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ralphbon commented on the blog post Firedoglake Joins 100+ Civil Liberties Groups, Internet Companies in Calling for Congressional Investigation into NSA Spying
I wish I could get more excited about this petition. Why should anyone imagine that a Congress too feckless to reprise the Pecora hearings would come anywhere close to an honest reprise of the Church hearings?
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ralphbon commented on the diary post Obama Nominates Bushturd Comey for FBI Director by firebagger.
Marcy’s post is hardly a resounding and unequivocal endorsement. She points out that Comey was a far more tepid supporter of torture than John Brennan, but a supporter nonetheless. For a president who appoints the likes of Brennan, Geithner, and Pritzker, the choice of Comey is refreshingly somewhat less abjectly disgusting. Given what we’ve come [...]
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ralphbon commented on the diary post Obama Nominates Bushturd Comey for FBI Director by firebagger.
Hee. Thanks for the response, f’bagger.
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ralphbon commented on the diary post Igor’s Opinion of Walt and Leopold (Sacre Bleu!) by ralphbon.
Well, I was hoping someone would take the bait on the orchestra, but that’s what I get for posting near midnight using a teaser title. So before I head to work, I’ll add that the orchestra is not an orchestra at all. Rather, the work was composited with amazing care and true musicianship by Jay [...]
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ralphbon commented on the diary post Obama Nominates Bushturd Comey for FBI Director by firebagger.
Comey looked like a paragon of integrity in the Bush years largely because the bar for integrity was set so low. His reputation as hero was exaggerated, as was Patrick Fitzgerald’s. Mixed bags, both. I agree with codeine that the sickbed narrative was a modified limited hangout . That said, few things are more self-parodic than a [...]
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ralphbon commented on the diary post Igor’s Opinion of Walt and Leopold (Sacre Bleu!) by ralphbon.
Blessed mod, can you fix the embed? For others, the YouTube link is http://youtu.be/02tkp6eeh40.
Update: That was quick; thanks! Update 2: A double thanks for digging up and embedding the Fantasia clip! The reason I didn’t try to do that myself was because I fear Disney more than the Holder DOJ. -
ralphbon wrote a new diary post: Igor’s Opinion of Walt and Leopold (Sacre Bleu!)
May 29 is the actual centenary of the scandalous premiere of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps , and before the day is out (if I can post this in time), I’d like to offer a modest coda to Edward Teller’s superb diary on the work . One thing ET didn’t mention was how most of us first encountered The [...]
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ralphbon commented on the diary post Would a White Girl Be Prosecuted for a Botched Science Experiment? by Jesse Lava.
Soon to be adapted as a Robert Ludlum novel: The Glotfelty Overreach.
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ralphbon commented on the blog post Saudis Explicitly Warned U.S. Intelligence Agencies About Tamerlan Tsarnaev
A big X2 on the skepticism. The Daily Mail article is based on a single unnamed Saudi source. That’s it. It’s very much in the Saudis’ self-interest to portray themselves as vigilant partners in the GWOT. DHS and the White House deny the Saudi source’s claims. I don’t trust anyone here — the source, the newspaper, or the US government.
The lack of skepticism in the title and text of this blog post, and most of the comments I scanned, is unwise barring some kind of corroboration.
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ralphbon commented on the blog post Obamacare Grows Less Popular and Less Well Understood
FYI, the study of medical bankruptcies highlighted in the article you link to was co-authored by now-Senator Elizabeth Warren, along with longtime single-payer advocates Himmelstein and Woolhandler.
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ralphbon commented on the diary post NY AG concerned his ‘private’ concerns are communicated by others by acmerecords.
Link?
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ralphbon commented on the diary post Saturday Art: The Joys of Watching Young People Mature as Musicians by EdwardTeller.
Thanks, ET, and congrats to the amazing sax player and the other young champion. I’m gobsmacked at the richness of your experiences, between composing, teaching, activism, and raising a dog with the good sense to take a dump in Sarah Palin’s yard.
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ralphbon commented on the diary post Upon Becoming My Own Earworm by OmAli.
Hugh and selise more often hang out at Corrente (correntewire.com). I haven’t seen selise commenting in a few months and hope all is well with her.
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ralphbon commented on the diary post Bradley Manning’s Nobel Peace Prize by David Swanson.
I was surprised when I signed the petition that it hadn’t yet hit its target 20,000 signatories. Promoting this post to the front page of the Mother Ship would help, as would coordination with one of those Brian Sonenstein mass emailings. Just saying.
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ralphbon commented on the diary post Bradley Manning’s Nobel Peace Prize by David Swanson.
Signed, with the following comment:
You previously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama based on no action he had ever actually taken but merely because he was not George Bush. We now know that Obama is in fact worse than Bush by virtue of his reckless and provocative use of extrajudicial killing, expansion of [...]
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ralphbon commented on the diary post Only a Black President Can by davidl.
This essay is a genuinely important document and deserves to go not just viral but pandemic.
Only Nixon could go to China.
Only Obama could go to Orwell.And maybe you’re right that at this moment only a movement initiated by people of color can nudge us back to, if not justice, at least clarity.
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ralphbon commented on the blog post Karl Rove Causing Unrest In GOP
It could have been the capstone on one of the most successful and substantive careers in modern American politics.
Consequential, yes; substantive, no.
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ralphbon commented on the diary post Apostrophe Abuse Is Never Right and Other Observations by Phoenix Woman.
I strongly second the peeve about use of “that” in place of “who” or “whom,” although special dispensation must be granted Stephen Sondheim (“But worse ‘n that / A person that / Titillates a person and then leaves her flat / Is crazy, / He’s a troubled person, / He’s a truly crazy person himself.”) [...]
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ralphbon commented on the blog post Department of Justice Attacks Frontline As Lanny Breuer Resigns
I would like to know if Eric Holder was approached and declined to speak on camera for the Frontline piece. Breuer is abominable, but Holder (and ultimately Obama) was his boss and thought Breuer was doing a heckuva job.
Maybe someone with Photoshop chops could find a shot of Bush congratulating Brownie post-Katrina and swap in Holder and Breuer’s faces. “Heckuva job, Lanny!”
Also nice project for someone with time would be a scorecard infographic (unless it already exists):
eyebrow: Obama/Holder’s DOJ
hed: Prosecutorial
LH col subhed: Zeal
RH col subhed: NegligenceNo shortage of righteous whistleblowers, Aaron Swartz, etc., etc. for the Zeal column, no shortage of banksters, torturers, etc., etc., for Negligence.
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ralphbon commented on the diary post These Dead Children Had Names: In Memoriam…And the Living Under Drones Report by wendydavis.
Recc’d with extreme prejudice. Thanks, Wendy. Eds: This SO deserves to appear on the Mother Ship’s front page.
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