Politics

The defenders of Bush's leaky brain are getting desperate: My only comfort is that probably about 80% or more of the American people don't know who Karl Rove is. And probably 90% or even more don't know who Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame are. Remember, only about 20-25% can name even one Supreme Court [justice]. This was written by Betsy Newmark, an Advanced Placement teacher of U.S. government and politics at a North Carolina high school. How many Americans knew Archibald Cox's name in 1973, ... (read more)

2005/07/12

This morning's Washington Post reports that the military has corrected a decline in recruiting: The Army has exceeded its monthly nationwide recruiting goals for June, stopping a four-month slide and giving recruiters hope as they try to make up a significant deficit in the remaining three months of the fiscal year. Unless I'm overlooking something, this appears to be Enron accounting. In May, the Army reduced monthly recruiting goals by 17 percent. ... (read more)

2005/06/30

Wired News follows the discovery of Bram Cohen's technological agenda declaring "digital piracy" as one of his goals, which he describes as a work of parody. Anybody who thinks that they might produce technology at some point in the future that might be used for piracy has to watch everything that they say. I suspect this will continue to be true until a file-sharing technology gets a slam-dunk victory in the courts. ... (read more)

2005/06/30

Meet Sunsara Taylor, the media's favorite young communist blogger and hardest working running dog in prole business: Sunsara Taylor has emerged as an important leading voice of a new generation dusting off the dream of revolution and picking up communism as it is being creatively re-envisioned by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party. She fiercely believes humanity is capable of a morality flowing from principles which guide an ongoing struggle to uproot all vestiges of ... (read more)

2005/06/25

One Nation Divisible by Zero

A State Department employee recalls how liberals reacted after the 9/11 attacks: I remember President Bush coming to our agency to make a speech about three weeks afterwards. Although, as is common with federal workers in DC, many people were Democrats and liberals who had voted against him, you would not have known that from the tumultous applause he got. He was the Commander-in-Chief, and we put aside politics to support him. Some conservatives are cynically proud of Rove for exploiting 9/11 ... (read more)

2005/06/25

In Case of Emergency, Dial 9/11

"9/11 changed everything" is the context by which everything follows. No speech about homeland security or Iraq should being without a reference to 9/11. -- GOP advisor Frank Luntz President Bush had a 90 percent approval rating in the Gallup Poll conducted Sept. 21-22, 2001. He has 47 percent approval in the same poll today. As the White House flounders for reasons to explain the record lows in the president's public support, perhaps they should consider the corrosive effect of their repeated ... (read more)

2005/06/24

Liveblogging Talk Radio

A cool thing happened Monday night during the experiment to promote the Alan Colmes Radio Show on the Drudge Retort. As the show broadcasts from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. weekdays, I post live links plugging the next hour. I wanted to see if the site's night owls would tune in and talk about it in real time. On Monday, Colmes interviewed Cindy Sheehan, a mother who began Gold Star Families for Peace after her son died in Iraq. On the Retort, we discussed her desire for an impeachment inquiry, and I ... (read more)

2005/06/22

The San Francisco Chronicle finds someone who claims to have been an Adidam devotee with Joan Felt: ... they had spent some wild times as devotees of onetime Marin County spiritual sect leader Da Free John, a.k.a. Bubba Free John, a.k.a. Dau Loloma, a.k.a. Da Love-Ananda, a.k.a. Franklin Jones. Hales remembered Joan Felt talking freely about her association with Da Free John, the son of a Long Island window salesman who claimed to be an "incarnation of God" and whose nine wives included a ... (read more)

2005/06/21

We've Got Kids in Harm's Way

I'd love to ask Frank Luntz, the diabolical image minder who crafts political language for Republicans, what he thinks of this quote yesterday from President Bush on the war in Iraq: I understand how dangerous it is there. I understand we've got kids in harm's way, and I worry about their families. And obviously, anytime there's a death, I grieve. I can't think of a worse way for a president to restore flagging public support in a war than to describe our troops as children. The quote reminds ... (read more)

2005/06/21

In New York, some adopted children are being sworn in as American citizens at an exceptionally American place: a mall. They returned to their seats clutching their certificates of naturalization, government documents that declare in the poetry of bureaucracy one's bond to this land. Cherished pieces of paper, they say: I came from there, and now I am here. The children were also clutching gift bags, courtesy of the mall. Along with those sacred certificates, they received a small teddy bear, a ... (read more)

2005/06/19

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