View image | gettyimages.com This is the elegant if ridiculously named Miss P, the winner of last night’s Westminster Kennel Club dog show. Backstage, an inconsolable owner wondered when the Mexican hairless would get the respect it deserves. “All they care about is looks!” he cried. “I think I’ll lick my butt,” his dog silently […]
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Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Jeb Bush’s Distinct and Special Manhood
View image | gettyimages.com The political news of the day came from Jeb Bush, who delivered a foreign policy address with a sound-bite-ready quote in which he declared that as terrific as his father and brother are, “I am my own man.” He didn’t actually explain any differences between what they did and what he’d […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and the Long But Fading Shadow of the 1960s
View image | gettyimages.com Hanna Rosin has a new Atlantic article plumbing the depths of Clinton-hatred, and it contains this insightful paragraph referring specifically to R. Emmett Tyrell, one of the most prolific Clinton-haters, but applying more generally to the broader phenomenon: Unlike the nastiest Obama hatred-which is typically rooted in a fear of the […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
The Circle of Scam Spins On
In my Plum Line post today, I took a look at this interesting report from John Hawkins of Right Wing News on how some of the conservative PACs meant to funnel money to Republican candidates have actually been just keeping the donations they get-most or even all them-for the people who run the PACs. What’s […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Photo of the Day, Astronauts Are Awesome Edition
This is the official-and I stress that, official-photo released by NASA for an upcoming expedition to the International Space Station. The awesomeness is so extraordinary it can’t be contained by one measly class M planet. And if you know what’s wrong with that last sentence, you earn your geek badge of the day.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
How Republicans Will Use Scott Walker’s Lack of a College Degree To Stir Class Resentment
View image | gettyimages.com Since we’re now all fascinated by Scott Walker, there’s been some discussion in the past few days of the fact that Walker would be the first president in many decades who didn’t have a college degree. He left Marquette after four years, and though he apparently was quite a few credits […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Back to the Future in 2016
White House photo by Pete Souza It’s never long in a presidential race before one candidate or another says, “This election isn’t about the past-it’s about the future.” But the 2016 election is probably going to be even more about the past than most, particularly given that there will be no incumbent running. I thought […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Photo of the Day, Media Edition
View image | gettyimages.com New York Times media columnist David Carr, speaking at an event yesterday. He died later that evening after collapsing in the Times newsroom.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
It’s Going to Be Hard to Convince Voters of Republicans’ Compassion On the Economy
In recent months, Republicans have been searching for ways to talk about the economy that go beyond their traditional supply-side focus on growth, which says that if we do a few key things (cut taxes, reduce regulations), the economy will grow and everyone will benefit. Since the conversation about economics has shifted to things like […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Friday Linguistic Digression
Flickr/debaird Since it’s Friday, we’ll begin the day with a non-political digression on language. I’ve been meaning to put together my thoughts on this story that came out a couple of weeks ago from Britt Peterson of the Boston Globe on the “quotative like,” the now-common use in which the word “like” indicates someone saying […]
