Well, it turns out that if you open the PDF version of the Republican’s “A Pledge to America,” their follow-up to the 1994 “Contract With America,” you learn that the author of the document was not, actually, some staffer in House Minority Leader John Boehner’s office,* but none other than Brian Wild. The Hill: Huffington Post’s Sam Stein reports that Wild, as a lobbyist at the Nickels Group, “was paid $740,000 in lobbying contracts from AIG, the former insurance company at the heart of the financial collapse; $800,000 from energy giant Andarko Petroleum; more than $1.1 million...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
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’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. This is a daily feature dedicated to these folks: one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today’s is a little bit of a departure, as while it appears in Paul “The Little Professor”...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Friday, 24 September 2010
Good morning, everybody. Lady Gaga’s meat dress will be made into jerky for archival purposes. Now, your morning constitutional: Senate Democrats give up trying to vote on extension of Bush tax cuts before the November elections. Senator Mary Landrieu has pledged to block the confirmation of President Obama’s new budget director unless the administration ends the moratorium on deep-water oil drilling is lifted. Ireland’s economy contracted by 1.2% in the second quarter of the year, surprising analysts who had expected it to grow. British Queen Elizabeth asked if money earmarked for schools and poverty programs could be...
Continue reading...Smart Dolphins
Cool interview in NYT the other day with Diana Reiss, psychology professor/dolphin researcher. This anecdote kind of floored me: Let me tell you a story. One of the first dolphins I ever worked with was Circe. I’d bring her a fish when I wanted her to do certain things. If she didn’t do them, I did a “time-out” where I turned my back and walked away. Well, there was a certain type of fish that Circe loathed because it had a spiny tail. So I accommodated her by cutting the spines off of the tail. One day,...
Continue reading...Delaware Republican nominee for Senate Christine O'Donnell not so much a fan of birth control (surprisingly)
So, we’ve learned that Christine believes in abstinence, and definitely thinks that masturbation is immoral, so, it’s of no surprise, then, I guess, that she’s also no big fan of birth control. In fact, she calls condoms “anti-human.” What? In a 2006 interview on Fox News’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” the devout Catholic contended that condom use is “anti-human.” “And what … if the population is increasing, so what?” O’Donnell said. “People aren’t bad. When did humans become a bad thing? Why is it that we have to, you know, stop people from getting pregnant?” Priceless. Wait, there’s...
Continue reading...Kentucky Republican nominee for Senate Rand Paul sees Hitler around the corner
Jason Zengerle from GQ recently had a sit-down with Senate candidate Rand Paul, who has said some crazy stuff so far in this campaign cycle, and, well, Paul didn’t disappoint: Just fifteen minutes earlier the candidate whom Paul came out to support was likening the current Speaker of the House to a former Soviet dictator, so I ask if he thinks that’s what the press might be referring to when they say the Tea Party is extreme. He leans forward and smiles. “Well, I think whether or not your analogies are over the top, whether you might...
Continue reading...Unconventional campaigns
Jonathan Bernstein wonders if Sarah Palin, with a national profile and an enthusiastic base, could run for the presidential nomination successfully without playing by the normal rules: Of course, Sarah Palin sits at this point of the campaign with total name recognition and terrific enthusiasm from a not insignificant number of GOP primary and caucus votes. Those assets may mean that she can wait until longer than usual to start following the normal rules of how one runs for president. Or, perhaps, she’ll try to capture the nomination without doing those things. Is it possible? Well, we...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
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’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. This is a daily feature dedicated to these folks: one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today’s is from Thomas “Tommy Two-Tone” Friedman, who in his column “Too Many Hamburgers?” writes: There is...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Good morning, folks. Wyclef Jean has given up trying to become the president of Haiti so he can promote his new album. Now, your morning constitutional: A defense authorization bill failed in the Senate yesterday that contained a repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, the DREAM Act, as well as a pay raise for military personnel. Lawrence Summers, President Obama’s top economic adviser, is set to leave the administration by the end of the year. Should be noted that this was planned, and that Harvard has a two-year rule of absence after which tenure ends....
Continue reading...Fed keeps on keepin' on
The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee met today, and it seems they’re keepin’ on keepin’ on. At least according to their release: The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period. The Committee also will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings. Now, this is despite recognizing that...
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