Inaugural Post: Reagan Review Redux
I beg the reader's indulgence, for posting, as my inaugural diary, an appraisal of the political career of Ronald Reagan -- which I had earlier distributed, as an obituary notice, in one number of a...
View ArticleThe Big Lie, Republicans, and (by implication) Fascists
In calling attention to the Halperin memo, Drudge has helped raise public awareness of the excesses of GOP campaign tactics. As noted by Zogby , our post-Watergate political epoch begins with...
View ArticleIs NPR suppressing KSTP? Just asking....
While the story of missing explosives at the Al Qaa Qaa weapons dump has been (so to speak) blown open by video of cannisters with IAEA seals -- shot by an embedded crew from KSTP of Minneapolis/St....
View ArticleA ball game ain't over 'til it's over ....
So there are still absentee and provisional ballots outstanding in Florida and Ohio, which remain, technically, still in play. We must also ask: what about the discrepancies -- documented and...
View ArticleCulture War, Civil War, and the Scopes Monkey Trial: An Elegy for Democracy
The diagnosis is uncertain. Are we merely at one extreme of a partisan swing of the pendulum, soon to be restored by the inexorable dualism of political yin and yang? Or have we reached a more...
View ArticleNov. 22, 2000: American Kristallnacht and the Onset of Apple Pie Fascism
To show due reverence for the horror foretold by the great pogrom of Nov. 8, 1938, I should in fact say Kristallnacht writ small. But the death of a great democracy is no small thing either; and let...
View ArticleImperial minion "Little Hammer" Delay struck Kitty Kelley...
...and was struck in return. Okay, you caught me; it was actually Jonathan Bush, to whose nasty letter of complaint (NYT Book Review, Nov. 7) Kittly Kelley now replies . Registration required,...
View ArticleKrugman: without fair elections ...
...we can make all the noise we want about 2006, and it will be for naught. I am not linking to today's brilliant Krugman (he's been on a roll lately); you can easily find it yourselves. The point...
View ArticleWhy Yoo has got to go.
This will be brief, with no specific links, as I write in haste. Interested readers can easily find -- at atrios and buzzflash -- the requisite references to Yoo's sanction for the torture of...
View ArticleRead this if you read nothing else today...
An excellent piece by Eliot Weinberger, entitled What I heard about Iraq in 2005, appears in the latest issue of The London Review of Books, a contrarian journal rather much overlooked by the Kos...
View ArticleTrolling the wankosphere with Occam's Razor
Recent efforts, on the part of Right-wing Commentariat and Blogosphere, have sought to revive the notion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, which he planned to use in attacks on...
View ArticleThe Tortured Logic of War with Iran
It is by now an open open secret that the US has (for some time) been carrying out special operations in Iran -- presumably including reconaissance missions -- aimed at preparing for open warfare,...
View ArticleBlue State Realignment: Why Edsall's Dog Don't Hunt
Kos has frontlined Tom Edsall's fantasy of a permanant Red State Realignment; as a NYT subscriber, I'm being twice weekly showered with Edsall's drivel , via his current gig as guest columnist,...
View ArticleInstapundit's NYT Op-Ed: Too dumb to breathe?
Hard to believe this has not been diaried; but I searched and did not find. Glenn Reynolds has an Op-Ed in Tuesday's NY TImes -- in praise of a new town ordinance in Greenleaf, Idaho: Last month,...
View ArticleUnited States of Torturedom
'Ghost Plane', the recent book by freelance journalist and former London Times reporter, Stephen Grey details his use of plane spotters to trace the paths of nominally secret CIA flights, on which...
View ArticleUnited States of Torturedom II: "24" propagandizes for war crimes.
The latest issue of the New Yorker devotes several pages to profiling Joel Surnow -- Hollywood winger, friend of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, and, most notably, producer of the hit TV series on...
View ArticleScheuer on Olbermann: Chilling video here.
The return of the Taliban and Al Qaeda has been blogged here today, notably by NewDealer, who launches from Frank Rich's NYT column; there's also a Times editorial entitled "Al Qaeda Resurgent"....
View ArticleFormer Starr minion-- now Judge-- dismisses Plame civil suit
The Plame Civil Suit has has been dismissed. Stop me if this has been diaried elsewhere. I just stumbled onto it while trolling news sites. U.S. District Judge John D. Bates ruled that the civil...
View ArticleThe Flashing Banner Ads Totally Suck
This is going to be a fairly short diary. What I am describing may not show up for all kos users, but I am getting them everytime I enter the site, or change pages.
View ArticleCalifornia Schemin'
Hey! Rank and file Kossacks! Kos Kewl Kidz! Our avowed goal here at DKos is to elect Democrats, right? Well, a major story, about how that could get much harder, has been brewing, and even made...
View ArticleBreaking: Lieberman-Kyl passes 76-22
This will be very brief --thinkprogress has the story. Also, apologies to anyone else who beat me to the punch. The Lieberman-Kyl amendment, called, by Jim Webb, "Cheney's fondest pipe dream" has...
View ArticleProposal to Amend the US Constitution
The dangers of private security contractors to civil society have been much discussed in light of the recent shootings of Iraqi civilians by employees of Blackwater Security. Author Naomi Wolf (among...
View ArticleThe Blackwater Amendment Updated: "No" to a Constitutional Convention.
Two days ago I posted a diary proposing a 28th amendment (the ‘Blackwater Amendment’) to the US Constitution, with the goal of prohibiting the use by government of private quasi-military or...
View ArticleCalifornia Shock and Awe?
The San Francisco Chronicle reports a plan for aerial spraying of pesticides over several SF Bay Area cities -- including San Francisco, Oakland, Emeryville, and Tiburon -- to combat a potential threat...
View ArticleWanna Win in November? Stop Foreclosures!
Wanna Lose? Don't then. I just saw the clip of David Axelrod on Face the Nation discussing whether or not the administration would support a foreclosure moratorium. The take-home, in my opinion, is...
View ArticleDemocrats: Maybe I'm not the one you want to lose.
I don't think the world at large cares overly for my personal political odyssey; but it may have some value as an example. In brief, I came to political consciousness during Vietnam, voted for McGovern...
View ArticleFood, Karma, and Goldman Sachs
I cannot vouch for the provenance or authenticity of this, but the conceit is irresistibly attractive: That is, I recall reading, in a discussion of Buddhist doctrine, the statement that the total...
View ArticleThe Debt Ceiling, the Shock Doctrine and Mulitdimensional Chess
We are told that failure to raise the debt ceiling will likely precipitate a financial collapse -- surely in the US, with global repercussions likely to follow. There is much uncertainty; even Paul...
View ArticleIs Boenhner Trying to Save Obama from Himself? or Just Chicken? or Both?
This will be short. Recent big news on the debt ceiling death spiral is that Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner has walked away from the talks with President Obama. The usual take on this...
View ArticleThe President Must Strongly Support Social Security
Through much of the Obama presidency, there has been an undercurrent of unease concerning his commitment to the preserve Social Security, the keystone social insurance program of the New Deal and...
View ArticlePrivatization of the Royal Mail: Can This End Well?
It was with some surprise, that I learned (two years ago) that the Dutch postal service had been privatized; and the results are not pretty. Excellent reporting in the London Review of Books gives a...
View ArticleThe Nation, its Prospects, and the Midterms
Although the Republican sweep of the midterms has occasioned much unhappiness and recrimination in the left blogosphere -- not to mention among Democrats, and self-described liberals and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Eyewitness in Paris: Charlie Hebdo and the Aftermath
By chance, my wife and I found ourselves in Paris on the morning of January 7, in an apartment overlooking (as we would soon learn) the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the satirical weekly. We heard the...
View ArticleIn the wake of Martin Luther King Day, 2015: The scandal of the memorial
I cannot let the celebration of Dr. King's birth date pass yet again, without commenting upon the scandal of the memorial erected, we are told, in his honor, but fabricated by Chinese artisans working...
View ArticleA Fine Musician Has Left Us: Requiescat in Pace Al Jarreau
And we are all the poorer. Of many fine tracks, I link only the beautiful Something That You Said.
View ArticleShep Smith wonders why our children are shooting each other.
In an incredibly idiotic rant , Fox’s Shep Smith wonders why we can’t marshall our enormous research capability, to figure out why American school children are shooting each other, whereas children in...
View ArticleDrumpf thinks teachers with guns will make schools safe
It is reported that drumpf has called for arming teachers as a surefire means to prevent school shootings.Has the world begun to get its collective mind around the mega-stupidity of this idea? I am...
View ArticleToday is Armistice Day--Not Veterans Day
In my youth we celebrated Armistice Day on November 11 — the day that effectively ended the first World War. For the second World War we also had VE Day --Victory in Europe—; and VJ Day --Victory over...
View ArticleTrump is winning the digital war against the Dems
A must-see article in today’s New York Times <www.nytimes.com/...> details how the Trump campaign — and rethugs in general— are winning the war in digital political advertising.Read it and weep....
View ArticleWhy DEMS Lose Statehouses
The current issue of The New York Review of Books has a penetrating article by Joseph O’Neill, entitled “No More Nice Dems”, describing how and why the Democratic Party, even when it wins the...
View ArticleRethug Voter Purges Nationwide
As reported by The Guardian, www.theguardian.com/... rethuglicans are engaged in massive voter purges, nationwide— notably in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Georgia.Unless the Democratic Party finds a way to...
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