Newsfront: Stamp of Disapproval

Non Cents

In a speech before that hotbed of East Coast elite, the Wisconsin Right to Life, Sarah Palin let loose with a new conspiracy theory worthy of Glenn Beck on peyote or a sober Oliver Stone. Politico reports:

In addition to the suggestion that government officials would consider hastening the death of the infirm or handicapped, she began her remarks with a puzzling commentary on the design of newly-minted dollar coins.

Noting that there had been a lot of “change” of late, Palin recalled a recent conversation with a friend about how the phrase “In God We Trust” had been moved to the edge of the new coins.

“Who calls a shot like that?” she demanded. “Who makes a decision like that?”She added: “It’s a disturbing trend.”

Unsaid but implied was that the new Democratic White House was behind such a move to secularize the nation’s currency.

Needless to say, the accusation doesn’t quite add up.

But the new coins—concerns over which apparently stemmed from an email chain letter widely circulated among conservatives—were commissioned by the Republican-led Congress in 2005 and approved by President Bush.

Dear God, that “memoir” of hers is going to be a gold mine.

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A Standard of Less Than Excellence

Jonathan Chait at the New Republic lets loose with one hell of an assault on Republican mouthpiece the Weekly Standard. He’s pulled a set of articles in which the magazine heralds good news for Republicans; said good news then fail to materialize. Lather, rinse, repeat. This one, from October 22, 2007, might just be our favorite.

Cheer Up!
Republicans are too gloomy
by William Kristol

In that real world, conservative policies are working fine, and liberals are providing little in the way of alternatives. The Bush tax cuts have been thoroughly vindicated: National wealth is up, unemployment is down, and the federal deficit is lower than the day the 2003 tax cuts were passed (though the Bush administration seems incapable of explaining any of this). [...]

Here's what's likely to happen: When the nominees are selected next year, the Republican will be behind—just as the GOP nominee trailed, at various times, in the 1980, 1988, 2000 and 2004 campaigns. Then the Republican will rally and probably win.

Here’s a prediction in which we feel fairly confident: If the name Bill Kristol appears in the byline, every single piece of analysis put forth in the article will soon be proved wrong.

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The Pledge of Allahgiance

This video from Thursday’s Super Bowl of Freedom is filled with the kind of rich, gooey irony that just overflows at events like these.

Enjoy watching Missouri Congressman Todd Akin fail to put his money where his mouth is.

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Class Conscious

Say what you will about the teabaggers—that they are vile, ignorant, racist douchebags, for example—but dropping a comment like this isn’t going to make friends on either side of the aisle.

Several thousand middle- and lower-middle-class (by the look of them) people gathered on the steps of the Capitol yesterday to denounce health-insurance reform as an apocalyptic threat to all that is good and free and right and American.

That’s the typically stellar Hendrik Hertzberg who lets slip his Upper West Side decorum and Up With People ecumenicalism and gives voice to an ugly Mr. Blackwell impersonation. It’s perfectly fair to ask why people so often act, and vote, against their economic interests—as Hertzberg does—but there is something unseemly about accusing these idiots of being lower-middle-class because they don’t shop at Barney’s.

Image via Oregon Live

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In Brief:

—God help us should we ever come across a car adorned with this bumper sticker.


—From the department of unlikely names, is this woman in the pocket of Big Pork or what?

“I get so angry when I feel people pushing a weight-loss agenda,” said Linda Bacon, a nutrition professor at City College of San Francisco and author of “Health at Every Size” […]

A federally financed study by Ms. Bacon, published in the book, found that there were many people who could be healthy in fat bodies.

—The Brits reject a Benny Hill stamp because of its “opposition to company's policies on harassment in the workplace.” For shame, Britain.


—We’re assuming that he’s talking about the Old Testament, fire-and-brimstone, kind-of-an-asshole God.




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