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The Liberal Doomsayer
My blog deals primarily with national politics in the U.S. as well as, on occasion, local politics in Pennsylvania. From time to time, I may have something to say about sports and entertainment as well. I try to interpret information that shapes the news and provide context to current events. I am definitely left of center politically, but I believe no one knows everything.
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Read And Learn, Inky
2008-01-21 19:28:11
Kudos to Guy Petroziello and the Bucks County Courier Times for publishing David Sirota today on its editorial page; Sirota's great column today pertains to the health care insurance initiatives in Washington state and Wisconsin in which employers and employees pay a modest payroll tax in exchange for full medical benefits.For all of the wingnuttia on that paper's Op-Ed pages - and there's plenty of it again today - the Courier Times at least makes the effort to publish progressive voices like Dave as well as Gene Lyons, Paul Campos, Jim Hightower on occasion and others (as opposed to the Inquirer, which is just about beyond any hope as far as I'm concerned). ...
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Remembering Dr. King
2008-01-21 19:17:29
Prof. Marcus posted this already, but I'd like to do so again - The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was talking about Vietnam and communism in the '60s, but he could have just as easily been talking about Iraq and terrorism today, among other things (and pay close attention to his totally apropos Biblical references, you self-professed Christians and "values voters" - it's called "walking the walk," and he paid the ultimate price for it).The duration of this video is 22:48, but it's worth every second and much more. ...
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Saturday Videos
2008-01-20 04:12:49
(I meant to get to these last night...)As we watch our investment earnings go further down the drain, let's boogie down to "The Wall Street Shuffle" by 10 cc (Are you as psyched about Dubya's wonderful "stimulus" package as I am, by the way? Just keep digging that hole and hope our "friends" the Saudis and the Chinese continue to bail us out)......this would have been Janis Joplin's 65th birthday, by the way ("Summertime," recorded in Stockholm in 1969)......Dayna Kurtz ("Love Got In The Way"; wow, what a talent, and I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that Joplin was a trailblazer of sorts who helped make it possible to folks like Kurtz to get noticed)......and for your listening and dining pleasure, the melodic sounds of Tool ("Forty Six and 2," with clips from the film "Constantine"). ...
Videos
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Friday Political Stuff
2008-01-20 03:26:18
I realize I haven't said anything about the war for a little while, though I should have, but I came across this, so (rough language)......and speaking of our military (here's more)...Update 1/19/08: Forgot this from last night (h/t to Prof. Marcus - you go, K.O.). ...
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Friday Videos
2008-01-19 06:49:34
Robert Palmer would have been 59 tomorrow ("Addicted To Love"; guilty pleasure time)......and here's Sara Bareilles with "Love Song." ...
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Where’s Your “Identity Politics” Now? (Update)
2008-01-19 06:10:42
A whole raft of other bloggers, pundit types, and media notables have weighed in the flap over Barack Obama’s praise of Ronald Reagan, including John Edwards, who I think is entirely correct of course here.I would just ask that others consider this latest dustup in context with these moments and wonder why the senator from Illinois lapses into rhetoric and actions that end up complementing anything that could come out of the RNC playbook when “crunch time” arrives. Yes, I know he’s a bit “green” after all on this stage, which isn’t his fault entirely, but it’s bad enough when the Repugs trip all over themselves with their “Gipper love” – I can’t think of a word to describe how unseemly it is when a Dem engages in it also.Update: Wow, Markos, way to take a shot at John Edwards and totally ignore Obama's habit of resurrecting right-wing talking points which you yourself have noted in the past (and you even managed to plug your book in the process...dag, what a pro ...
Politics
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A PA Electoral Warning?
2008-01-19 05:47:36
I’ve been thinking about this article written by Clive Thompson in the New York Times magazine (dated 1/6) for a little while, and I just wanted to share this excerpt…IF YOU WANTED to know where the next great eruption of voting-machine scandal is likely to emerge, you’d have to drive deep into the middle of Pennsylvania. Tucked amid rolling, forested hills is tiny Bellefonte. It is where the elections board of Centre County has its office, and in the week preceding the November (2007) election, the elections director, Joyce McKinley, conducted a public demonstration of the county’s touch-screen voting machines. She would allow anyone from the public to test six machines to ensure they worked as intended.“Remember, we’re here to observe the machines, not debate them,” she said dryly. The small group that had turned out included a handful of anti-touch-screen activists, including Mary Vollero, an art teacher who wore pins saying “No War in Iraq” and “Books Not Bombs. ...
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In Praise Of A King Of Cultural Kitsch
2008-01-19 00:50:22
Finally, I cannot let this week conclude (more or less) without observing the passing of Richard Knerr (pictured), the co-founder of Wham-O Inc., makers of frisbees, super balls, silly string, and all kinds of other utterly mindless toys which I enjoyed with my friends growing up in a long-gone era, as we tortured ourselves ceaselessly without the aid of any electronic gadgets whatsoever.Of course, as it turns out now, the company he and childhood friend Arthur “Spud” Melin founded in 1948 is now owned by Cornerstone Investments Overseas Ltd. of Hong Kong (Melin died in 2002).Well anyway, thanks for the fun while it lasted, guys. ...
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Sounds Like Justice Was Already Done
2008-01-19 00:44:52
I’ve been meaning to take note of an excerpt in this New York Times story written when Dubya visited Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, but this is the first chance I’ve had, so…Mr. Bush’s tour of Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust Museum, and his trip to Galilee on Friday produced the not-so-revelatory headline, “Remembrance and Faith in the Holy Land.”That item opened with a tantalizing clause — “After a later-than-usual dinner at Prime Minister Olmert’s residence ...” — but Mr. Gillespie dished no more, even though the dinner was, the Israeli accounts said, a raucous affair. It was said that Mr. Bush buttonholed two wavering members of Mr. Olmert’s cabinet, while an Israeli lawmaker buttonholed Mr. Bush about the case of the American spy Jonathan Pollard, to Mr. Olmert’s chagrin.It turns out that there has been a movement afoot for some time to free Pollard and allow him to emigrate to Israel (news to me anyway), and the Israelis have even granted him citiz ...
Justice
Sounds
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A Sign Of Desperation
2008-01-18 21:26:37
Based on this quote in today’s commercial for the Republican Party by Kevin Ferris of the Inquirer, I don’t think it’s going to be much longer before “the gloves come off” concerning Tom Manion…"(Patrick) Murphy became co-opted by the Nancy Pelosis and the John Murthas of the world - and MoveOn.org. That's not part of the change that voters in the Eighth District expected."Yep, they got nuthin’ all right. Given the low regard I hold for Mikey, though, I at least have to give him credit for exercising the good judgment to sit out this election (and Manion said that he wants to now get out and talk to the voters, which is a worthy goal; however, I would have done that before I'd decided to run for office.)And this Letter to the Editor appeared in the Courier Times today…Signs have appeared recently that read: “The Iraq War is a success. Patrick Murphy is a failure.” We cannot be certain who sponsored this exercise in double speak since those involved were ashamed to s ...
Desperation
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More From "The Most Trusted Name In News"
2008-01-18 18:36:57
This is “water wet, sky blue” stuff and I should probably be spending my time on something more productive, but…It seems that Glenn Beck is now being promoted by CNN as a featured online columnist, which makes me wonder if that network has any journalistic credibility left at all.And in this piece of drivel, he uses our current economic melt down triggered by the mortgage subprime lending crisis to accomplish two things: the first is to take another shot at Hillary Clinton, and the second is to tell us all that cutting corporate tax rates will solve everything (see, doing that will spur investment and job growth, encouraging people to spend and saving our economy).The Repugs and their acolytes are nothing if not predictable, aren’t they? But in the real world, this tells us the following…Congressional Budget Office data show that the tax cuts have been the single largest contributor to the reemergence of substantial budget deficits in recent years. Legislation enacted since 2 ...
News
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Thursday Political Stuff
2008-01-18 16:23:36
Looks like "Mittmania" could be derailed based on these startling allegations from The Onion (h/t The Daily Kos)...Mitt Romney Defends Himself Against Allegations Of Tolerance...and I know I've been beating this drum so much that I'll probably end up putting a hole in it, as it were, but here goes one more shot (and if you're so inclined)......and by the way, let's not forget Al, you Minnesotans (no punch lines any more, just the truth)......and "The Pap Attack" takes on Dubya and the Saudis. ...
Political
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Ignoring A Picket Line Isn’t Funny
2008-01-17 23:40:27
I know I promised I wouldn’t say anything about the WGA strike, but I wanted to take a minute and applaud cartoonists Ted Rall and Matt Bors for showing their disagreement with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s decisions to host their programs while the writers continue their walkout (as noted here).And while I’m at it, I have to express a similar attitude towards Bill Maher, who expressed his “love” for “my guys” during the “Real Time” premiere the other night, but managed to work in a dig anyway, saying that the “all or nothing” attitude by the WGA leaders on the strike is about the same mentality that led us into the Iraq war (want some apples with your oranges, Bill?).Also, I’m curious to see if his “Blogga, Please” segment remains when the strike finally ends; in it, Maher took some excerpts from sites and submitted them for response by guests Mark Cuban, Catherine Crier, Tony Snow, and Matt Taibbi. I suppose I should give Maher credit for that even if ...
Funny
Ignoring
Picket
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A Granite State Wingnut Alert
2008-01-17 22:57:26
I admit to being a novice about New Hampshire politics, but it set off a warning bell or two when I read here that Jennifer Horn, who apparently is a media type in those parts, has decided to challenge first-term Dem U.S. House Rep. Paul Hodes.What I do know is that Hodes is endorsed by Act Blue (here) and, out of a possible 1185 votes cast by the House during his term thus far, he has missed four votes.That’s impressive.So why exactly does Horn want to oust him?(She) says New Hampshire voters elected Hodes to change Washington, but that Washington has changed him. She says she would work for smaller government, to cut taxes and wasteful spending, to develop a long-term energy solution, for immigration reform and to support the military and veterans.Yep, I think you could pretty much expect any Repug from the freeper-cookie-cutter mold to spout that stuff (and by the way, she wrote this fawning column about Frederick of Hollywood that positively made me gag; sounds like Hodes support ...
State
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Bushco's Sonar Sub-terfuge
2008-01-17 22:16:01
For years, the Navy and groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council have fought a legal battle over the use of sonar in the world’s oceans to detect potentially hostile submarines. This is because of the effects of sonar on marine life, with so many undersea animals relying on sound for feeding, mating, and other functions necessary for their existence.And since it appeared that environmentalists were starting to turn the tide in favor of protecting marine life off the California coast, you can be sure that our ruling Repug cabal was going to involve itself at some point with the subtlety of an army boot to the groin.And sure enough, as noted here (the party of “states rights” strikes again)…The Bush administration jumped into a long-running legal fray in California on Tuesday, exempting the Navy from a law that environmental groups have used to prevent the use of a type of powerful sonar that is believed to harm whales.The waiver exempts the Navy from the Coastal Zone ...
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Terra Rants Anew From “Torture Yoo”
2008-01-17 22:00:20
Time to plunge into local wingnuttia in The Philadelphia Inquirer today, and I need my hip waders for this one (a refresher background post is linked below).It seems that Bushco sycophant John Yoo is fighting back against Jose Padilla, going on the offense as follows...Padilla is no innocent. Last summer a Miami jury convicted him of participating in an al-Qaeda support cell in the United States. Prosecutors now are asking the court to sentence Padilla to life in prison. The conviction did not even address his detention in 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare Airport on allegations that he had returned from Afghanistan to carry out a "dirty" bomb attack on a major U.S. city. According to the Bush administration at the time, Padilla had received the green light from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the planner of the 9/11 attacks.The reason why none of this was mentioned was because no case could be made against Padilla on any of these charges (thankfully, just because Bushco alleges it, it doesn't make it ...
Terra
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Wednesday Videos
2008-01-17 05:51:47
Bush (once again, the band, not the waste of space - "Come Down").....and Happy Birthday to John Mayer ("Waiting On The World To Change"). ...
Videos
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Wednesday News/Political Stuff
2008-01-17 05:10:49
Something to think about concerning John Edwards and the Nevada debate (from Brave New Films - and I know it's from Fox, but still...)......and I think this is part of why he scored so well (familiar themes I know, but so, so important)......Meanwhile, Pinch's quota hire at The Old Gray Lady tries to defend what is indefensible......and I hated on Bill Gates earlier I know - here's a kinder, gentler spoof than he deserves from Letterman. ...
News
Political
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No Economy Of Common Sense
2008-01-16 23:42:03
The New York Times ran this Op-Ed piece today by Steven E. Landsburg, a professor of economics at the University of Rochester, who, among other things, has said that those who choose no health insurance should not receive (potentially life saving) treatment (as noted here). And he is a self-described “libertarian,” which, to me, means that he’s bought into the whole Ayn Rand, laissez faire capitalist, “me, myself, and I and everyone else can drop dead” thing.How sad.So it should come as no surprise that Landsburg’s piece in the Times today is a free-market love fest which contains this sickening piece of agit-prop…If you’re forced to pay $20 an hour to an American for goods you could have bought from a Mexican for $5 an hour, you’re being extorted.Pardon me while I spit up a burrito at my PC monitor for a moment.This does, though, give me an opportunity to compare the earnings of American-based CEOs as opposed to their foreign counterparts (after all, isn’t it true ...
Common Sense
Economy
Sense
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Bill Gates, Friend Of The Working Man
2008-01-16 23:26:06
I tried to leave this as a comment in response to this post from Prof. Marcus, but it was too long, so…__First, it sounds like these unindicted criminals want to get into what used to be and may still be called “human factors engineering” in the defense consulting ‘biz; that was once my world in another lifetime. And, being Microsoft, they intend to utterly dominate the market and squash all competition, bringing them under heel to lick the refuse from their boots.Second, I’ve been meaning to post forever about my horror story with these bastards. For reasons that were utterly cosmic in their stupidity and which I will probably never understand, I upgraded to Internet Explorer 7 on a whim near the end of last summer from IE 6.The first thing that went wrong was the sudden inability of my anti-virus program to go get daily updates, and my spyware program didn’t work properly either (both AVG, good products, and both free – I had to buy the spyware program to fix one issue) ...
Bill Gates
Gates
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The Robertses Are At It Again
2008-01-16 18:57:23
There’s so much wrong with the latest screeching from Cokie and Steve Roberts concerning that oh-so-ugly partisanship that has Washington, D.C. in its grip that it’s really impossible to refute it all (and to be honest, even if I did, they’d just be back about a month or so later repeating it all over again – I don’t like partisanship either really, but I like zombie-like compliance with the corpocracy’s dicta as articulated by their media slaves even less).However, I just want to take issue with a couple of items. First…When political advantage is the only goal, any lawmaker who tries to reach across party lines immediately takes fire from his or her own ranks. Consider (John) McCain's courageous attempts to work with Democrats like Ted Kennedy on immigration reform. To hear his fellow Republicans, you'd think McCain represented Hades (Kennedy's home state), not Arizona.Oh, ha ha, did you read that? The Robertses made a funny! A slur against the commonwealth of Massachus ...
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The Edwards Freeze Out's "Exhibit A"
2008-01-16 17:54:12
I apologize for continuing to beat this drum, so to speak, but I would ask that you consider this New York Times story written today by reporters Adam Nagourney and Jennifer Steinhauer for a minute or two. It pertains to the efforts of the Democratic contenders for president and their courting of the Hispanic community.The Times reporters devote a lot of space to the efforts of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, as you might expect, noting also that former Arizona governor and presidential aspirant Bill Richardson is Hispanic. There is also mention of former Clinton administration HUD secretary Henry Cisneros, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa…hell, even Al Sharpton is quoted, taking the opportunity to provide the laughable observation that, somehow, Obama “has not been part of…efforts to make (racial) progress.”This story is about 1,250 words in length. As noted, it pertains to the Democratic presidential campaign.And John Edwards isn’t mentioned even once.And I really d ...
Freeze
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A Brief Thought On Tom Manion
2008-01-16 17:17:57
I’ll be respectful towards the declared Repug opponent against Patrick Murphy for the 8th district seat in Congress (ignoring Madden and Lingenfelter for now) as long as he acts in a similar manner, but I must point out something based on this Philadelphia Inquirer story (and I’ll also ignore for now Manion’s laughable claim that somehow Patrick Murphy is responsible in part for the partisanship in Washington, D.C., though Manion has to run on something, I realize - Brian Scheid and the Courier Times have more here)…(Tom Manion) moved to Bucks County with his wife and two children in 1990, when he joined Johnson & Johnson (Manion is an executive with the big pharma company).OMG, you mean Manion isn’t “a lifelong resident of Bucks County” like the beloved Saint Mikey?Well then, I’m sorry, but I have no choice then but to trump up the admittedly idiotic story line that Manion was “dropped into” our district by the Republican National Committee during the presidenc ...
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Monday Political Stuff
2008-01-16 13:50:01
Concerning this "Huckabee moment," doesn't it make you all "warm and fuzzy" for The Man From Hope-Less, you "values voters" (should scare the crap out of anyone in this country with a brain, though - h/t The Daily Kos)......and congratulations to The Mittster on winning in Michigan tonight (tongue planted firmly in cheek here)......and K.O. brings us the "Worst Person In The World" from yesterday (and by the way, it's "Jonah" Goldberg, alias the Doughy Pantload - don't ask)......and to get serious for a minute, I wonder what this man would have made of all of this (he would have been 81 today)....Also, here's a link to his speech at the Barratt School in South Philadelphia in 1967.Update 1/16/08: This is somewhat "off-topic," but that's OK; check out the thread commenter Ron is referring to here from J.D. Mullane's blog post. I haven't managed to read all of it yet, but it sounds like our ol' buddy J.D. got called on some of his typical liberal-baiting language and had a meltdown over ...
Political
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Monday Videos
2008-01-16 06:05:16
Arctic Monkeys ("Fluorescent Adolescent"; so sad when clowns go bad - tsk, tsk)......Happy Birthday to Don Glen Vliet, otherwise known as Captain Beefheart ("Click Clack" live from Paris in 1973 - wonder what those silly French people were thinking when they watched this?)......happy belated birthday to T-Bone Burnett, here with "Earlier Baghdad (The Bounce)"; I haven't quite made up my mind on this yet, but it's interesting......and Happy Birthday also to Iris Dement, performing "You Can Close Your Eyes" with James Taylor. ...
Videos
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Patrick Murphy Finally Has A Repug Opponent!!
2008-01-16 04:43:28
As I live and breathe, it turns out that Tom Manion of Doylestown, a 53-year-old pharma- ceutical executive and a recently retired colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, has decided to challenge Patrick Murphy for the U.S. House 8th district seat in PA (here, with Mikey cheering from the sidelines, of course).I will give Manion the respect of acknowledging that he lost his son Travis, 26, in Iraq during his second tour, and we should extend our thanks to both of them for their sacrifice on our behalf and in particular to the father for enduring such a tragic loss.However, if Manion intends to act in accordance with the foul boilerplate concocted by the Bucks County Republican Party (an example of which appears in the sign…these people live in their own particularly demented version of wingnuttia), then I can assure you that he will receive the same treatment Mikey did from your humble narrator.Manion held a meeting with reporters at his house today at 2 PM, so I am sure that he has ann ...
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Happy Landings For "Bubble Boy"
2008-01-16 00:26:46
This tells us…Alan Greenspan, a former Federal Reserve chairman, is joining the hedge fund Paulson & Co. as an adviser, the New York-based company said Tuesday.And this tells us…As rising delinquencies on subprime mortgages escalated into a global credit crisis this summer, some in the $1.8 trillion hedge fund industry thrived, like Paulson and Scion, while others fell.And The Shrill One tells us this about Greenspan…(Greenspan is) like a man who suggests leaving the barn door ajar, and then - after the horse is gone - delivers a lecture on the importance of keeping your animals properly locked up.As Krugman said, the chutzpah is breathtaking. ...
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BoBo Almost Makes My Head Explode – Film At 11
2008-01-15 19:31:37
David Brooks of the New York Times continues to embellish the corporate media narrative that the campaigns of Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the presidential nomination are nothing more than the triumph of “identity politics,” which is pretty much defined as someone running for office to represent a group that has been actually oppressed in some fashion or merely perceived as having received that treatment (here).This does at least three things, I realize. First, it keeps the “divided Democrats” theme lurking out there in the shadows of public consciousness somewhere, and second, by excluding John Edwards, it implies that white males have no place in the Democratic Party. Third (as always), it gives Brooks a launching point from which he can foist more misinformation on us.This is not really news, I know. However, Brooks does go off on this right-wing riff that is really a doozy…All the habits of verbal thuggery that have long been used against critics of affi ...
Explode
Film
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Smerky Slams "Obama-Rama"
2008-01-15 18:40:19
Philadelphia’s resident right-wing know-it-all Michael Smerconish concocted this yesterday in the Inquirer…On the morning after Hillary Rodham Clinton's upset victory in New Hampshire, I spoke to MSNBC host Chris Matthews. He said that after anchoring coverage on MSNBC, he had been up all night talking to the NBC pollsters, trying to figure out how the pre-vote polls all got it wrong in projecting a double-digit win for Barack Obama.Matthews wondered how they had been dead right in Iowa, and on the Republican side, but wrong with the Democrats.I think the following from this story about HRC’s New Hampshire win is pretty close to the mark…In the end, though, key voting blocs were there for Clinton - or were not there for Obama, depending on how the campaign frames it. According to exit polling conducted by The Associated Press and the networks, far more women voted than men; Clinton won 45 percent of them compared to 36 for Obama.Also according to exit polls, only half as many N ...
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A "Real Time" Snow Job
2008-01-15 14:34:49
I know ThinkProgress noted here (h/t Atrios) that Tony Snow poked out from under his hidey hole to spout freeper propaganda on the writer's-strike-affected season premiere of "Real Time" on Friday ("everybody gets it wrong at the beginning of the war"; some day, elementary school classes of some other country/planet/universe that comes after us will study how the arrogance that gave rise to that statement helped denigrate every aspect of our political life, to our ultimate ruin if things keep going the way they are).I wanted to take note, though, of Snow yakking about "voter fraud" when Maher brings up the issue of the integrity of our voting machines (a typical Repug tactic, and watch how seamlessly he transitions to "REAL ID" in the clip below, but then Catherine Crier quite rightly notes that no case has been documented, and Snow quickly says, "Are you kidding" but then changes the subject without providing evidence, and kudos again to Crier to stating how important it is to have a ...
Job
Snow
Time
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