“Venezuela is a country whose defense budget is probably 1/600th of the United States’. They own Citgo. It’s unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States. I don’t think anybody can find any evidence that [...]

In one of my other lives, I write fiction. My newest story has just appeared at Stone’s Throw, an online literary magazine. Yes, this is shameless self promotion. I’m hoping some of y’all will find the time to read the issue — and maybe even read some other great literary journals as well. You’d be [...]

Today, CQ dropped a bombshell of a story. It’s hard to recap in short form; I suggest you read the article (I try to unpack it in longer form here). Essentially: Representative Jane Harman was being wiretapped in 2004/2005, as part of the NSA’s warrantless wiretap program (which, at the time, was a secret). On [...]

I’ve already seen many scoff at Obama’s pledge to go line by line through the budget, but aren’t those the same people who are calling for less government spending? It would be heartening to see the following moves applauded instead of ridiculed, especially since all we hear from the right wing these days is how [...]

Note to the left…it’s not enough to simply call out the right on their hypocrisy. Janeane Garofalo… (UPDATE: Apparently the first video was taken down. In it Garofalo argued that the tea partiers were racist, and it was mixed with a clip from 2003 where she said that ALL dissent was patriotic. So that was [...]

Every once in a blue moon, on a low traffic weekend afternoon, I might post a roundup of activity on the other site I blog for, TheCrossedPond.com. The purpose of that site has always been a sort of rolling/roiling conversation on the nature of conservatism (perhaps more accurately, libertarian-conservatism) and its place, or lack of [...]

Apparently there’s something wrong with the dye they used to print them. Go ahead and just click on the video below. I had to resize it in order for it to fit so it’s cutting off some controls at the bottom. Thankfully, I never carry cash.

First, he talks about how he’s going to start talking about all the spending he’s going to cut in the coming weeks. I wonder if it’ll quiet critics who say he’s spending us into the poor house. Probably not, but I’ll keep my eye out nonetheless. He also introduces the Chief Performance Officer and Chief [...]

“I just wish everyone would take a step back from this extremist brink. It can’t lead anywhere good. At best, it will bring the right-wing blogosphere into disrepute, and at the worst it could lead to violence if you encourage these real nuts out there.” – Charles Johnson, founder and lead blogger at Little Green [...]

That means he was made to feel as if he were drowning an average of 6 times and day for 30 straight days. Kind of puts that whole ticking clock scenario to rest. From Emptywheel: I’ve put this detail in a series of posts, but it really deserves a full post. According to the May [...]

Roxana Saberi, journalist for BBC and NPR, has been sentenced to 8 years in prison in Iran for allegedly spying for the U.S. If you haven’t followed the case: Saberi, an Iranian-American freelance journalist (and former Miss North Dakota) has been in Iran working for the past six years. Some months ago she was arrested [...]

[...] imagine if an American operative out of uniform were captured by the Iranians tomorrow. Imagine he were put into a coffin for hours with no light and barely enough air to breathe, imagine if he were then removed and smashed against a plywood wall by a towel tied around his neck thirty times, imagine [...]

Those are the numbers for now… So how does this compare historically? Obama’s 63% first-quarter average matches the historical average of 63% for elected presidents’ first quarters since 1953. However, it is the fourth highest for a newly elected president since that time, and the highest since Jimmy Carter’s 69% in 1977. The historical first-quarter [...]

Can he get away with commentary like this? Let’s hope so… Listen, I’ve never been a fan of Rivera’s, but he brings up an important basis of comparison when talking about Tea Parties and media coverage. Basically, Fox News is “wondering” why other news orgs didn’t cover the Tea Parties as much as they did, [...]

Mona Charen of National Review Online notes that major media outside of Fox News either ignored the tax day tea parties or took an adversarial tone in reporting on them. Charen rightly notes that part of the problem is that Fox News promoted and actively participated in the events, giving other news outlets the excuse [...]

That’s what Fox News is dishonestly “wondering” these days, and I think we all know why: because protests are news, but not of so much importance that you spend entire weeks covering them. Remember how much coverage the immigration rallies got last year? About a day’s worth. And that’s how organization’s covered the Tea Parties. [...]

“The United States is a nation of laws. My Administration will always act in accordance with those laws, and with an unshakeable commitment to our ideals. That is why we have released these memos, and that is why we have taken steps to ensure that the actions described within them never take place again.” – [...]

This could anger a lot of folks on the left, but I think it’s an incredibly dangerous precedent to prosecute folks for following orders. More from AP: WASHINGTON -Attorney General Eric Holder says the government won’t prosecute CIA officials for using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics on terror suspects. The decision comes as the [...]

With Obama visiting Mexico today, I thought it would be topical to share some pretty shocking stats/facts about the country. GlobalPost has 10 factoids and here are the first 3… A recent U.S. government report suggests that “Two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico.” Mexico has [...]

Nate Silver compiles the numbers and makes a pretty good educated guess…as he often does… based on news accounts of 306 “Tea Party” protests in different cities across the country yesterday, I get a cumulative attendance of 262,025, with a fair number of (probably mostly smaller) events still unaccounted for. These figures, wherever possible, are [...]