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

super lol @ that photo

He is, he says, part of the “family” of Clinton lifers. But the famously boyish native New Yorker also belongs to a more extended and, if possible, more dysfunctional family of politicos, operatives, staffers, reporters, TV bookers, media types, government officials and frosted society scenesters. And he bears some of their less appealing traits...

lol

he is currently reading three books.

Worst boast ever, unless he's hold one in each hand and another between his toes.

tiger mother, lemony snicket and who moved my cheese

Who gives a shit about this douche

it's sort of emblematic of a certain type of personality in DC. the constant networker/self promoter who is v crass about it

i honestly had trouble working out what some of the paragraphs in the last 2 - 3 pages were even about

i always kind of wonder how big national trends are instantiated & written about in local scales

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/otherviews/123137033.html

so this was kind of lol, mostly sad

Duane Benson -- former NFL player, former state Senate GOP leader, former CEO of the Minnesota Business Partnership, now head of the Minnesota Early Learning Foundation (MELF) -- was describing the "funny thing" he was experiencing this year as a lobbyist for smarter state spending on early childhood education.

He'd come to the Capitol with a passel of proven ideas that spring from traditional Republican philosophy. They had substantial business backing.

Among them: Don't start a new government program. Make use of existing private-sector providers. Engage them in a purely voluntary rating system. Take advantage of market forces. Empower poor parents to be informed consumers. Trust them to make preschool choices, in the same way affluent parents routinely do.

Here's the key one: Don't spend more tax dollars. Spend the tax dollars you already have in wiser ways.

"I thought the Republicans would love this stuff," Benson told me. "Instead, the Democrats are the ones who love it. A lot of Republicans don't want anything to do with it." In the new GOP view, government ought to have no role in the prekindergarten education of children, he explained.

It's often said that Minnesota's two big political parties have grown more polarized because they have moved in opposite directions from an ill-defined midpoint. Independence Party candidates [MN "third"/spoiler remnants from the Ventura days - ed] make the assertion their stock in trade: The DFL has been moving farther to the left, the GOP farther to the right.

Benson got me thinking that the notion needs rethinking. A case can be made that the ideological shift of both big parties has been to the right, and that a lot of DFL ideas now occupy what not long ago was considered Republican territory. [god damn nothing gets by you, huh - ed]

DFLers seldom frame their policy arguments in social-justice terms. They talk about "jobs, jobs, jobs" and seem increasingly keen on employing market forces to do public work. Witness their friendly response to MELF's early ed quality rating system and its plan to convert early childhood subsidies into (dare I say) a voucher program.

The lefty lines of an earlier era are heard no more. I can't recall when I heard a DFL politician openly question the merit of capitalism.

had to wiki DFL

Oh, The Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL)

In the new GOP view, government ought to have no role in the prekindergarten education of children, he explained.

"New"? Hasn't that always been their view?

You're not very old for a curmudgeon.

In the new GOP view, government ought to have no role in the prekindergarten education of children, he explained.

fixed

It is all part of the master plan. They will be the masters. We will be the slaves.

Right-wing Christian Mom Home-schooling instructions

In the new GOP view, government ought to have no role in the prekindergarten education of children, he explained.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_06/the_antijobs_candidate030212.php

Romney as successful businessman versus Romney as job-cutting profiteer. In tonight's Republican debate he will characterize himself as the former.

Or maybe the latter too. Republicans like that.

Another delicious story about Obama and Wall Street.

Even greater than Ed’s policy concerns is his personal feelings of being ignored and shut out of the process. Ed is not unreasonable and realizes that many people had a hand in making these policy decisions and does not claim that his voice should be heard above the rest. He does, however, feel that he has a perspective on this issue that is unique and feels as though he did not have a venue in which to share his input.

can we make this a website where it puts anyone's name in

Over the past 30 years, Full Sail University has built a reputation as one of the premier art, music, and film schools in the world. Throughout the entertainment, media, and arts industry, Full Sail graduates have made their names working on award-winning films and albums, acclaimed video games and design projects, live productions, working inside major media companies, and more.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/10/239780/wisconsin-craft-beer/

It's All Culture War, pt. x

Tucked into Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) much-discussed budget was a little-noticed provision to overhaul the state’s regulation of the beer industry. In a state long associated with beer, the provision will make it much more difficult for the Wisconsin’s burgeoning craft breweries to operate and expand their business by barring them from selling directly to restaurants and liquor stores, and preventing them from selling their own product onsite.

that's such a nutty provision---like, why? i mean obv it's to line the pockets of middleman distributors and please the state's large breweries, but is there any other pretense? how is that beneficial to the public?

also like how we basically just passed the yin to that provision's yang here in mn---go omar, go!

As noted in the link:

Joining MillerCoors in support of the provision are industry associations that have an interest in preserving the current business of beer distributors, including the industry’s lobby, the Wisconsin Beer Distribution Association.

MillerCoors also donated to Walker's campaign

idk, liquor politics have been really fucked up and corrupt since the rum trade, really.

beyond the "how could he!" and fake-free-marketeer gotcha type stuff, this is interesting 2me because of the constituency issues.

as in? wisconsinites love beer and this is the ultimate fuck you?

you can't think of it in terms of just another 'small business', it's a niche manufacturing segment that makes something that ppl who hate scott walker really like, if not vice versa.

or, more generously, nobody in walker-world really gave this a second thought because it's not really in their mental map of things to care about

i think the cultural politics of craft beer are a little more complicated than that g-man!

to turn it around, imagine a gov. feingold signed some reg that favored the larger gun makers over small boutique crafters in the state or something (the analogy doesn't work but just go with it). maybe it's 'no big deal' but it'd be a huge offense to the customer base!

xp well maybe

p sure there are loads of craft brewers who would identify as conservative/tea party dudes

conservative/tea party dudes are the exact ppl who would be pissed about being forced to sell their stuff through distributors thanks to state legislation, I would think

Well, yeah, but this wouldn't exactly the first time tea party dudes' beliefs don't exactly line up with they actually shout about.

sure but it might lift some scales from a few people's eyes and bolster the recall movement (...that's gonna happen, right?)

http://neversleep2.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/yes.jpg?w=266&h=221

lol where is that from

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2011/06/allen_west_flag_code_violates_federal_law.php

Great music:
 

Music, but horrible music:
 

Not music:
 
--You're Twistin' My Melody Man! (Geir Hongro)

Great music:
 

Music, but horrible music:
 

Not music:
 
--You're Twistin' My Melody Man! (Geir Hongro)

(my typo = Anita Hill vs Clarence Thomas) --Huk-L

what the everliving fuck


--James Mitchell

science sez AV wins

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/04/mathematicians-weigh-in-on-uk.html
--standing on the shoulders of pissants (ledge)

huh?

anyway, i didn't think the flag code was like real law.

glumdalclitch

I can't believe what I'm hearing from folks? All, similar letters to yours.
Are you a Union member? If so, are they the communist giving you this
propaganda?
Do you know the who, what, when, where, why, and how, of Fidel Castro?
Hitler rose to power using and blaming the jews for the destruction of the
German economy. Castro built his army of murderers by blaming the rich
bankers and capitalist for destroying Cuba and taking advantage of the Cuban
people. Hummmm?

Yung Humma has lost his mind

slander AND bang it

the rep who wrote that, to one of his constituents, was caught in his parked car in the lot of a planned parenthood, with a loaded gun. his explanation to the police was that the PP location was just a coincidence, he was just trying to "check up" on a woman he'd gone on an online date with, who was no longer returning his calls.

this was last year some time? pretty sure i wrote about it.

http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/members/members.asp?id=10229

yeah, you did

btw dude appears to be CRAZY

think this goes beyond appearances...

crazy like an ALPHA

Oh no! Communists! I've heard about those! I'm so scared! Those are those bad guys from that 80s movie with Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen, right?

who could have known that this man would react so badly to a bunch of form letters from union members...