David Weigel flags for us an amusing case of two politicians, one a congressional candidate in Tennessee, and one a candidate for agriculture commissioner in Alabama, who are running virtually identical ads produced by the same media consultant. It’s not just the stock footage and the scripts that are almost identical but the fact that […]
Paul Waldman
Paul Waldman is a weekly columnist and senior writer for The American Prospect. He also writes for the Plum Line blog at The Washington Post and The Week and is the author of Being Right Is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success.
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Crank Up the Outrage Machine.
Steve Benen explains how absurd Republican demands are that a special prosecutor be appointed in the question of Joe Sestak‘s alleged White House job offer, and this raises a rather important issue. In case you are unaware, Sestak says that someone in the White House told him that if he would shelve his primary campaign […]
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Is Sarah Palin Being Gaslighted?
I think I figured it out: Democrats, the lamestream media, and a shadowy group possibly involving the Trilateral Commission have gotten together to gaslight Sarah Palin. That’s right, they’re trying to drive her insane. The latest plot twist in the never-ending soap opera that is Palin’s life is that investigative journalist Joe McGinniss, author of […]
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The Deep Thoughts of Newt Gingrich.
Over at 538, Tom Schaller has an interesting interview with Newt Gingrich about both politics and policy. As you may know, Gingrich is currently promoting his latest book, titled To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine, and Tom gets him on record making some very positive noises about running for president in 2012. Schaller starts […]
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Old-Line Media Adapt to Kutcher-Based Medium
The design firm Information Architects has created a very nice infographic showing the 140 (get it?) most influential Twitter users. Here’s a little piece of it (via Fast Company): What’s interesting about this is that among some emphatically new, hip, trendy, up-to-the-minute folks, you’ve got some rather mainstream names as well. There’s CNN, the third […]
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The Robot Army Comes.
Popular Science shows us the latest from Boston Dynamics, a company that, with your tax dollars, is developing robots to do things like carry soldiers’ gear for them. This R&D is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), creator of that which is wicked cool and that which is nearly terrifying. The interesting […]
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“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” On the Way Out?
Pretty big news on the military’s ban on gay service members: WASHINGTON — President Obama, the Pentagon and leading lawmakers reached agreement Monday on legislative language and a time frame for repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, clearing the way for Congress to take up the measure as soon as this week. It […]
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No Country for Straw Men
Some on the right have cast the president as their own personal villain. When facts won’t convince them that a dictatorship isn’t nigh, there’s no point in arguing.
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Do You Know About the Holograms?
During the health-care debate, progressives got to know, and intensely dislike, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Doing his best to move from object of scorn to object of mockery, yesterday he offered up a gem to rival Ted Stevens‘ immortal declaration that “the Internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a […]
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Submit, Puny Earthlings, to Your New Olympic Overlords.
(Image: London 2012) The horrifying monsters in this photo are Wenlock and Mandeville, the just-unveiled mascots for the 2012 London Olympics. They’ve got videos!. They’ve each got their own Twitter feed! They’ll hypnotize you with their cyclops eyes before crushing your skull in their mandible claw-hands! For some reason, the organizing committee of every Olympics […]
