Monthly Archives
February of 2013

Like a Dog With a Crazy Bone

Today, on NBC’s Meet the Press, our old buddy John McCain responded to a simple question about Benghazi with a bizarre non-sequitor attack on host Dick Gregory. The host wanted to know what McCain actually thought the administration had covered up about the attacks on Benghazi. Rather than answer the question, he deflected it by accusing Gregory of not caring about the four people. It was the sort of petulant non-answer you would expect from someone who doesn’t have an answer.

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Quacking Like a Duck

Today the United States Senate broke with 200+ years of tradition, and not in a good way. By a vote of 40 to 58, they failed to invoke cloture in the nomination of Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense. That’s fancy Senate-speak for not being able to force an up and down vote on the nomination. Cloture votes typically occur when Senate is trying to overcome a filibuster by the minority. According to Senator Graham, this wasn’t really a filibuster, just a delay.

Looks like, quacks like, you know the rest.

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Holy Metaphorical Overkill, Lawrence!

I like Lawrence O’Donnell, a polished combination of eloquence and passionate pugnacity. Since the Sandy Hook tragedy, however, he more than any other host at MSNBC has allowed his rhetoric to get a little overheated when discussing the National Rifle Association. Even as a member of that group, I confess that I have little use for it and will probably let my membership lapse if it hasn’t already. If it’s not going to represent the views of 80% of its members, than the NRA doesn’t offer anything you can’t get from the Auto Club, namely hotel discounts.

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Agua fría, por favor

With whom do you think Marco Rubio should be more angry?

  • The guy who forgot to remind him to hydrate before the speech?
  • The guy who simply pulled one of Mitt Romney’s old stump speeches out of his ass rather than writing an actual response to the State of the Union Address?

I’m afraid both of those people are probably named Marco Rubio. If that’s the best he can do, he won’t be spending much time in Iowa and New Hampshire in early 2016.

The “Old White Douchebag” Effect

Bob Welch, a lobbyist for the Wisconsin chapter of the National Rifle Association, has assured his minions that the “Connecticut Effect” of 20 dead first-graders and six dead teachers will blow over quickly and then it will be business as usual. Continue reading

Lindsey Graham’s Benghazi Obsession

Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, and John McCain of Arizona, are the Senate’s “Three Stooges” on the subject of the fatal attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya on September 11 of last year. They keep picking at a scab and pretending it’s an open wound, insisting that some very answered questions about that day remain unanswered. Continue reading

Does Rick Santorum Know He’s an Embarrassment?

With 20/20 hindsight, it is easy to see that Mitt Romney was, if not unelectable, fighting an uphill battle. In a year when the incumbent was supposedly politically weak and vulnerable, the best option the GOP had was not much of an option at all. Romney looked vaguely presidential, if you squinted hard enough, but his chief asset seemed to be that he was not Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachman, or Rick Santorum. The primary selling point of the others had been that they weren’t Mitt Romney. That fact alone throws the Republicans’ current problems into sharp relief.

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Reaper

(Don’t) Send in the Drones

The Justice Department is releasing to Congress a memo detailing the administration’s legal justification for what we normally call the “drone program.” The real issue is whether or not the Executive Branch has the legal authority to order the killing of a terror suspect, especially if that terror suspect is an American citizen. Whether or not the killing is done via a Predator or Reaper drone, or by Seal Team Six kicking down someone’s door is a side issue.

To kill Americans fighting for an enemy during a time of war is not controversial. German-Americans occasionally wound up fighting for the Wehrmacht during WWII, and some of them never came home. If you wear the uniform of the other side during a hot war, that can happen. For some reason, however, people have a problem with targeting American citizens, who have admittedly made the irrational decision to join al Qaeda, in places that are not currently war zones (i.e. not in Afghanistan), all without the usual safeguards in place to prevent state power from being used arbitrarily.

Normally, before the government can end someone’s life, there is a little thing known as due process. Continue reading

Pat Robertson: Marketing Department Emeritus

Rev. Pat Robertson has reached a stage in life where, if I were at that position, I’d hope my family would ask me to stay upstairs when company is over. You can’t blame everything he says on advancing age, because he’s always been slightly nutty. Even as a middle-aged buffoon, he was predicting that Disney Gay Days would increase the ferocity of hurricanes striking Florida.

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