Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is, to put it mildly, known for his scorn for anything resembling “affirmative action”. So why was Thomas joining a bunch of, you know, liberals, in Cooper v. Harris to affirm a lower court ruling overturning a little scheme cooked up by North Carolina Republicans to pack all the black…
Search Results for: thomas mann
Peter Watson’s The German Genius: Ist es deutsch? Ja, allzu deutsch.
Peter Watson’s massive (996 pages) study, The German Genius, is one of the most confounding books I’ve ever read, “impressive” for most of its great length, often “brilliant” in its discussion of 20th century Germany, but then lurching downhill drastically in places, descending to the level of Nazi apologetics at its worst—plus one whopping mathematical…
Yo, Democrats! Solve this border crisis!
Yeah, Democrats! You know I’m talking to you! It’s about time you donkeys got off your lazy asses and solved this border crisis! Yeah, I know Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court for two years and did bupkis! And I know that when you did negotiate with Republicans…
Topics
Articles of Lasting Interest: Jazz: I post a jazz video every week, usually but not necessarily featuring a performance of a composition of Thelonious Monk. These videos can be accessed as a group here. “Harvard douchebaggery not exclusively a left-wing phenomenon, study reveals” is an unfriendly take on Harvard Professor Robert Barro’s disingenuous claim that…
Phony Evenhandedness, Case Nos. 377,421,904-6
Golly! That President Obama! When Republicans tell outrageous and disgusting lies, he just tells the truth! Why, he’s almost as bad as they are! That’s the gist of the bizarre rap of TV big-shot (five Emmys!) Jeff Greenfield in a recent piece for Politico Magazine, headed “Getting the Politics of Fear Right: Trump exploits our…
Jonathan Rauch has words of wisdom. Or not.
Over at Reason, Nick Gillespie has a long interview with Brookings dude Jonathan Rauch, bearing the snappy title “The Case For Back-Room Deals, Party Hacks & Unlimited Money in Politics”, a thesis he spells out at greater length in his new book, bearing the somewhat less snappy title “Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money,…
Reid Wilson, not getting it, and not getting that he’s not getting it
Over at Slate, Dave Wiegel, whom I usually enjoy, links without irony to the National Journal’s Reid Wilson, who files a heartfelt moan titled “When Washington Forgot How To Negotiate Dispute over the farm bill is a textbook example of the dysfunction within Congress.” Speaking of the farm bill debacle, Wilson explains the current Democratic/Republican…
’Becca Redux: The Cunt Punt Critique
When I first posted on ’Becca, the ravin’ Terrapin, I linked to two videos mentioned in New York’s write-up, by Mike Shannon and “The Most Popular Girls in School.” Later, I decided to actually post them in my blog, which I did, along with a slew of others that I discovered while tracking down the…
Yeah, that’s the problem. What’s the solution?
A couple of days ago I ran a brief riff on It’s Even Worse Than It Looks, a brief book by Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein whose basic premise is that right-wing Republicans are fucking up America, a premise with which I largely agree. As is so often the case, Mann and Ornstein are stronger…
It’s Even Worse Than It Looks—fairly short, fairly sweet
Recently, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein got an enormous amount of play with an opinion piece in the Washington Post, “Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.” Now they’re back with a “book,” It’s Even Worse Than It Looks, which may not be much more than an extended opinion piece, but is worth…