The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    The Republican Flip may take several days to Flop

    By Flavius on Fri, 12/23/2011 - 5:12am |

    Here's how Talking Points Memo described it

    Boehner ……………………………………………… said the goal is to pass the new bill by unanimous consent on Friday morning. That means if even a single recalcitrant Republican objects to his plan, the chaos will drag on…………………...

    At a press conference………………………………. Boehner admitted he has no assurances that the unanimous consent request will fly but ……………… vowed to force them to take an up-or-down vote on the issue next week if they cause any trouble.

    tmccarthy0's picture

    A Newt Burns White Hot

    By tmccarthy0 on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 10:21pm |

    The White Hot rise of Newt Gingrich in the polls was unexpected for sure. Who'd thunk it, the biggest demagogue to inhabit a congressional seat since Sen. Joe (no relation to me) McCarthy, but  Newt the master manipulator has burned out quickly and without a major mistake! Who'd a thunk that? Not me for sure, having witnessed his man flame outs in the past.  What hurts Newt the most, is himself!

    jollyroger's picture

    #Going for the jugular: State of the Union, Prez:"I'm calling out the dirty dozen"

    By jollyroger on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 7:50pm |

    I have been disappointed before by my extravagant fantasies about the way in which Prez could capitalize upon the face to face forum that is the State of the Union speech.

     

    tmccarthy0's picture

    Republicans Cave Under the Weight of their Own Glorified Ego's

    By tmccarthy0 on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 5:37pm |

    Poor Orange Boehner, he must have whiplash by now! First House Republicans say fine we will pass the payroll tax holiday. But once that word came down from the leadership, TBags and other Rockwell/Rothbard Libertarian goofballs then quickly took The Orange Boehner to the shower and sprayed off his newest tan.

    Romney: The Dog Ate My Tax Returns

    By NCD on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 4:41pm |

    Just trust Mitt on this, he really really really pays taxes. Lots of taxes. He would show you his tax returns, but he isn't, trust him. Maybe the dog did eat them, they might have fallen into the Alpo bowl, or maybe the dog got real hungry.

    Jeni Decker's picture

    M*therfucking Snakes on a Bunch of M*therfucking Planes

    By Jeni Decker on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 9:31am |

     

    It’s that time of year…

    The time of year when people travel back home for the holidays to share a little eggnog with their dysfunctional Aunt Jezebel, who smells like mothballs and whose lipstick perpetually runs into the cracks of her aged, two-pack-a-day lips.

    My Fellow American-TLC All-American Muslim

    By My Fellow American on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 6:19am |

    As you may have recently seen in the news outlets, Lowe's Home Improvement recently pulled its ads from the TLC show All-American Muslim in response to an organization claiming the show "falsely humanized Muslims in America.” This controversy has exposed more Islamophobia in America which falls directly in line with what the My Fellow American project is trying to prevent and overcome in America.

    jollyroger's picture

    Ron Paul: "I didn't write the newsletters. I don't hold those views" I'm starting to really like this guy...

    By jollyroger on Wed, 12/21/2011 - 2:20am |

    Jacked directly up by Sean Hannity after the most recent debates, Ron Paul flat out repudiates the disgusting racist crap published in his eponymous newsletter some time ago.

    I'm inclined to take him at his word--He could, after all, only have two acceptable responses:

    To repudiate, and deny authorship

    To repudiate and confess authorship.

    Elusive Trope's picture

    An Open Convention In Tampa - Maybe

    By Elusive Trope on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 10:42am |

    Let's face it, winning Iowa isn't that big of a deal.  And it is a big deal.  For the GOP this time around. 

    The House votes today on the payroll tax cut etc

    By Flavius on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 8:39am |

    TPM describes the process. Essentially it will dodge the Senate bill by resolution to go to conference. Reid has said he won't  but I think he'll have to swallow his pride. Otherwise the democrats will have the blame on Jan 2 when

    - the payroll tax reduction ends

    - unemployment compensation is cut

    - Medicare is crippled by imposition of a 30% cut in physicians pay—which will cause the docs to withdraw services.

    When/if those things happen, it shouldn't be because Reid refused to call some senators back to negotiate.  

    Richard Day's picture

    WHY DAGBLOG NEVER GIVES ME WHAT I DESERVE! AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF FREE SPEECH IN 2011.

    By Richard Day on Mon, 12/19/2011 - 5:52pm |

     

    Okay, the problem may lie in the fact that I do not deserve that much.

    I admit that three wives would agree in that assessment!

    And of course, there is a value judgment with regard to what the word 'deserve' AND WHAT it means.

    I probably deserve a death sentence, depending upon the judicial context.

    But I swear I shot those guys in Reno for a reason!

    Okie dokie.

    Elusive Trope's picture

    And then There was Vaclav Havel

    By Elusive Trope on Mon, 12/19/2011 - 11:19am |

    There was the passing of Hitchens and Jobs and The Supreme Leader.  And also Vaclav Havel.  I went to the front pages of Huffington Post and The Daily Beast, and except for one opinion piece at the Huff, you wouldn't know that he had passed away.

    The opinion piece by Lucas Kavner began:

    Some static ideas about upward mobility

    By Oxy Mora on Sun, 12/18/2011 - 1:12pm |

    No one can predict what impact the OWS movement ultimately will have on our society and our politics but the irrepressible tangible result is that the top 1% of income earners has been objectified---the result of which has been to put questions of equality into the headlines of our political debate. 

    Re-framing the political debate has alarmed chief word polluter Frank Luntz who is now advising Republicans to say "they get" OWS but then essentially ignore it while searching for synonyms for the word "capitalism"---and, as always, blaming everything on big government.

    jollyroger's picture

    #Occupy South Park...Cartman and Lieutenant Pike, separated at birth

    By jollyroger on Sun, 12/18/2011 - 4:50am |

    www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s09e02-die-hippie-die

     

    Before Zucotti, there was South Park...

     

    (Were you bitten?? Did you eat their brownies??  DID YOU EAT THEIR BROWNIES???!")

     

    Elusive Trope's picture

    Get Off My Damn Lawn Capitalism

    By Elusive Trope on Sat, 12/17/2011 - 3:28pm |

    I told my mother-in-law that my house was her house, and she said, "Get the hell off my property."  ~Joan Rivers

    If history could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization.  ~Ludwig von Mises

    Personally I don't own a house.  No landed estate for this trope.  And I don't see that changing any time soon, if ever.  Maybe someday through inheritance if I am able to conduct a successful take-down drag-down metaphorically bloody battle with my siblings.  Actually there is a level of high anxiety that comes from the thought of owning property, but that is another story.  Dan K's recent blog Capitalism got me thinking not only about towards what economic forms and system we should aspire, but also about our current paradigms that tend to hold in place or facilitate the growth of the current system in all of its many manifestations.

    The one dollar message, slightly framed: introducing GeorgeGives.org!

    By erica20 on Fri, 12/16/2011 - 9:28pm |

    Dan K's "one dollar message" made me decide to get back in the saddle on a crazy idea which has been languishing in internet limbo for a couple of years now.

    Dagbloggers, I bring you "GeorgeGives.org" in which we write messages on dollars, give them to homeless people (or anyone you think needs a dollar, if you're not into giving money to homeless people) and keep track of what happens to the money by recording the serial numbers as the bills move around the country. 

    Richard Day's picture

    WHO CUT THE CHEESE?

    By Richard Day on Thu, 12/15/2011 - 4:03pm |

    WHO FARTED?
     

    What they’ll find, he said, is exactly what voters here are hungry for.

    That Girl speaks the word.

    By Oxy Mora on Thu, 12/15/2011 - 11:38am |

     

    They all lived over near Justin's pass,

    the center of gravity for throw-backs,

    rebounders from God-less frontiers,

    a trove of Aryan-migration enders. 

     

    Inside a cabin in an Appalachian hollow

    the little girl was hidden from others;

    Joke , Polite applause pemitted at conclusion

    By Flavius on Mon, 12/12/2011 - 11:35pm |

                                                                                                              

    The war wasn’t going well so the Government drafted famous Surgeon X for duty as a front line medic. Even though what he was famous for was doing heart transplants. The litter bearers brought in a wounded patient. He’d stepped on a mine and his left leg was mangled, bleeding heavily.

     

    Surgeon X

    Nurse, prepare for a heart transplant

     

    Nurse

    coatesd's picture

    Calling Progressive Economists into the Public Square

    By coatesd on Mon, 12/12/2011 - 7:55am |

    “At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress” (Theodore Roosevelt, 1910)[1]

    Economists are the new public intellectuals of the age. In more prosperous times, they rarely enjoy that status or play that role. Economics is, after all, a dismal science. In good times, issues linked to the production of new wealth invariably take a back seat to those triggered by the consumption of wealth already in existence. Prosperity brings into view the expertise of the more hedonistic social sciences: psychology, sociology, marketing and the like. It pushes economics aside.  But in the immediate wake of the Great Recession, with unemployment unacceptably high and the welfare state now under serious assault on both sides of the Atlantic, the views of economists are currently everywhere – particularly the views of conservative economists prepared to link unemployment to welfare itself. These are troubled times and we are in danger, if we are not careful, of slipping into a mindset that gives those conservative views a credibility that the nature of economics as a discipline ought properly to preclude.

    CIQ, FOSS, Speech

    By nothere on Sun, 12/11/2011 - 11:32am |

    Over here KGB999 talks about the CIQ issue. I just noticed that the day  after his post that the Software Freedom Law Center submitted comments "...to the U.S. Copyright Office proposing an exemption from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention provisions."

    Elusive Trope's picture

    Caucus Anxiety

    By Elusive Trope on Sat, 12/10/2011 - 4:07pm |

    While looking up some information in order to respond to some thread comment, I came across the news that Washington State has suspended it 2012 primary elections as cost saving measure ($10 million savings). 

    The Pacific Northwest state will rely on a precinct caucus-convention system, used by Iowa for nominating national convention delegates, the Washington Secretary of State's office said.

    With what may be something from the Department of Too Much Information, I have recently had to start a new regiment of prescribe pharmaceuticals (better living through chemistry) to deal with, among other things, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).  Being the one to ponder political phenomenon among other things (with no assertion as to the quality of those ponderings), this has me thinking about the impact of anxiety on the political environment, and specifically on participation in such events as precinct caucus system.

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