jaiapprovedthis

As recently as a few weeks ago, I've heard people say that while the "new
media" of professional and non-professional electronic writing may produce a
great deal of content and analysis, it ultimately relies on established
bastions of journalism to do the actual reporting. The Washington Post
breaks the story; bloggers just comment on it.

Today I watched thirty minutes of CNN reporters, unable to do any actual
reporting from Tehran, simply reading and commenting on messages from
Twitter.

via TPM.

Two weeks ago, three anti-immigration extremists invaded the home of Raul Flores and proceeded to murder Flores and his nine-year-old daughter - only Flores' wife survived. The apparent plan was to kill Flores, steal the drugs he was suspected of dealing, and sell them to fund further violence and recruitment - an "underground militia", in the words of the murderers. The cell's members were all involved in Minuteman anti-immigration efforts, often as somewhat-prominent representatives and spokesmen.

Just so we're clear: People received military training from a group on U.S. soil with some hostility towards the U.S. government. A cell from that group proceeded to attack and kill civilians in the United States in cold blood, with plans for further attacks.

But it's not terrorism.

Yglesias:

Between them, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Chuck Schumer, Kristen Gillibrand, Bill Nelson, Dick Durbin, Roland Burriss, Arlen Specter, Bob Casey, Sherrod Brown, Carl Levin, Amy Klobuchar, Kay Hagan, Bob Menendez, Frank Lautenberg, Mark Warner, Jim Webb, Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Evan Bayh represent 50 percent of the country’s population. But that only adds up to 22 Senators—you need thirty-eight more to pass a bill. (note: assuming that a Senator represents 50% of their state's population. -Jai)

This is even more frustrating than the Electoral College - the Senate is insanely skewed towards small, empty, and hence more-often-than-not conservative states, and only a minority of them are needed to block and and all legislation. If Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Idaho, Nebraska, West Virginia, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Kansas, Arkansas and Mississippi get together, they can halt everything - despite representing less than 10% of the United States' population. That's just insane.

I've got nothing to add, because I'm as confused as everyone else about what's actually going on. It seems very likely that the election was rigged, I'm not quite to the point of certainty yet. I don't know exactly how much violence is going on in the country right now, what the public at large thinks, or how any of this is likely to play out. But I'm watching and listening - whatever is going on, it's really, really important.

We can't risk detaining suspected terrorists in maximum U.S. prisons - we must keep them on a semi-legal offshore base in the middle of semi-hostile Communist island dictatorship. Because while there may be some risks associated with detaining hundreds of people, including multiple innocents, in an international legal limbo while destroying the United States' noble reputation - we can't let them onto the mainland.

We could get terrorist-cooties.

( See: Daily Show )

The "JD" mentioned in passing towards the end of this TPM post is me. My influence is vast and intimidating.

Gingrich finally calls out Reagan on his "stunningly dangerous" "intellectual nonsense"



I'm trying to figure out when "the world" became an evil thing in conservative circles.

There's a poll out showing that Democrats are generally happier with their party than Republicans are. And, of course, I can remember numerous polls during the era of Republican government showing the exact opposite.

I'm reminded about the many campaign stories about McCain's campaign being erratic, and how that was hurting his chances of winning. A few people pointed out that is was more likely the other way around - When you're losing you can't afford to be consistent, because then you'll keep losing.

I think a lot of this doesn't have to do with the particulars of the parties so much as who is in power at the time. The party that's winning will stick with the same basic approach (since it's working), get some legislation passed, and generally do the things that people in that party want done. The party out-of-power is not only powerless to enact the things that their people want enacted, but must contend with the fact that they're unpopular and therefore need to change. That leads to a lot of inconsistency and internal dissension, which in turn makes the base more unhappy.

So here's my prediction: In 20 years, the party with the more satisfied membership will also be the party in power.

There's a big primary in Virginia today. Very dramatic three-way tie between three Democrats going in. I've looked them, they're all pretty similar and they all support expanded mass transit in the DC-metro area, so I've got no horse in this race. Going to be fun to watch the results come in, though.

This is just stupid. We finally got a bill to give D.C. representation in Congress, but the N.R.A. forced in a provision gutting D.C.'s gun control laws and forbidding the city from imposing gun control laws in the future. The N.R.A. is apparently going to hold a grudge against any efforts to get the provision removed, which means the Blue Dog Democrats (and the few Republicans decent enough to think D.C. should have some representation in Congress) will only back the bill with the gun-party provision. D.C. really doesn't want to give up want little sovereignty it has by letting Congress order open season on the city, so progressives are opposing the bill with the amendment. All of which means that D.C. isn't getting Congressional representation in the near future. Fuck.

I get not wanting the Federal Government closely regulating small arms. Republicans strictly in favor of a small government whose minimal powers include the power to tap phone lines without warrants and detain prisoners indefinitely and all that. What I don't get is using the federal government to keep local governments from crafting their own regulations. That's the exact antithesis of the whole small-government states-rights thing.

Damnit.

So apparently Rockstar Energy Drink, which is run by Michael Savage's immediate family, is suing people who talk about the fact that Rockstar Energy Drink is run by the Savage family. The CEO of Rockstar, Michael Savage's son, presumably authorized this action, or possibly Michael Savage's wife, who is the director, treasurer, and secretary of Rockstar and Savage publications (both companies share the same address).

Michael Savage, whose family owns and operates Rockstar, is that fun guy who tells his callers to get AIDS and wants to ban all Muslim immigration to the US and basically hates all the is good and stands for all that is evil in the world. Including crappy energy drinks.

Anyway. The moral of the story is that Rockstar funds hateful extremists, and they're too cowardly to be open about it. The end.

This. Is. Awesome.

Choice tweets:

Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said 'time to delivr on healthcare' When you are a "hammer" u think evrything is NAIL I'm no NAIL

Chr Bernanke I fear for monetizing our debt U become very close to Treasury Comfort America worried abt hyperinflation Reafirm ACCORD of1951

Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us"time to deliver" on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND.

"We are living in a period where we are surrounded by paganism," said the eminently reasonable voice of conservative intellectualism last Friday. He went on to explain that "I am a citizen of the United States because only in the United States does citizenship start with our creator." (I'm not sure what's more disturbing about that quote - the implication that the United States citizenship is fundamentally theocratic, or that the United States outpaces Iran in deity-based identity.) Before leaving, the anti-big-government conservative set his sights on one of the gravest threats to freedom, astutely noting that "[t]he ACLU is a hateful, anti-religious system designed to drive God out of America." (skip to 0:22).

So, with gay-bashing and immigrant-bashing no longer viable, I guess we're down to Wiccans and Atheists. But does Gingrich really want to provoke witches and scientists at the same time? I am not at all sure that is wise.

Gotta admire the subtlety.

I think I wrote about this a while ago, but one of the many fun things we're going to have to worry about in the near future is the price of oil as the economy recovers. Recovery -> increased demand and ability to buy oil -> higher prices of oil -> bad times. There's strong evidence for some correlation so far - oil prices fell along with the rest of the economy, and good news is correlating with price spikes. Matthew Yglesias is smarter than I am and writes about it here.

Media dominated by wealthy white men complaining that wealthy white men are being muzzled by the media.

The National Organization for Marriage is back!



I have to give them credit on this one - there on the same planet as some facts, but they're not scary at all. "Massachusetts schools teach that boys can marry other boys."
Well, yes, that's objectively true - boys can marry other boys. I guess we're supposed to be scared that children might be aware that (1) homosexuality exists and (2) they have some rights sometimes.

The second scary story, about the field trip, was organized by a parent at a charter school and, also, is not at all scary even as presented.

Come on, NOM! I expect better than this after your last "gay storm" ad. Where's the homo-tornado? Where's the doctor who can't practice now because of gay-germs or something? Where's the church that burst into flames because of gay marriage radiation?

Sidenote: Does anyone notice the irony in groups like "National Organization for Marriage" labling themselves as "pro-marriage" while their sole reason for existence is to keep people from getting married? At least 50 years ago there "States' Rights" groups, not "The National Organization for Voting and Water Fountains".

Justice Sotomayor, assuming her almost-inevitable confirmation, won't alter the outcome of many cases in the near future. On those cases that were decided by 5-4 splits, Souter was almost never the 5th vote (the Justice closest to changing their mind).

Also, as has been pointed out elsewhere, this lifetime-appointment thing is morbid and dumb. It's important to have the judiciary removed from the rough-and-tumble of electoral politics, but you can accomplish the same thing with fixed very-long terms, say 18 years, with one justice being replaced every two years. No more Justices remaining on the bench until an ideologically aligned President and Congress come along, no more picking younger justices to squeeze a few more years of tie-breaking votes out of them, no more morbid speculation about the probably of a Justice surviving a Presidential term.

The thing about waterboarding is that is sounds so innocuous. Torture is thumbscrews and electric shocks, not some water being poured over your face. Which is, I imagine, how it ended up as the go-to "enhanced interrogation technique" - because the intuitive shock induced by observing more obvious torture techniques isn't exposed in this human physiology hack. But it's still torture, as surely as electric shocks or cutting. It's inducing the sensation of a painful and inescapable death, and breaks down all available human willpower in seconds. If that is not torture, then torture has no meaningful definition.