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Congress Was Right To Overturn Obama's Veto

President Obama had vetoed a bill passed by Congress that allows U.S. citizens who are victims of state sponsored terrorism to sue the governments who sponsor that terrorism in U.S. courts. This has sparked some outrage overseas even as it gives families of 9/11 victims some shot at holding the Saudi Royal family accountable in U.S. courts, if the families can prove their case (and if they get that far). Obama opposed the law on the grounds of sovereign immunity, which generally immunizes recognized states from civil lawsuits or criminal prosecution.

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Michael Maiello's picture

A Great Day In Dag History

On September 17th of 1981 the greatest of all time, the Nature Boy Ric Flair, put hard times on rival Dusty Rhodes, to win his first world heavyweight wrestling championships.  He is now (sadly) retired but his 16 world championship reigns remain a record, destined to be matched or exceeded by (shudder) John Cena.

Well, here it was, his first belt:

Michael Maiello's picture

The Doubts of Hazard

Today, Richard Cohen visits Hazard, Kentucky to profile Trump supporters.  The long and short of it seems to be that eight years of Obama's Environmental Protection Agency pushing the country away from coal asn an energy source has destroyed Eastern Kentucky's economy.  No doubt that, along with low oil and natural gas prices, have taken their toll on the region.

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Stop Hating on the Clinton Foundation

On a slow news Friday in August both Slate and New York ran thumb suckers calling on the Clintons to shut down their foundation.  This is in response to a Clinton promise that the foundation would take no foreign donations during a Clinton presidency. Look, I get it.

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Michael Maiello's picture

Would You vote for Ted Cruz to Keep Sean Penn out of the White House?

Slate has run with a thought experiment that serves as a kind of counter to calls by people like President Obama for Republicans to repudiate their own nominee, for the good of the country.  The idea here is that if populist Democrats had somehow handed the nomination to somebody like Sean Penn, people left of center would not take kindly to being told to vote for Ted Cruz in the name of apple pie and American values.

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Michael Maiello's picture

Tim Kaine Freak Out Thread

Please reserve space in the comments below for Hal to make fun of me if Hillary Clinton picks Tim Kaine as her running mate this afternoon.

The rest of you do not have to wait, though, and can make fun of me now.

Happy Friday!

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Michael Maiello's picture

Fetch The Smelling Salts, RBG Violated a Norm!

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued some mildly opinionated statements questioning Donald Trump's fitness to be president and now the idiot wing of lefty America has stirred to admonish her for... saying what any reasonable person would expect her to believe about Donal Trump any way.

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Michael Maiello's picture

The Spirit of 68

You don't need me to recount the week of police-violence and resulant lone wolf terrorism, so let's just stipulate that you all read and watch the news.  In New York Magazine, Johnathan Chait assures us "It Is Not 1968." It's a well done essay but somehow when Chait says something declarative, I suspect it just isn't entirely true.

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Michael Maiello's picture

Brexit is Good

Quick thought here --

On the merits, were I a UK citizen, I believe I'd have voted to stay with the EU.

However, that would have been in spite of a lot of preaching and hectoring by the elites who brought the Uk into the EU in the first place.  As an outsider, I kind of hoped for an "exit" outcome if only to see, for once, a referendum pushing back against what we've all been assured is "the right thing to do," by people who seem immune to the falling wages and abdications of democracy that seem the result of the new capitalist global order.

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Personal Information

Website
http://www.dagblog.com
Superpowers

Figure Four Leglock.

Favorite Quotes

Jet flyin, limo ridin, kiss stealin, wheelin, dealing, son of a gun!

Biography

Michael Maiello (also known as "Destor23") is a New York based columnist, performer, fiction author and playwright. He is the author of Shuts & Failures, Rejected New Yorker Pieces (Also Rejected by McSweeney's!). He worked for ten years at Forbes Media, writing and editing for both Forbes Magazine and Forbes.com and also appeared frequently on CNBC, Fox News, Fox Business News, CNN and MSNBC.  He is also the author of the 2004 book Buy The Rumor, Sell The Fact: 85 Wall Street Maxims and What They Really Mean. He has performed stand up comedy at The Laugh Factory, The Comic Strip and the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Mama D's Arts Bordello and The Lost and Found Show. He has had four plays published (Night of Faith and Waiting For Death by Playscripts.com; Principia and Troy! Troy! Troy!by The New York Theatre Experience/indiethieatrenow). He has written for Rolling Stone, The Daily, Reuters, Esquire, McSweeney's the Liar's League reading series and theNewerYork.

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