Category Archives: Political Commentary

Political Commentary

They Should

4 Comments

Dems fear Republican oversight:

I asked Issa’s staff for a list of the issues on which Issa has spent the most time in the 18 months Obama has been in office. First is mortgage giant Countrywide’s favoritism in granting sweetheart loans to lawmakers, congressional staffers and executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Second is the Securities and Exchange Commission’s civil case against Goldman Sachs. Third is the Obama administration’s response to the Gulf oil spill. Fourth is the administration’s handling of the Home Affordable Modification Program, which is supposed to help struggling mortgage holders keep their homes. And fifth is the Treasury Department’s management of TARP money for the so-called “hardest hit” housing markets.

And that doesn’t even mention the lawlessness at the Justice Department.

Humor, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Matt Labash

14 Comments

…doesn’t seem to fear having his…whatever shoved through a plate-glass window. His thoughts on Mr. Ackerman:

From his hermetically sealed masturbatorium, he can…rhetorically threaten people who have soft hands and who type about politics for a living, but who could still pound the Bad Brains out of him (punk reference!) if they ever came face to face, even if it devolved into a girls-school windmill slap-fight, which it probably would. Though they won’t come face-to-face, of course, because being a tough-guy Washington blogger is a bit like being a phone-sex operator: you can pretend you’re sexy, even when you’re wearing a ratty terry cloth robe, hot curlers, and bunny slippers. Just like as a tough guy blogger, you can pretend on the outside that you want to crease the skull of Frank Foer with a baseball bat or annihilate Ryan Lizza in front of his toddler, while on the inside, you’re a moony-eyed trembling fanboy who writes unicorn-and-silly-bandz sentences such as “Yes we did!” when your swain wins an election. Which is sooo not punk rock. But that’s where the Black Flag t-shirt comes in. It’s a symbol. And what it symbolizes is that Hackerman is a dangerous man, not to be trifled with, since Black Flag was an ur-punk band whose former lead singer, Henry Rollins, was a genuine American badass, the Attackerman of his day. You could tell this, because he swore a lot, and wore tight black t-shirts. Even now, screwing with Rollins is like making a death wish. There’s no telling what that muscled wall of menace might do. He might write a really bitchy spoken-word piece about you, then release it as a podcast.

There’s a lot more where that came from. I wouldn’t want to be these “progressive” dweebs. Of course, I would have never wanted to.

[Via Treacher]

Quake in your boots.

Political Commentary

Did I Call It, Or What?

2 Comments

I just ran across this old post of mine from two and a half years ago:

I’m reminded by a commenter that today is the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. I had never really thought about the date before–it hadn’t occurred to me that it took place in the winter in Boston. What did Narragansetts wear in that clime?

Anyway, sometimes, particularly given how little difference there is between the two parties, I think we’re overdue for another one.

See, Rick Santelli just channeled me a little over a year later.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

A Vast, White-Wing Conspiracy

42 Comments

Wow, it’d be hard to find a more Caucasian demographic than the JournoList, other than the MSNBC host lineup and the burglars in the Broadview Security commercials. They’re probably racists.

[Update Sunday morning]

Was Sharrod pushed out by a bunch of West-Wing white guys?

See, I told you — racists all.

[Update a few minutes later]

The Obama administration doesn’t know when to hold or fold the race card.

[Bumped]

Political Commentary, Science And Society

More Democrats’ War On Science

6 Comments

The Inspector General of the Interior Department is investigating claims that the department officials falsified a report:

In response to a request from Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee, the Department of Interior’s acting Inspector General, Mary Kendall, announced she is opening an investigation into whether a Department of Interior report recommending an offshore drilling ban was manipulated to appear as if the ban was endorsed by seven experts from the National Academy of Engineers.

The report endorsed a six-month ban on deepwater drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf, and explicitly stated “the recommendations contained in this report have been peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering.” The National Academy of Engineers experts responded to the report by noting that their views had been misprepresented and that a drilling ban “will not measurably reduce risk further and it will have a lasting impact on the nation’s economy which may be greater than that of the oil spill.”

I expect she’ll get the Walpin treatment. Perhaps including the accusation that she’s senile.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Defense For Sarah Spitz

70 Comments

It’s pretty pathetic. And as is generally the case with these people, it’s classical projection:

The general manager of her station chimed in with the news that we are all as depraved as she is, so really, get over it:

Sarah was not acting in her position as KCRW Publicity Director when she wrote these comments. She spoke in the heat of the moment without consideration to the impact her words would have. We’ve all said things we didn’t mean and don’t reflect our core values. We believe that was the situation in this case.

We’ve all e-mailed a group of 400 relative stranger with the news that we would laugh like maniacs while watching a man’s eyes bug out as he dies of a heart attack? Seriously? What is in the stuff they are smoking in California, and how could they possibly think of legalizing it?

It reminds me of an old Monty Python sketch (though I guess that’s redundant — it’s not like there are any new ones…):

Well, we psychiatrist have found that over 8% of the population will always be mice, I mean, after all, there’s something of the mouse in all of us. I mean, how many of us can honestly say that at one time or another he hasn’t felt sexually attracted to mice. (linkman looks puzzeld) I know I have. I mean, most normal adolescents go through a stage of squeaking two or three times a day. Some youngsters on the other hand, are attracted to it by its very illegality. It’s like murder – make a thing illegal and it acquires a mystique. (linkman looks increasingly embarrassed) Look at arson – I mean, how many of us can honestly say that at one time or another he hasn’t set fire to some great public building. I know I have. (phone on desk rings; the linkman picks it up but does not answer it) The only way to bring the crime figures down is to reduce the number of offences – get it out in the open – I know I have.

Who among us haven’t fantasied about Rush Limbaugh dying painfully of a heart attack, while we cackled in glee? Why, you’d have to have a heart of stone to imagine Glenn Beck going blind and not take great joy in it.

I have no idea how widespread this fantasy psycho behavior was at the Journolist, or how well it was received. Maybe the Daily Caller could sift their archives and run some denunciations of these sorts of posting. These libs spent years deploring Bush’s macho cowboy act and declared it to be the end of Western Civilization when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded, so I would like to hope that one or two pushed back against the plate glass window smashing and heart attack eye-bugging.

I’d like to hope so, too. But I sure can’t get into the heads of these kind of people. And I don’t think I want to.

[Update a while later]

“Put up or shut up, Ezra.”