Tag: politics

Obama is talk, Holder acts

between this and the push for extending all federal benefits to all same sex couples

The Justice Department’s role in confronting discrimination must be as aggressive today as it was in Robert Kennedy’s time. I will not let this department be simply a bystander during this important moment in history.

holder is easily the only member of the current administration who is actually making progress on civil liberties. his boss, “change” notwithstanding, is quite the opposite. history will tell but my money is on holder, not barry, despite premature nobel prizes.

Putin abs

Putin warns about showing chiseled 6 pack

“Specifically, gay spectators should remain fully clothed at all times, and resist the temptation to unveil their chiseled biceps or shredded abdominals. under no circumstances should gays oil, grease, or otherwise lubricate their torsos in an effort to highlight their glistening, ripped pectorals.”

et tu, putin?
2015-06-18:

Photos of Putin looking shirtless, healthy, and powerful are a way to reassure the public that there’s no need to worry. If Putin is fine, then Russia is fine. But consider the implication of that assertion: if Putin is not fine, then neither is Russia. The scary part is that’s probably correct.

Politics of Fear

one might suppose that modern democratic states, with the lessons of history at hand, would seek to minimize fear or at least minimize its effect on deliberative decision-making in both foreign and domestic policy. But today the opposite is frequently true. Even democracies founded in the principles of liberty and the common good often take the path of more authoritarian states. They don’t work to minimize fear, but use it to exert control over the populace and serve the government’s principle aim: consolidating power.

2014-01-30:

Machiavelli notoriously argued that a good leader should induce fear in the populace in order to control the rabble. Hobbes in “The Leviathan” argued that fear effectively motivates the creation of a social contract in which citizens cede their freedoms to the sovereign.

ring a bell?

NYC has too many representatives

i’m with norman mailer but it turns out that

Bills from legislators from small or medium-sized cities were 2x as likely to pass as ones that originated in big cities like Chicago or New York. they found a precipitous drop in the number of bills a city’s delegation was able to pass as the number of representatives ballooned. keeping center-city legislators in line may be just as important as having allies in Albany or Springfield.

DC oompa loompa

Speaker of the House John Boehner has long denied that his perpetual tan skin color is the result of sunless tanning. He just spends a lot of time outdoors, the Ohio Republican is known to say. But despite his repeated denials of using tanning beds, Boehner has ties to the industry. Not only has he accepted campaign contributions from a group called the Indoor Tanning Association, Boehner actually lives in a D.C. apartment owned by a lobbyist for the American Suntanning Association.

i never understood this. is boehner from the jersey shore? does the orange-american constituency even vote?

Gettysburg slides

Uh, good morning. Just a second while I get this connection to work. Do I press this button here? No, that’s not right. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll have to reboot. Hold on a minute. Um, my name is Abe Lincoln and I’m your president. While we’re waiting, I want to thank Judge David Wills, chairman of the committee supervising the dedication of the cemetery. It’s great to be here, Dave, and you and the committee are doing a great job. Gee, sometimes this new technology does have glitches, but we couldn’t live without it, could we? Oh – is it ready? OK, here we go:

if you missed Abraham Lincoln’s PowerPoint presentation in Gettysburg 150 years ago today, he kindly posted his slides online, along with rough speaker notes.

A better constitution

There are 30 countries that have adopted American-style systems. All of them have succumbed to the nightmare of constitutional crisis: political violence, revolution, coup, and worse at one time or another, often repeatedly.

we could do a lot better. we could also do a lot worse, for example if the religious nutcases got a chance to bring about jesusland.