At the beach, I stayed away from the news so I missed the whole Glenn Beck Congressman Massa interview. I watched pieces of it on youtube. What a disaster for Glenn. He thought he’d find an angry democrat who would confirm all of his conspiracy theories. What he got was snookered. Here’s Jon Stewart’s take. […]
As an early teenager, a friend and I would gather on Sunday mornings to watch Oral Roberts on the black and white television set [connected a huge antenna that brought in the signal from our nearest station some 120 miles to the south]. While we watched it as a comedy show, I always wondered what […]
I know most people are tired of the endless parsing of the transgressions of the Bush Administration. But I’m not tired of it. I doubt I ever will be. The short news cycle in contemporary politics is now standard fare, but that doesn’t mean that a history as important as our history from 2001-2009 should […]
NY Fed Under Geithner Implicated in Lehman Accounting Fraud Allegation FireDogLake By Yves Smith March 12, 2010 Quite a few observers, including this blogger, have been stunned and frustrated at the refusal to investigate what was almost certain accounting fraud at Lehman. Despite the bankruptcy administrator’s effort to blame the gaping hole in Lehman’s balance […]
Why don’t honest journalists take on Roger Ailes and Fox News? Washington Post By Howell Raines March 14, 2010 One question has tugged at my professional conscience throughout the year-long congressional debate over health-care reform, and it has nothing to do with the public option, portability or medical malpractice. It is this: Why haven’t America’s […]
I notice that since I returned from the beach, I’ve written two things – one about the absurdity of the Catholic view of human sexuality and one about the high jinks involved in our Iraqi misadventure. Both are about the processes involved in passing off "wrong" ideas as "right." In both cases, the ideas are […]
After President Bush began pushing Congress to grant him war powers to invade Iraq in 2002, Congress pointed out that no National Intelligence Estimate had been done about Iraq. That fact alone speaks volumes. They hadn’t even bothered to ask the Intelligence agencies to evaluate Iraq’s threat. So a NIE was literally thrown together in […]
Scandal’s shadow touches pope’s German years [The Boston Globe] New York Times By Nicholas Kulish and Rachel Donadio March 13, 2010 BERLIN — A widening child sexual abuse inquiry in Europe has landed at the doorstep of Pope Benedict XVI, as a senior church official acknowledged yesterday that a German archdiocese made “serious mistakes’’ in […]
Unimaginable. Simply unimaginable…
Senator Bunning’s Universe New York Times By PAUL KRUGMAN March 4, 2010 So the Bunning blockade is over. For days, Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky exploited Senate rules to block a one-month extension of unemployment benefits. In the end, he gave in, although not soon enough to prevent an interruption of payments to around 100,000 […]