The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Donal's picture

    Obama attends DC Auto Show (before me)


     
    I stopped by Light Street Cycles today to buy a brighter taillight. The weather's been so unseasonably warm that I'm riding to the light rail, but it's really dark in the morning. The owner showed me all sorts of rechargeable blinkies, and I bought a Knog Boomer. I also signed a petition to complain about building a new street with no bike lanes right next to two college campuses, UMB & MICA. Then I told the owner that I was planning on visiting the Washington Auto Show tomorrow, and being a bike person, she looked puzzled. When I told her I wanted to see the Leaf, she seemed satisfied.
    Michael Wolraich's picture

    Lies My Pastor Told Me

    The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission (CADC) is a not-for-profit 501(c) (3) Education Corporation whose purpose it is to become the first-in-mind champion of Christian religious liberty, domestically and internationally, and a national clearing house and first line of response to anti-Christian defamation, bigotry, and discrimination.

    As America slides down the slippery slope into secular abyss, Christianity itself has come under attack. Nowhere is the assault on religious liberty more ruthless than in our schools. Just last month, a malicious little atheist forced a Rhode Island high school to remove its students' inspirational prayer from the wall of the gymnasium.

    But one brave man refuses to stand by as the secular state annihilates our childrens' religious liberties. Rev. Gary L. Cass, president of the celebrated Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, has recently launched a new organization called DefendStudents.org, which is dedicated to defending religious liberty in our schools.

    Michael Wolraich's picture

    Panetta: Iran to Enter "Immunity Zone"; Israeli Attack Imminent

    When will the Israelis attack? That's what the world has wondered ever since 1984, when an anonymous source predicted that Iran would develop a nuclear bomb within two years.

    Twenty-eight years later, Israeli may have finally set a date for its long-awaited assault according to United States Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

    Panetta reportedly told David Ignatius of the Washington Post that Israel is likely to strike Iran sometime in April, May, or June of this year.

    According to Panetta, the Israelis believe that Iran will soon enter what they call the "zone of immunity," which sounds like either a science fiction episode or a game of tag. Soon after the Post reported Panetta's remarks, the Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak confirmed that the Israelis were very concerned about Iran's imminent arrival in the Immunity Zone.

    But the report raises an intriguing question:

    Why did Leon Panetta announce the schedule for Israeli's surprise attack?

    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    The GOP's Drunk-Dad Primary

    There's been a lot of punditty chatter about what the Romney vs. Gingrich struggles means: insiders vs. outsiders, establishment vs. Tea Party, elite vs. non-elite, whatever. But listening to that clip of Gingrich attacking John King, listening the open, undiluted pleasure that Gingrich takes in his own rage, made it clear to me what this is really about. The Republican primary voters are electing their political family a new Drunk Dad. And they want to be sure they get the right kind.

     

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    Ramona's picture

    FRIDAY FOLLIES: Orly Taitz to Gabby Giffords: From the Ridiculous to the Sublime

     

    When the whole SOPA/PIPA blackout was going on, most of us, like the sheeple we are, just grabbed something someone else did and closed up shop,  but The Oatmeal, like the creative peeple they are, got creative.  You can see it here.

    Carlsberg Beer, like the creative peeple they are, (I didn't know that about Carlsberg, did you?) pulled a stunt involving tattooed bikers in a movie theater.  You can watch it here.

    Michael Wolraich's picture

    What's the Matter With Mormons?

    Last week, blogger MuddyPolitics wrote a piece that took a swipe at Mitt Romney for his Mormon faith. The article provoked a passionate debate, one that is likely being repeated in various forms across the country this election season.

    The question is this: Should we consider Romney's religious beliefs when assessing his fitness for the presidency?

    Michael Maiello's picture

    America's People Can't Have Jobs Because They're People

    Today, in my purely masochistic Thomas Friedman reading ritual, I followed a link to a long (and well written) article called "Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class," that I recommend to you because of the truth that it quietly reveals:

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    Ramona's picture

    Out with the Good and In with the Bad: It's Just So Yesterday

     

    Here it is nearing the end of January and at long last, after 17 Republican debates--count 'em, 17!--we're down to two actual contenders and a couple of valiant bench-warmers. While Ron Paul and Rick Santorum work hard to make some headway, it looks like it's Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, neck and neck, fighting it out for a chance to clobber the current White House occupant and show this country what a real president looks like.
     

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    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    Gingrich and "Protecting Barack Obama"

    So, Newt Gingrich is getting all kinds of media love after blasting the media in Thursday's debate, and saying that he's "tired of the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans," for example by reporting on things that Republicans running for President have actually said and done. I mean, the "elite media" hasn't fact-checked anything Barack Obama has said in a Presidential debate since before he was elected!

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    Ramona's picture

    It's Our Anniversary, Barack's and Mine. I Hope it's not our Last

     

     January 20, 2012.  Today marks the beginning of Barack Obama's fourth year as president.  Three years ago today he stood out in the cold and said, "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of remaking America."  He promised "an open government" and "a new beginning."   I've been around for many televised inaugurations, starting with JFK's when I was but a mere child/adult and, for me, this one equaled or migh

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    Michael Wolraich's picture

    The Capitalist and the Zombie: Romney's Threat to the GOP

    A number of Republican presidential hopefuls and not so hopefuls have attacked Mitt Romney as a heartless capitalist who destroyed jobs while a partner at Bain Capital. Newt Gingrich compared Romney to a looter. Rick Perry called him a vulture. Jon Huntsman suggested that Romney likes firing people.

    The anti-Romney offensive has raised the ire of many Republican leaders, who have condemned the charges as disrespectful to heartless capitalism. Their concern is understandable. Heartless capitalism is the very soul of Republican Party. Without it, the party would resemble some toothless decomposing zombie that blunders haplessly into disgusted voters while gurgling about taking back the country.

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    Keystone Extra Large

    It's a great life. You risk your skin catching killers and the juries turn them loose so they can come back and shoot at you again. If you're honest you're poor your whole life and in the end you wind up dying all alone on some dirty street. For what? For nothing. For a tin star.

    Lon Chaney, Jr., asking Marshal Will Kane played by Gary Cooper why he goes out into the street to get shot at. High Noon.

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    Michael Maiello's picture

    Fascism!

    Recently, a new blogger here by the name of Iron Bolt Bruce has posted a couple of provocative pieces about the rise of fascism in America.  He's twice traced a timeline, of sorts, describing the evolution of various security legislation, ending at a proposal to strip suspected domestic terrorists of their rights of citizenship.

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    William K. Wolfrum's picture

    Mitt Romney is just not very good at this

    If there’s one thing that’s glaringly apparent in the GOP nomination process, it’s this – Mitt Romney is just not a very good candidate for office.

    It shouldn’t be this way. Romney is very intelligent, attractive to the point it almost appears he was assembled by a crack team of human designers, and well spoken. Add to that the fact that he can afford the best campaign advisors money can by, and he truly should be a juggernaut of a candidate.

    But here’s Romney’s flaw in a nutshell – he is unwilling and unable to own up to who he is and what he has done.

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    Ramona's picture

    Georgetown

     
    Boston-based Bain Capital LLC more than doubled its money on GS Industries Inc. – the former parent company of Georgetown Steel – under Mitt Romney’s leadership in the 1990s, even as the steel manufacturer went on to cut more than 1,750 jobs, shuttered a division that had been around for 100 years and eventually sank into bankruptcy.
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    Michael Wolraich's picture

    Class Over Race: The New Old Progressive Agenda

    In the beginning, racial equality was not a progressive ideal. Early progressives rarely paid much attention to persecuted minorities such as blacks, Jews, American Indians, or Irish and Chinese immigrants. They focused instead on defending an oppressed majority--farmers and workers--from a predatory minority--industry titans and bankers.

    When progressives in the early 20th century did address minority rights, their positions tended to reflect party affiliation rather than progressive ideology. In those days, race politics split at the party line with Republicans supporting racial equality and Democrats opposing. Class politics, on the other hand, produced internal divisions within each party.

    As a result, Republican progressives tended to be concerned about racial oppression, while Democratic progressives ignored or even condoned it. When the moderately progressive Republican president Teddy Roosevelt shocked the nation by inviting Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House, William Jennings Bryan, a radically progressive Democrat, publicly denounced him.

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    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    Why Tenure Exists, Part 1

    Zandar, at Balloon Juice, points out that Missouri's new Creationism-in-the-schools bill, HB 1227, applies not only to K-12 schools but to the state's public colleges and universities as well. According to the bill,

    Michael Maiello's picture

    Idiocy and Ratings Agencies

    In August, Standard & Poor's downgraded U.S. Treasury debt, judging our political system broken enough to create some miniscule risk of default, whereas their previous rating judged our political system a smidgen competent enough to likely avoid a miniscule risk of default.

    Bondholders knew that S&P was all wet and bid up the prices of Treasuries so long as stocks looked risky.  That's what happens when you're a sovereign that controls your own currency and controls a currency that the world uses as it's reserve.

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