“We should also work through the appropriate channels to create permanent solutions for our immigration system, to secure our borders, modernize legal immigration, and strengthen our economy. In the past, the president has expressed support for ideas like these. Now we ask him to cooperate with us to get it done.” Good to hear, right?…
Author: Alan Vanneman
Meanwhile, in other torture news
The bad news is that the Obama Administration is 99% behind the CIA’s “tain’t nobody’s business if we spy (on the U.S. Congress), lie, and torture” stance on, well, spying, lying, and torture. The further bad news is that Republican Sen. Richard Burr1 of North Carolina, incoming chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wants to…
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here. “I’ll tell you why singing ‘Row, row, row your boat’ with irony doesn’t cut it. Because this galley is an irony-free zone. Capisce?” “Well, we’re all friends of the captain, in a manner of speaking. But that’s not a good thing.” “No, this isn’t why you went to Wharton. It’s why we…
Pigs aren’t the only thing this gal likes to castrate
Politico’s media watchdog Dylan Byers passes along this note from Mother Jones regarding the GOP’s response to President Obama’s penultimate State of the Union Address, which will be delivered by hog castrator extraordinaire Joni Ernst, freshman senator from Iowa. There will, in fact, be two Republican responders—Florida freshman congressman Rep. Carlos Curbelo will be doing…
Militant Wilsonian What the Fuck?
Okay, that was a little rude. The subject of my latest outburst is a posting in The National Interest (the “Buzz” column, to be precise) by Zachery Keck, providing a synopsis of a recent symposium held by the Center for the National Interest. Among the speakers was Robert Kaplan, a Senior Fellow at the Center…
Vanneman v. Gates, the struggle continues
Back on Jan. 11, 2011, I unloaded rather loudly on then SecDef Robert M. Gates, in a post rather testily entitled “Robert M. Gates, totally full of it. Totally,” expressing skepticism with regard to Gates’ statement that in five years North Korea would be able to target the U.S. with an intercontinental ballistic missile, which,…
What de Blasio did wrong
In recent days I’ve been razzing, pretty heavily, on the New York City Police Department. Recently, the New York Times ran a nice article by Michael M. Grynbaum, J. David Goodman, and Al Baker listing all of Mayor William de Blasio’s missteps with the police, strongly suggesting that de Blasio came into office as lazy,…
Monk Electric Band—“Brilliant Corners”
Arranged by Guillem Plana Gallego
Mitt Romney will not run in 2016. Because the gods are not that kind.
That is my reason for doubting the recent spate of Mitt Might Run! articles now cluttering the political press. It won’t happen because it would be too much fun for us Democrats if it did. We’ve been good kids, pretty much, but no one deserves that much candy. The three-cushion shot argument is that Mitt…
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here. “Well, I lied, okay? The sound of your voice doesn’t make me wet. I was trying to be polite and it came out very, very wrong.” “Bryan’s ‘Cross of Gold’ and Burke’s ‘Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents’, those are my choices?” “My saying ‘everything’s better between the sheets’ was…