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By Weldon Berger, on May 18th, 2013
As everyone knows, Obama administration dirty tricks operative Ben Gazzy was caught slipping Muslim DNA into the refreshing chilled Thorazine-based breakfast shakes enjoyed by stalwart Congressional Republicans. The administration immediately disavowed any knowledge and responsibility for the affair but the remaining alert Republicans are having none of that.
The administration’s stonewall was holding firm . . . → Read More: Famous political scandals of the past as they might have been reported by ABC’s Intrepid Jonathan Karl
By Weldon Berger, on April 17th, 2013
I’ve now read two opinion pieces, one by Charlie Pierce at Esquire last week and another by Jamelle Bouie at The American Prospect today, saying that the failure of various gun control measures proves that presidential leadership doesn’t work. They’re writing to defend President Obama from charges that he doesn’t use his position effectively to lobby . . . → Read More: This is why Democrats can’t have nice things
By Weldon Berger, on April 16th, 2013
I was browsing through my news feed yesterday morning when I ran across a story about the US bombing a wedding in Afghanistan. I thought something like “Jeez, again?”* and didn’t click through for the full story because it was so familiar. Now I can’t find it, but I think it said 30 dead. . . . → Read More: Routine carnage in Boston
By Weldon Berger, on April 13th, 2013
The number of actual Libertarians in Congress is the same as the number of actual Arcturans in Congress, as far as we know; if there are any of either, they’re not open about it. Most congressional Libertarians espouse a philosophy of government under which everyone — corporations, powerful reactionary white guys, women, liberals, people . . . → Read More: Rand Paul: Genius. Nitwit. Post-racial Statesman
By Weldon Berger, on April 10th, 2013
Ralph Emerson said that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. He meant that it’s silly to stick to one’s guns in the face of overwhelming evidence that the guns are wrongly aimed. He said it over drinks in a tavern at a table full of the finest minds of his generation. . . . → Read More: Who’s afraid of Rand Paul?
By Weldon Berger, on February 21st, 2013
I just happened across a BBC series on Netflix starring Kenneth Branagh as Danish police detective Kurt Wallander. It’s based upon a Danish series (itself based upon a series of Danish novels) that I’ve not yet seen. It’s very psychological and moody, as Scandinavian dramas and their imitators tend to be.
Wallander is depressed, . . . → Read More: Wallander
By Weldon Berger, on December 21st, 2012
John Boehner’s next job could be as a safety buoy bobbing gently in the waters of the Fiscal Shoals, warning off the unwary. (“These are not tears,” he will say with a sad little smile; “it’s only the life-giving waters of the sea in my eyes.”) If he falls, he’ll likely give way to one among the group of 40-something white guys who call themselves The Young Guns, which right there gives you multiple insights into some of the things troubling the Grand Old Party.
House and Senate staff members will take an 8.2% pay cut if their bosses don’t get a tax and deficit deal done before the end of the first federal pay period in 2013. Collectively, the staff are looking at more than $100 million in cuts for the year. Possibly this will have an impact on the negotiations. Their bosses, who included themselves among America’s Warriors and others so valuable or vulnerable as to warrant protection from any budget reductions, face a 0% cut (although their foreign currency conversion allowance will take a brutal hit). Even John Boehner will still get paid despite demonstrating live on national television that he can’t do the job for which he draws a larger pay check than anyone else in the House.
(“Who should get pay cuts?” “Well, let’s start with the obvious: not us. VA nurses first.”)
Continue reading Bobbing for sharks with Orange John Boehner
By Weldon Berger, on December 16th, 2012
Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr. doesn’t say what sounds “close-air support overhead” resembles, probably on the assumption that his audience, readers of the American Forces Press Service, do not need a description. He does say that the sounds “are often referred to as “the sounds of freedom,”” although he doesn’t say . . . → Read More: From Newtown to Kabul, the sounds of freedom
By Weldon Berger, on December 13th, 2012
The surprise in the Obama administration’s deal with London-based HSBC, the money-laundering enterprise moonlighting as the world’s third-largest bank, is that it came in the guise of a criminal prosecution. The bank has pleaded guilty to breaking some laws. Nobody who works or worked at the bank is guilty, though; just the corporate person, . . . → Read More: The Obama justice department: never met a bigfoot badman they couldn’t work with
By Weldon Berger, on December 11th, 2012
I like to read the contract notices issued by the Pentagon. On a good day you can watch billions and billions of dollars go out the door in support of blowing various things and people up. Among the beneficiaries of today’s contracts is UNICOR, the government corporation that contracts prison labor to make stuff . . . → Read More: In which we use prison labor to make body armor to sell overseas
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Word of the Decade Ignoranus: An ignorant asshole.
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