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

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Michael Maiello's picture

Why Is Romney Being Taken Seriously on Libya?

Mitt Romney keeps swinging and missing on the Libya issue, but it doesn't seem like anyone in the media is telling the Republican nominee to move on.  The attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi is still being treated by the mainstream as some sort of Obama administration failure.

Yet, the complaints seem very picayune in the context of Libya's recent history.

Romney's first complaint, issued nearly as the attack was underway, was that the Obama administration had signaled weakness by "apologizing" for an anti-Muslim Youtube video.

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Michael Maiello's picture

The Panditocracy

I think that most of us Americans who work for others worry about keeping our jobs.  Today, the board of directors of Citigroup has reached an agreement for Vikram Pandit to leave the board and step down as chief executive.  Pandit was the successor CEO to Charles Prince, who followed the legendary Sanford Weill.

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Michael Maiello's picture

Maureen Dowd Gets Paid For This?

"President Obama likes to be alone," is the lede of Maureen Dowd's column today.  What follows is a completely plausible sounding, totally BS 800 words that I just can't help but excise and comment on, bit by bit.

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Michael Maiello's picture

Romneybot, Transform!

Mitt Romney, Mormon Meets The Eye

Mitt Romney, Centrist in Disguise!

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Michael Maiello's picture

President Do-Over

This is hardly a deep observation and it's certainly not very complicated, but a good chunk of Mitt Romney's argument for his candidacy is that he will undo and then redo the major legislation of the Obama administration.

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Michael Maiello's picture

When Will Our Leaders Ask Us To Sacrifice?

I didn't know that there were journalists out there who haven't read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas where our hero, high on extract from the human adrenal gland, is confronted with the mocking visage of Richard Nixon on the television urging "Sacrifice.  Sacfrifce.  Sacrifice."  But, Frank Bruni seems to have missed it.  When, he wants to know, will our leaders come clean with the American people and demand of them the sacrifices necessary for us to move forward?

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Michael Maiello's picture

Hi, We're Going To Offend You

In his speech at the United Nations, President Obama did not apologize for the B movie that may or may not have sparked riots throughout the Middle East.  And, of course, the President owes no apologies.  We're a classically liberal democratic republic.  That means that we allow our citizens to be stupid, to be rude and even to be hateful.

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Michael Maiello's picture

Bernanke is Easy

Yesterday, the Federal Open Markets Committee decided, under the guidance of chairman Ben Bernanke, to engage in a new round of quantitative easing (open market purchases of mortgage backed securities at a rate of $40 billion per month for as long as necessary) and also promised to keep interest rates at extraordinarily low levels through 2015.  I'd remind people, by the way, that the Fed could hike rates 200 basis points and still claim to be at historically very low levels (we'd be just over 2 percent).

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Michael Maiello's picture

Troy! Troy! Troy!

Friends,

 

My latest full length play was published by the Web site Indie Theatre Now.  If you've ever been curious about that part of my work, this is something you can read for free.

It's the tale of the Trojan War, rewritten from the perspective of the Iraq War (the Greek army invades Troy, finds out that Helen was never year, and gets into a costly occupation).

I wrote it for this crowd.

http://www.indietheaternow.com/Play/PlayDetail/546

-Destor23

Michael Maiello's picture

But, Log Cabin Republicans Are Uncle Toms!

The Internet is great, in part, because it reminds you that some of the old arguing rules from high school are useful in real life.  If I call you Hitler for disagreeing with me, I am wrong.  Because you are really Pol Pot.

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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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