United States

If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas Friedman, Gail Collins, Nicholas Kristoff, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today\’s is from Nicholas Kristol\’s column, \”Escaping from Poverty,\” a sobering reminder of where we are: Over the last 35 years, our economy has almost...

If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas Friedman, Gail Collins, Nicholas Kristoff, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today\’s is from Thomas Friedman\’s utterly uninteresting column \”A Tea Party Without Nuts.\” He\’s wistful for centrism and smashing the two-party system. Or something. To...

If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas Friedman, Gail Collins, Nicholas Kristoff, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today\’s is from Bob Hebert\’s visceral column, \”An Absence of Class,\” in which he laments the lack of decorum in the past year\’s debate over...

If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas Friedman, Gail Collins, Nicholas Kristoff, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today\’s comes from Paul Krugman\’s excellent column entitled \”Fear Strikes Out,\” in which he compares the opposition to health care reform to its advocates. Instead,...

I spent much of the morning watching “Washington Journal” on C-SPAN. Nutters are pisssssed. That said, most of the anger seems to be about the ‘process’ and the ‘back room deals.’ Now, I’ve seen no formal analysis , but based on what I know thus far, most deals were over policy and did not happen more than usual. I have to assume that people complaining about ‘process’ are new to watching legislation happen and either (a) don’t like our system or (b) don’t understand what is happening. Either way, fuck it, we have healthcare and that should...

If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas Friedman, Gail Collins, Nicholas Kristoff, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Despite Brooks sounding like a Communist version of Bernie Sanders today, today\’s Line of the Day (TM) comes from Roger Cohen, who in today\’s column...

President George W. Bush famously hoped that history would vindicate his—er—less popular decisions. Well, it seems that history is beginning to vindicate another president that fell in disgrace in his own era. His bigotry, racism, foul mouth and criminal actions notwithstanding, President Richard Milhouse Nixon, in hindsight, is starting to look downright palatable. The filibuster has been, as of late, a thorn in the side of the Senate’s ability to accomplish anything. “Consider the history,” Bruce Ackerman writes at The American Prospect: It now takes 60 Senators (three-fifths) to end a filibuster, but for most of the...