Combat! - Page 282 of 406 - A blog by Dan Brooks

Friday links! To my old master edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links February 3, 2012 2 Comments

Escaped slaves in Virginia, 1862. The baby in this picture is 150 years old.

It is a known fact that a lot of assholes have more power than you. Mitch McConnell, Ke$ha, Pat Robertson, bone loss, the fundamental economic problem, Steven Tyler, tooth decay—pretty much any of them could, at a whim, do things to your life that you could not undo. The forces arrayed above us are mind-boggling. Think of your boss at work, and then try to think of every person who could pay him to fire you. The situation is terrifying. Paradoxically, even though most of it is because people arranged everything before you got here, it will only get worse as you age. Until right at the end. Right at the end, you will attain to a position where no one has any power over you whatsoever. In the meantime, you can say whatever you want. It’s Friday, the weekend approaches as Sherman approached the sea, and they’ve got the guns but we are funnier. Historical primary source document after the jump.

“We don’t know what we don’t know”

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government February 2, 2012 2 Comments

Thomas Nast's famous cartoon depicting the Tammany Ring

The foregoing quote comes from Ellen S. Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, speaking to the New York Times about Super PAC donors. Tuesday did not just give us the primary that sealed the Republican nomination; it was also the day that various super PACs disclosed their funding, sort of. America’s bold experiment in calling money speech has yielded roughly eleventy gajillion dollars for both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, although Romney seems to have netted slightly more. A lot of his donors are whom you’d expect: a coal company, a lobbyist for Altria, Haley Barbour’s nephew. Others are a little trickier, including a quarter million dollars from a corporation “with a post office box for a headquarters and no known employees.” Thomas Jefferson must be rolling over in his ~~slave~~ grave.

Gingrich level reduced to amber

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates February 1, 2012 6 Comments

*cough* Pussies!

The odds of a Gingrich presidency returned to safe levels last night with Mitt Romney’s decisive* victory in Florida. The former Speaker/Grand Inquisitor of the House has promised to continue his campaign into the summer, “unless Romney drops out sooner,” but that’s like the way Mr. Mxyzptlk threatens you as he’s getting sucked back to his home dimension. Perhaps Newt’s retreat will extend through the spring. Eventually, though, he must return to the mountains of Georgia to slumber and feed.

This Newt Gingrich rap is of inferior quality

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates January 31, 2012 4 Comments

"I'm the hypest lyricist / while you're like 'what type of beer is this?'"

Today is the Florida Republican primary, when grandmothers across the state will vote on whom they like better: Mitt Romney, who looks like the hedge fund manager their granddaughter married, or Newt Gingrich, who looks like the guy who tried to finger them in the hot tub. It may be a tough day for Newton.* Fortunately, he has a comprehensive plan to expand his appeal beyond just, you know, munitions factory owners. Speaker Gingrich is for everybody, and everybody enjoys hip hop. Seriously, there is a pro-Gingrich rap song now, and that’s it—he was the last one. Props to Ben al-Fowlkes for the link.

Elizabeth Drew on how an election feels fair

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government January 30, 2012 3 Comments

For a publication staffed entirely by nerds, the New York Review of Books sure is fired up about democracy. Their coverage of Occupy Wall Street is far better than that of any traditional news outlet—by comparison, the Times appears to have closed its office in New York—and their vituperation of Super PACs is only slightly less comprehensive. This weekend, Elizabeth Drew published this consideration of whether the 2012 election can possibly be fair. “Will the presidential election reflect the will of the people?” she asks, presumably rhetorically. She follows with a more important question: “Will it be seen as doing so—and if not, what happens?”