“It’s fake? No, no one could be that cruel.” “To tell you the truth, there isn’t a lot of ‘mouth feel’ to this one.” “I know it’s not real. We’ve been through this. I just like to bite shit.” “What happened to the new spring outfit that was on this thing is that I ate…
Author: Alan Vanneman
Conor Hall Trio—“Well, You Needn’t”
Victor Ray – piano; Thomas Williams – bass; Conor Hall – drums. Recorded at Kuhl Muzik in Toronto. Posted by bangcrashboom1.
Trumplosion or Trompe-l’œil?
The past several months have been a Trump-loather’s1 dream. Watching the big guy’s world go sideways in so many ways—well, it’s so satisfying that one can’t help but wonder, “When did I ever get everything I wanted all the time?” It’s as though “science” had perfected a peppermint ice cream that causes you to lose…
Poor, Pitiful Paulie Ryan, from policy wonk to policy wank in six weeks
If you’ve been hatin’ on House Speaker Paulie Ryan as long as I have, seeing Paulie finally take the beatdown he so richly deserves is schadenfreude beyond a Paulie hater’s wildest dreams. Perhaps the best of the many, many drubbings Paulie has received is administered by the hitherto unknown (to me) Philip Klein, who hangs…
David Ignatius, in search of an ass to kiss
Okay, I did not see this coming. The Wash Post’s David Ignatius, often regarded as the CIA’s press agent, has apparently decided that he needs a new job, perhaps because, these days, the CIA ain’t shit. So Dave is going with the flow, which, judging from his latest column, means sucking up to presidential son…
Roger Wilkens
Civil rights activist Roger Wilkens is dead at 85. His autobiography, A Man’s Life, is well worth reading, but its title wasn’t always so bland. In 1982, a less correct time, when the book was first published, it was called Blue Chip Nigger, because, as Wilkens explained it, he was entirely middle class in his…
William Kristol no longer my least favorite neoconservative. For a while, anyway.
For a long time, Bill Kristol, self-anointed “boss” of the Weekly Standard (for so his minions refer to him), has been my least favorite neocon. Billie Boy bears more responsibility than any other non-government official for the trillion-dollar tragedy known as “Operation Enduring Freedom”,1 better described as “Operation Enduring Disaster”, an unforced error that cost…
Oh, and there was also the whole Jew Joke thing
Okay, this one is a bit stale, but I guess I like putting “Jew Joke” in a headline. I was reading Dan Drezner’s 97% merciless takedown of Secretary of State Rex “Wife made me take the job” Tillerson,1 which included a sneer directed at major foreign policy advisors who, like Tillerson, had never met the…
Does “The Americans” hate America?
Okay, if you’re worried about plot spoilers, go read Mark Trail. For the remaining few, here’s the deal. In the latest episode of The Americans, our guys (Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as deep cover Soviet spies Elizabeth and Philip Jennings) uncover a nefarious mid-eighties plot to infest U.S. grain sold to the Soviets with…
Shorter Krauthammer: Trump has been president for two whole months and hasn’t destroyed the country, so shut up already!
That’s the word from the K-Man, writing in the National Review. See, it doesn’t matter that our chief executive, the heir to Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and (I guess) Ronald Reagan, is an ignorant, unscrupulous, vengeful sociopath, a Huey Long with an outer-borough accent. We have two whole other branches of government as well….