US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

Alabama lawmaker switches parties thanks to GOP rhetoric

that's pretty amazing, but the TPM article is typically agit-prop about it. it would be interesting to know if there's some more backstory there (i imagine there is).

I had the same thought.

i don't think morbs would like nixonland, really, but perlman's take on mcgovern is much more nuanced than just calling him "self-righteous." during the period of time nixonland covers, humphrey really was not at his best.

uh perlstein, duh

Caro's LBJ bio

just wanna say that this series was the most important thing i think i ever read to understand politics/power + america

the power broker is even better!

he still has one volume to go, right? i have been meaning to read it for a long time

must read!

http://www.samefacts.com/2011/05/watching-conservatives/judicial-filibusters-who-started-it-and-why-does-it-matter/

happy memorial day everyone.

Just read the wiki (for what's that worth) piece on the Gang of 14 (the 7 Republicans and 7 Dems) who stopped the filibuster from being used during part of the later George w Bush years. The Dems had filibustered 10 W nominees from 2003 to 2005. Then in 2005 the Republicans threatened to use the nuclear option and get rid of the filibuster. Then the Gang of 14 stepped in:

Three of the filibustered nominees (Estrada, Pickering and Kuhl) having withdrawn, in the 109th Congress, five of the seven filibustered nominees (Owen, McKeague, Griffin, Pryor and Brown) were allowed to be confirmed as a result of the deal brokered by the Gang.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_14

I don't foresee any such deals now

He was a unionbuster as mayor of Minneapolis too, eh?

this is the zillionth time i've seen you make this accusation about Humphrey, Morbz, and i've yet to see you ever offer any proof. so do you want to do that or are just going to repeat this a zillion more times?

Very amusingly, the very first word of the piece is inaccurate (Reagan's birth month).

Nice catch. For some reason, the only presidential birthdates I know by heart are those of Washington, Lincoln, Obama, and Reagan.

Reagan is going to be incorporated into Presidents Day eventually

Bam signed the USA PATRIOT renewal remotely from Paris, that's how much he loves it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TxCWbTqz9s

zing!

wowz!

shrug!

...wow!

i mean i'm glad to see it

but

the ad's otm but this cuts both ways, like, I teach Nietzsche & point out how Rand developed some of his ideas & my students are like, cool, religion is for the weak, let's go full Rand; iow the ad is appealing to people's basic sympathy for Judeo-Christian religion but that sympathy is obv. on the wane & Rand-type thought is a natural replacement, much much much^1000000000 more natural than some hippie ideal.

cool, religion is for the weak

But it takes a really strong person to worship himself over everyone else?

adam otm

religion is for the weak

It is only so in regard to a particular kind of strength, namely the will to power. But any mature and reflective person soon discovers that power for the sake of power is an empty bowl, unless you are a sociopath or a sadist. For example, babies are weaklings and parasites; so, what do Nietzche and Rand have to say about them? Not freaking much, because their very presence would immediately shoot holes in their world view.

...wow!

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, May 28, 2011 2:28 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

lol <3

ladies and gentlemen, rep. weiner

http://bigjournalism.com/files/2011/05/Screen-shot-2011-05-27-at-11.04.09-PM.png

^ this is a purportedly weiner's weiner fyi

With the exception of Jonathan Allen and Ben Smith of Politico, who both deserve credit for covering the Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) story we broke here at the Bigs on Friday night, the mainstream media’s silence on this objectively important story has been deafening. And now that 24 hours have passed since the story originally broke, there’s simply no way to blame the MSM’s lack of interest on the holiday weekend.
After all, this isn’t just any story. Regardless of how it all eventually breaks, what we have here is either the story of a high profile, recently married New York Congressman who’s seriously considering a Mayoral run in Manhattan, tweeting his “junk” to a young woman two decades his junior — and lying to the media about it. Or we have a story involving a high-profile Congressman’s Facebook and Twitter account being hacked with pornographic pictures.
So ask yourself: how does the MSM justify all but ignoring something so juicy? And then if you’re still not convinced of the story’s newsworthiness, remind yourself that these events are not unfolding in one of those odd, square-shaped states our journalist-class fly over every once in a while. This is a New York story that involves the trifecta of politics, sex, and a rising political star. Furthermore, the icing on the cake is Bill and Hillary Clinton. Last July, in a ceremony officiated by former President Clinton himself, Rep. Weiner married Hillary’s top aide, Huma Abedin.
Now, please don’t bother to answer any of the above questions. They were rhetorical and answered by the “D” after Rep. Weiner’s name. Naturally, the hacking of a Facebook account connected to one of the best known and most outspoken Democrats in Congress is a bonafide story … unless you’re afraid of where that story might lead. And if you’re interested in what a WeinerGate story looks like when a news outlet is terrified afraid of where it might lead,

lol

h8 breitbart so fuckin much but when they get up on the IF THIS WERE A REPUBLICAN thing it's just so gloriously butthurt

The real scandal is that the pic is so tame. If he's gone the whole Favre then maybe there'd be a story here.

So Obama authorized the use of his autopen to sign the damn Patriot Act extension

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/27/136700744/obama-signs-extension-to-terrorism-fighting-bill?ft=1&f=1001

Bam signed the USA PATRIOT renewal remotely from Paris, that's how much he loves it.

― the gay bloggers are onto the faggot tweets (Dr Morbius), Saturday, May 28, 2011 9:19 AM

This is a New York story that involves the trifecta of politics, sex, and a rising political star.

Just like Eliot Spitzer then?

these "they all died for FREEDOM" F'book statuses are an annual test for me.

Sentiment with lousy syntax and spelling always grates. However, I wouldn't dream of shitting on the one person in my FB feed who has become a turbo-charged gold star mom following the death of her son in Afghanistan two years back (and I hate all elevation of 'the mom' as distinct from 'mothers', if you know what I mean).

Funnier was the feed/herd response after the Obama mideast speech; my friend who is a screaming Zionist with her OBAMA YOU SOLD OUT THE JEWS outbursts interspersed with all the Londonstanis and their variations on OBAMA BOUGHT BY JEWS, FILM AT TEN.

Obama: uniting disparate warring factions...AGAINST HIM!

the whole Favre

More on the paranoia of Roger Ailes of Fox

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-roger-ailes-built-the-fox-news-fear-factory-20110525

Murdoch installed Ailes in the corner office on Fox’s second floor at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan. The location made Ailes queasy: It was close to the street, and he lived in fear that gay activists would try to attack him in retaliation over his hostility to gay rights. (In 1989, Ailes had broken up a protest of a Rudy Giuliani speech by gay activists, grabbing demonstrator by the throat and shoving him out the door.)

Barricading himself behind a massive mahogany desk, Ailes insisted on having “bombproof glass” installed in the windows — even going so far as to personally inspect samples of high-tech plexiglass, as though he were picking out new carpet. Looking down on the street below, he expressed his fears to Cooper, the editor he had tasked with up-armoring his office. “They’ll be down there protesting,” Ailes said. “Those gays.”

Those first few paragraphs are cheap shots though.

Facile reporting and framing can turn any figurehead into Mao.

Little Fox Book = quarterly shareholders' report

this weiner thing sounds like breitbart horseshit to me.

also, I don't think politicians should even be on twitter.

Jonah will disagree.

Aren't most people accepting the Weiner argument re his account being hacked?

x-post--Ailes
facile reporting and framing of a guy who has been described and quoted by colleagues as paranoid by numerous others in several articles elsewhere. Perhaps the Rolling Stone piece should have referenced the other sources, but for better or worse Rolling Stone always prefers the more provocative approach than neutral and detached.

It's not a bad story, but the New York one is much better. Plus, I wonder why these liberal and left-leaning journalists suddenly got access to the same anonymous sources. What with Palin making noise about running it looks like liberals getting antsy again.

Meanwhile, the only person who wants to let the story die is Weiner, which suggests he’s the one who has done something wrong or knows something he doesn’t want others to know.

truly a world-class mind at work

left-leaning journalists suddenly got access to the same anonymous sources

Disgruntled Fox employees?

It's totally Breitbart bullshit! Weiner isn't stupid and he's already put a lawyer on it - these guys are trying to make fake parallels with Eliot Spitzer using a fake scandal.

the debt ceiling stories are majorly depressing. every time you think all the blue dogs dems have been killed off....

but where would you have gotten that notion?