Where does the Westboro Baptist Church get the money for their protests?

I've never seen an explanation.


posted by Quiddity at 10/07/2010 09:01:00 PM

Why so tame, Newt?

In the news:

Gingrich brands Democrats 'party of food stamps'

"It's perfectly fair to say they are earning the title of the party of food stamps," he said. "By contrast, we have historically since Ronald Reagan of 1980 been the party of job creation."

Never mind that, at least for the last 2 decades, the Democrats had much greater job creation (a metric which is not all that meaningful, but it's the one people use).

What puzzles is not that Gingrich says these things. Lots of people do. But that he gets invited to the television shows to opine.


posted by Quiddity at 10/06/2010 10:14:00 PM

Sounds familiar:

In reviewing a Lindsey Graham-friendly New Yorker article about climate legislation, Jonathan Chait has this to say: (emp add)

[The author, Ryan Lizza] shows that the sponsors of the climate change bill, Lindsey Graham, Lieberman, and John Kerry, had plenty of legitimate greivances with the White House. Obama was not showing a determination to pass a bill. At key junctures, he made unilateral concessions that the threesome had hoped to trade for GOP support. And someone in his administration needlessly antagonized Graham. The detail is fantastic and damning of Obama, but the conclusion that these events were decisive seems questionable.

The "concessions" include nuclear powerplant loan guarantees and offshore drilling in the Gulf. Now the internal mechanics of the legislation's path isn't quite that simple, but there does seem to be a pattern of the White House not working effectively with whomever in Congress is trying to get bills passed. Does the problem lie with Phil Schiliro, Obama’s top congressional liaison, or is it someone higher up?


posted by Quiddity at 10/06/2010 04:48:00 PM

I would rather read David Frum (or another intelligent conservative) than Tom Friedman:

Friedman's latest op-ed is puerile. It's a tough competition, but this column is one of his worst. Excerpts:

President Obama has not been a do-nothing failure. He has some real accomplishments.

... a president who won a sweeping political mandate, propelled by an energized youth movement and with control of both the House and the Senate — about as much power as any president could ever hope to muster in peacetime — was only able to pass an expansion of health care that is ... suboptimal ..., a limited stimulus ..., and a financial regulation bill that [is inadequate]. Plus, Obama had to abandon an energy-climate bill altogether ...

Obama probably did the best he could do, and that’s the point. The best our current two parties can produce today — in the wake of the worst existential crisis in our economy and environment in a century — is suboptimal, even when one party had a huge majority.

We need to ... start building a superconsensus to do the superhard stuff we must do now.

We have to rip open this two-party duopoly and have it challenged by a serious third party ...

No mention of the mechanics behind the legislation. No mention of Republican opposition or the Congressional rules that facilitate it. No mention of the role the press (right-wing and otherwise) has on the debate. The Friedman solution is a super-supermajority third party is never going to happen. He might just as well have called for intervention by advanced beings from the Andromeda Galaxy. Why does the New York Times pay this guy for worthless opinions?


posted by Quiddity at 10/02/2010 10:42:00 PM

Time for a name change:

Here's a typical headline: Obama promotes technology; GOP calls for tax cuts

What else is new? The Republicans are always calling for tax cuts. So why don't they change their name to the Tax Cut Party? Put it right there on the ballot:

Fred Jackson (DEMOCRAT)
Jane Parker (TAX CUT PARTY)

posted by Quiddity at 10/02/2010 06:34:00 AM