Category Archives: Weasels

In the event you were under the impression that Russia gives a rat’s ass about Syrians

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From today’s New York Times:

Some Russian analysts say the Kremlin is using the conflict in Syria to test a new generation of weaponry from a major procurement program that military officials began in 2010 after years of oil-boom profits.

“There are radars and all sorts of new control systems, and of course we need a firing range,” Konstantin V. Remchukov, the editor of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, told the Echo of Moscow radio station this week.

“We carried out a lot of exercises,” Mr. Remchukov said. “But a firing range like that opening before us in Syria, with these bombing sorties, with drones and other objects of the new generation, this is, of course, a favorable place for fine-tuning all our new weaponry.”

In praise of John Boehner

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Actually I’m amazed John Boehner survived as long as he has. His one virtue as Speaker of the House has been his total lack of principle, which has enabled him to cobble together majorities or pluralities out of a Party that’s gone off the rails, becoming increasingly misogynist, homophobic, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim; filled with paranoid whackos, voodoo economists, anti-science half-brains, creationists, and white supremists; while being financed by billionaires, Wall Street, and big business.

The problem for the rest of us right now is they’re still a majority in Congress, and many are aiming to close down the government unless Planned Parenthood is defunded and then to default on the nation’s debt rather than lift the debt limit. John Boehner will not go down in history as one of America’s greatest Speakers of the House, but at least he served as something of a buffer between the Republican crazies and the rest of America. (This morning when Marco Rubio announced Boehner’s plan to retire, attendees at the Values Voter Summit in Washington roared their approval and then rose in a standing ovation.) After the end of October, that buffer is gone.

– Robert Reich

Thought for the Day: 17 September 2015

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Brad DeLong:

Best-selling author Rick Perlstein will talk American politics in Hall Center lecture

A question for Rick Perlstein, should we make our way out to Lawrence, KS tonight:

Sixty years ago Democratic Party grandee Dean Acheson said: Republicans are an essential part of America. They are the party that understands economic growth, and represent those for whom America is working, and for whom economic growth is sufficient.

Today, however, when I look at the Republican Party, that is not the party I see.

I see a party that caters to plutocrats–but increasingly to heirs and successful rent-seekers, not to real entrepreneurs. I see a party that caters to a bunch of white identity-politics practicing Fox News-watchers whom it scares by saying bad guys are coming to get them–for Pat Buchanan, Jews; for Ron Paul, Blacks; for Donald Trump and Kris Kobach, Mexicans; for Sam Brownback, Californians; and for the mayor of Irving Texas, Muslim immigrant anchor-baby teenage-engineers.

You have written three big books of the history of this transformation. But you are only halfway through. Can you give us now the one-paragraph synopsis of what the bottom line will be when you will have finished writing all eight volumes of your history?

Quote of the Day: August 20, 2015

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Who knew that the self-immolation of the Party of Lincoln would be this entertaining? Sure it’s a tragedy, but none of the monsters in this horror flick give a shit about me anyway, so if a volcano is going to burn down my little house no matter what I do, I’m damn well going to at least enjoy the spectacular sunsets it leaves in its wake.

– driftglass

Thought for the Day: 21 July 2015

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Trump has been calling Mexicans rapists for weeks but the thing that will finally sink him with journalists is being mean to John McCain.

(Source)

To be fair to Trump though, his comments were taken out of context.

It is interesting to me how some public figures can be multifaceted douchebags but the public will only care about one of those facets.    For example, no one cares about Denny Hastert’s crooked land deals but the pedophilia is a showstopper.   Similarly, Bill Clinton sells out pretty much everyone who ever supported him politically but it’s the blowjob from the intern that generates outrage.  Go figure.

UPDATE 7/25/2015:  Stewart on Trump.

UPDATE 8/22/2015:  It’s now a month after the fact and no one seems to care that Trump insulted McCain.  If they do it’s not obvious from his poll numbers.  On the poll numbers, I want to know how it is that nearly half – half! – of registered Democrats in OH, PA, and FL haven’t heard enough about Bernie Sanders to have formed an opinion of him.  For comparison, 90-95% of Democrats surveyed say they know enough about Clinton and Biden to have an opinion – so for those who have an opinion – and opinions are mostly favorable – please tell me what informs your opinion.  What is it that causes you to like or not like them?

Thought for the Day: 4 June 2015

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Handing what we used to call The Commons over to private enterprises — especially private enterprises operating in the ethical wasteland of modern American corporations — doesn’t work. It is an invitation for the wolverines who run such enterprises to steal as much of the public treasury as they can and then stick us with the bill when they inevitably fail, because these corporations are not about building things. They’re about abetting the transfer of money upwards, to a stockholder class. They are vehicles for the financial services industry.

– Charlie Pierce

Orwell’s 1984 was intended as a warning not an instruction manual

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Newspeak:

Actually, it gets much worse than just banning (or attempting to ban) words.   They act to suppress inquiry in general and the collection of potentially inconvenient information in particular.  It was bad before the 2014 election.

and then it got worse

(Many of the links above are directly or indirectly via Mike the Mad Biologist.)

You wonder why I believe contemporary Republicans are essentially Stalinists?  Well there you have it.

PS  No, both sides don’t do it.  This is a Republican problem.