July 27, 2009
“ To paraphrase Douglass, a Party is worked on by what they choose to work on. Work on stupid, expect to get stuck there. Expect to have to take meetings with a Russian-born dentist/lawyer about who’s American, and who’s not.
Ta-Nehisi Coates. Zing.
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July 24, 2009
“ Set aside the particular facts of this case and the various unknowns still swirling around it. A police officer needs to be able to respond to a call about a possible burglary, knowing he or she is going into a situation where they might find an actual burglar, who could be armed and might act in an unpredictable and lethal way. But they also need to be able to turn on a dime once it’s clear it’s not a burglar but the owner of the house, tired and coming home from a long trip. And on top of that, even though the cop was responding to help the owner of the home, the cop needs to be prepared for the fact the owner may be embarrassed or angry for being treated like a criminal in his own home. If that happens, the cop needs to be able to understand the reasonableness of the reaction and deescalate the situation — not get into a macho pissing match which ends up getting decided in the favor of the cop because he has the handcuffs and the gun. (It’s my strong sense that this is what happened in the Gates case.)
John Marshall
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July 16, 2009

Where we differ

squashed:

jeffmiller:

You and Squashed think you are being compassionate toward the guy who wants to sell his kidney, but it’s not compassion—it’s cruelty. He has a potential path out of poverty, and you want to block it. If you think it’s an awful path, give him a better one, so that the kidney sale looks less attractive.

Jeff, I assure you, I am trying very hard to give that guy a path out of poverty that doesn’t require him to sell chunks of his body. I have all sorts of ideas for programs that would have a much, much better chance of succeeding than a one-shot cash injection followed by a probable lifetime of health consequences.

The bold part is the point i’ve been wanting to make but Squashed beat me to. This whole “selling your organs” thing just sounds like a fancier pay day loan scheme, except instead of a crippling spiral of never-ending debt, you just have to go through the rest of your life down a kidney or with half a liver and all of the problems that come of that. What was the problem with changing the donor rules to being opt-out instead of opt-in, again? That just seems like a much simpler solution to the problem of organ donation, one that doesn’t involve more complicated regulation and oversight or the specter of organ harvesting.

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July 15, 2009
“ I may have said something about the NAACP being un-American or communist, but I meant no harm by it.
Jeff Sessions in 1986. (via methodicechidna)
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June 24, 2009
bg5000: Not soon enough. (posted with tweetshots.com) I would settle for Keyboard Cat playing him off.

bg5000:

Not soon enough. (posted with tweetshots.com)

I would settle for Keyboard Cat playing him off.

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Abstinence-Only Driver’s Ed

“What about seat belts?” you might be saying to yourself. “Don’t seat belts GUARANTEE that I CAN’T POSSIBLY die in a car?” Bzzzt! Wrongo. Every single day in this country, seat belts FAIL. In fact, I know of a study that proves—CONCLUSIVELY proves, people—that seat belts will fail 75 percent of the time.

Who did the study? Government workers.

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June 23, 2009
“ The final insult to oppressed people, is always to make them responsible for the venal stupidity of their oppressors. The bigots core refrain is never “I hate you,” but “Why are you making me hate you?” Left unsaid in all this is why, precisely, some guy in San Fran wearing a thong is so offensive. Instead it asks gay people everywhere to adjust. It’s not enough to be hated by the homophobe, now you must wash his laundry too.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
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June 22, 2009
“ It all got started during a discussion of George Bush, who McCain acknowledged was a less than perfect president. But McCain also pointed a finger at the Obama administration in Bush’s defense, saying she felt that the Obama administration “has to stop completely blaming everything on its predecessor.” When Maher asked McCain if she really thought this is what Obama is doing, McCain said “I do to a degree.” A clearly annoyed Begala immediately shook his head and said “not to enough of a degree, I’m sorry not nearly enough.” He then began to explain how President Reagan blamed Jimmy Carter for years, to which McCain responded blithely “you know I wasn’t born yet so I wouldn’t know.” Going in for the kill, Begala fired back “I wasn’t born during the French Revolution but I know about it.
Paul Begala Schools Meghan McCain (VIDEO) (via apsies:robot-heart-politics)
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June 17, 2009
“

It was only — let’s see — I think seven hours ago or eight hours ago when I — I have said before that I have deep concerns about the election. And I think that the world has deep concerns about the election. You’ve seen in Iran some initial reaction from the Supreme Leader that indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns about the election.

Now, it’s not productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling — the U.S. President meddling in Iranian elections. What I will repeat and what I said yesterday is that when I see violence directed at peaceful protestors, when I see peaceful dissent being suppressed, wherever that takes place, it is of concern to me and it’s of concern to the American people. That is not how governments should interact with their people.

And my hope is, is that the Iranian people will make the right steps in order for them to be able to express their voices, to express their aspirations. I do believe that something has happened in Iran where there is a questioning of the kinds of antagonistic postures towards the international community that have taken place in the past, and that there are people who want to see greater openness and greater debate and want to see greater democracy. How that plays out over the next several days and several weeks is something ultimately for the Iranian people to decide. But I stand strongly with the universal principle that people’s voices should be heard and not suppressed.
Barack Obama, today. What more do people want him to say?
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“ No matter how you package it, the free market fairies aren’t a solution to the health care problem. People shouldn’t need to shop for better insurance, their insurance companies should pay for the care they need. The moment you find out your insurance company sucks is the moment you kind of need it to not suck.
Atrios
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