowa) will deliver the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union address next week.
“Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced the news at a joint press conference with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) during the GOP retreat at the Hershey Lodge.”
Said Ernst: “I am truly humbled and honored to have this opportunity to deliver the Republican address. It is a long way from Red Oak to Washington, DC.”
Be still my heart, said me.
James,
Yeah, I heard that Joni Ernst will be delivering (is that right word, or should it be lobbing?) the GOP rebuttal to the SOTU.
What does it say about a national party that insists that its aspirations to seriousness and competent management be taken seriously but which hands the grave responsibility for its response to a major address by the President of the United States to someone who hasn't been in the Senate long enough to know in which direction to go when leaving her office for the ladies room, an extreme, gun-toting harpy, who keeps her guns handy to assassinate government employees, who makes Michele Bachmann look like a Rhodes Scholar?
I guess the GOP feels the need to signal its appreciation for their low IQ voters (and by this I mean voters who watch Fox, meaning pretty much all of them), and that they take seriously the mewlings of someone for whom guns, Jesus, ignorance, disgust with poor people, belief in the necessity of murdering government employees, total ignorance of the constitution ("states can ignore federal law"), facts ("Iraq HAD weapons of mass destruction!!!!") and a robotic, unquestioning attitude regarding brain bending conspiracy theories (the UN wants to steal all US property rights), by allowing an alarmingly obtuse donkey, but one who appeals to those who believe that smart people are dangerous, to deliver the response to a presidential address to the nation.
Granted, their last few responders have been sadly inept, their addresses still racking up hits on comedy websites, but the GOP has now pinned their hopes on someone who believes in fairy tales and crass ignorance.
Can this party become any more irrelevant or unreliable?
Maybe she'll give a castration demonstration after she stops yapping. The 'baggers will lose their shit.
AK: This is from my imperfect memory so it's likely a bit off. During an interview by Charlie Pierce Ernst said something about an ebola epidemic [Obama's fault] occurring in the USofA at that very moment.
Pierce reminded her that there was only one case of ebola at that moment in the US.
"That's your opinion," she said.
Ak,
My thoughts exactly. I couldn't decide though if she'd use her special castratin' knife or her teeth as a true Orthodox Iowan.
Another take on it by Pierce.