2019 archive
Misdirection Play 0
Pamela Person has some questions.
Follow the link for her answers.
Snowflakes 0
Over at Delaware Liberal, Pandora points out that the reactions Farron discusses do indeed validate the message in the commercial.
Both Sides Not 0
David Atkins skewers the narrative that somehow Democrats bear some–indeed, any–reponsibility for the Trumpian temper tantrum. A nugget:
QOTD 0
Rex Stout, in the voice of Nero Wolfe:
He is a self-styled public relations counselor–one of the various modern activities that are an insult to the dignity of man.
Stout, Rex, The Father Hunt (New York: Bantam, 1993), p. 169
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness is the pits.
Back when I learned hunting safety from the NRA in the olden days, when it was a hunting society and not a marketing tool of the merchants of death, I was taught never to point the gun at myself or others for the love of God.
Originalism Sin 0
David and his guest discuss the phony rationales for Constitutional “originalism.”
The Letter of the Lawyer 0
Joe Patrice parses an electronic epistle that Matthew Whitaker’s wife wrote in protest of a Slate article questioning the legitimacy of Whitaker’s position as “acting” Attorney-General. Here’s a bit; the italicized parts are from her email.
Are you hoping that all future appointees’ qualifications are to have sat at a desk and pushed paper around for 30 years?
Like a committed career government servant instead of a political grandstander? Is this supposed to sound like a bad thing?
It is a small comfort to me that the people who will want to work with him in the future are, let’s hope, really unlikely readers of Slate and similar publications.
Yes, we live in a world of media silos and thankfully for Whitaker the people who will want to work with him are too busy watching Alex Jones.
This is only a partial parsing; follow the link for the full treatment.
QOTD 0
William Makepiece Thackery:
Aside:
I’m reading the ebook of Vanity Fair from Project Gutenberg, so page numbers are meaningless. The quotation comes from the penultimate paragraph of chapter X.
Thackery’s style is verbose (as was that of most Victorian authors), conversational, and quite surprisingly snarky. I recommend the book, but caution you not to expect to breeze through it.
Walling a Wall-Eyed Piker 0
Mike Littwin comments on Nancy Pelosi’s and House Democrats’ strategy. A snippet:
Pelosi’s power play — to deny Trump his night of pomp and circumstance, a night in which he asks the nation to accept the notion that he is somehow fit to be president, a night he would surely spend slamming Democrats for refusing to pony up the $5.7 billion for a border wall — won’t end the shutdown. But for someone who has dreamed of a full-on military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue as he watches from his seat of honor, Trump must be enraged. As I write this, I await the rage-tweets to come.
Follow the link for the rest.
Starr Chamber 0
Shaun Mullen explains how the side effects of Ken Starr’s misbegotten and partisan investigation of Bill Clinton’s sexual peccadilloes may come back to haunt Donald Trump.
Aside:
When I was in grad school, one of my professors was fond of remarking on the “ironies of history.” If Shaun is correct, as he usually is, this would surely make his list.