US politics

Top Stories Friday 20 Dec

Civil liberties, US politics
Published on


Atrios on the INS roundups in California:

Look folks – imagine you’re dealing with your DMV. Imagine Flunky #1 messes up your driver’s license application and tells you to come down to the office. Then, when you do go down to the office as requested Flunky #2 notices you drove there AND you don’t have your driver’s license (because, well, they screwed up your application). Flunky #2’s boss recently decided they now had a no- tolerance policy on such things and he has you arrested and thrown in jail.

Then, of course it doesn’t stop there. The special DMV judge operates his own special DMV court which has its own rules. Speedy trial? Nah. You could be there awhile. Who will support your family? Who knows. Chances for appeal? Not really.

The DMV judge deports you back to a country you haven’t lived in for 10-15 years. Your American children wave goodbye, as does your wife.

But, enough of that, I’ve got to go work on my next Tech Central Station column about the inconveniences of airline security for business travelers and my Fox News column about startling new evidence that Michael Bellesiles is a pedophile.

Top Stories Thursday 28 Nov

Feminism, US politics, War on Terror
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The Sideshow on the alleged differences between men and women:

It’s rubbish, of course. Despite all appearances, I would argue that women are at least as interested in sex as men are, it’s just that we’re less convinced that we’re going to get it from any old roll in the hay. Intercourse as an activity is pretty much defined in terms of what the guy does – he has to be aroused (hard) while the woman can be cold and still do it. He finishes and then it’s over. It doesn’t really have much to do with whether we’re in the mood, let alone whether we have an orgasm. It’s just physical reality: that particular act can satisfy a man without engaging a woman’s eroticism at all. But we love to be aroused and we can have orgasms that are absolutely as consuming and powerful as any man’s, and we even fall asleep afterwards all relaxed and happy. We’re interested in the thing that does that to us, but it’s hardly a foregone conclusion that intercourse is that thing. But “relationship” isn’t necessarily that thing, either. Because in our society we define “sex” as “intercourse” (yes, we still do) and we think intercourse is supposed to be That Thing, we can pretend that only men are really prioritizing sex. But women, trust me, will put up with a lot for good sex. We just don’t always realize that it is sex that’s making us be so crazy. So we think we’re “more mature” because we are looking at something that is bigger and more important than sex, while men are just focused on what we regard as shallow and trivial and “merely physical”. (And we’re wrong about that part, too.)


The Sideshow cannot believe it:

And then I read, also via Atrios, that of all people Henry Bloody Kissinger, America’s biggest war criminal, has been appointed to head the 9/11 investigation. (Hey, isn’t September 11th a big day in Kissinger’s history, too?) Even I can’t believe some of the stuff that comes out of this administration. The only reason they haven’t got all of their convicted criminals and unindicted co-conspirators in this administration is because some are too busy doing talk radio or, in Nixon’s case, in Hell, to join them.


Atrios has the report of the Kissinger Commision on
11-9 already:

Report of the Kissinger Commission

Muslims attacked us because they are bad and they hate our freedom. Our noble intelligence agencies did the best they could. Our recommendation is that we should curtail our freedoms, so that they won’t hate us so much anymore.

Love,

Henry

Untitled

US politics
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Through the Looking Glass on the Massachusetts governational election race:

Yet in an important race in what should be a Democratic stronghold state, the professionals running her campaign aren’t stressing the issues, but are instead going straight for the sleaze. They have somehow convinced themselves that voters don’t want to hear which candidate supports government programs which actually matter to them, but could be motivated instead by hearing about factories in Nebraska in the 1980s. The latest “issue” they’re flogging to the press is an absurd claim that there were sexist implications when Romney described O’Brien’s attacks as “unbecoming”. “Unbecoming” is a fine word to use. For both of them.



And so it goes nationally. We have an administration with unpopular positions on the environment, business issues, and many other things, which is trying to gain power for its adherents in Congress by distracting the voters from real issues, turning politics instead into a debased freakshow of charges and countercharges. There are two messages here — one being that government is corrupt, and involvement with it is unbecoming (a truly fine word); the other, which comes through loud and clear on a network news whose coverage of “politics” and the legislative process is dominated by horse-race analysis and personal smears, is that this unseemly business has nothing to do with the voters. Which is wholly false. The horse-race analysis and personal smears may have nothing to do with the lives of the voters — but politics does. Very much.


Pandagon questions Forrester’s ad campaign:



No link, but Forrester is running ads now with newspapers basically saying, “We didn’t like the switch for Lautenberg, so, um…vote for Forrester.”


How bad of a candidate do you have to be when the sole bit of advocacy you can put forward on the part of newspapers is that a vote for you is a rebuke to someone else? I swear to God, give me a briefcase full of unmarked $20 bills, and I will run any Republican campaign into the ground. It costs less than what they’re doing now.

Untitled

bigotry, Blogs, US politics
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The Sideshow on anti-semitism and anti-zionism:

The religious aspects of the situation can be terrifying, but let’s not pretend that it’s only the Islamic world that’s being horrible and bigoted about it. The Pentecostal Christians who “support” Israel with such fervor are possibly even more nasty and dangerous than Israel’s overt enemies. Virtually all of them are extremely anti-semitic, and the outcome of their planned “defense” of Israel is even worse for Israelis than merely dissolving the state. We’re talking about people who aspire to seeing virtually everyone in the Middle-east, Muslims and Jews alike, wiped out.



So let’s be clear: You can not distinguish anti-semitism merely on the basis of support for Israel – and I’m not just talking about the particular policies of this or that Israeli government: I mean any degree of Zionism or anti-zionism at all. There are plenty of Zionists who are anti-semitic, and there are even anti-zionism who would be perfectly happy to have their daughter marry a Jew just as long as Israel itself no longer existed.


Body and Soul:
Diary of a blogging hiatus:



Day 1: Life is better if you don’t read the New York Times.

Day 2: We are burdened by the obvious and nevertheless absurd idea that nonfiction is real and fiction is false. Newspapers are full of lies and there is nothing as honest as a Raymond Carver or Alice Munro story. I don’t think I ever want to bother reading nonfiction again.

Day 3: The New Yorker’s fiction isn’t as good as it used to be.

Day 4: I should at least look at the headlines. I mean, I’m still a citizen and all, right? I ought to have some notion of what’s going on in the world. It doesn’t require me to express an opinion or anything.

Day 5: I should save that article. I might want to write about it if I start blogging again.


Counterspin:



A VOTE FOR JEB IS A VOTE FOR MORE DEAD KIDS: The Miami Herald has just published an explosive report on the appalling state of Florida’s Child Welfare system under Jeb Bush.