If the past is any predictor, for news and politics, August is sleepy and hot. Hot not in a newsy sense but just hot in the sense of sweaty, endless and enervating heat. And thus some of the sleepiness. But I expect that to be deceptive this time around, just as it was last year and probably many other years as well.
I don’t necessarily expect the fireworks we saw last summer as the Summer of Crazy hit full swing, with the various Townhall riots and gun-toting protestors. But I think the the seeds of what happens in November are going to be planted next month. Or to employ a different metaphor, the key memes, organizational successes and misfires and terms of the debate are going to be put in place next month — even if somewhat or largely out of the eye of the media because it’ll be happening in small doses in a lot of places at the same time. In a lot of ways what happens in August will be more important and formative than September and October.
Congress is out of sessions from August 9th through September 10th.
I always like to be looking for what’s being under-covered or what can be covered in creative, outside the box ways. So I wanted to reach out to you for your insights and tips as we plan for next month.
Local ABC affiliate confirms that Portland police interviewed former VP Al Gore in the masseuse/assault case.
In on the on-going drama of people from Alaska and Georgia telling people from New York where Mosques can be built in Manhattan, Newt Gingrich now says he’s willing to allow a new Mosque to be built near Central Park or possibly Columbia University. Just not Ground Zero. See the video here.
In its meeting today on the June 2009 Metro rail crash that killed nine people, the National Transportation Safety Board is coming down hard on the DC transit system for persistent and systemic safety issues.
Perhaps realizing the direness of his predicament, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is reportedly reconsidering his refusal to accept the House Ethics Committee’s finding that he broke ethics rules and is attempting to settle his case rather than take it to what amounts to a trial by the committee.
War was good business for David H. Brooks, founder and former chief of body armor manufacturer DHB. But now he’s on trial for fraud after it was discovered that he was using all that Pentagon cash to buy porn for his son, plastic surgery for his wife, a stable of racehorses and prostitutes for company employees to raise their morale.
I forgot to mention that $100,000 gold and ruby-encrusted belt buckle.
What would the “moratorium” on new federal regulations being touted by Minority Leader Boehner actually look like and how would it work? Brian Beutler scopes out the details.
The title of the bill Boehner is backing should tell you a lot: the REINS Act, which stands for Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny.
When I was away I tried to get some distance from the moment to moment election tussle and think about whatever big themes I could find. And the one I kept coming back to was the one that was pretty obvious when I was awash in all the details: which will be the more dominant force? Republicans heading toward election day with virtually every advantage of their side? Or Republicans in maybe half the big races in the country working as hard as they can to sabotage their own chances. Read More
TPM Reader SR, a Muslim, addresses yesterday’s conversation …
As a Muslim American, I’ve paid attention to this issue for a while. What I’ve seen is an ebb and flow and right now there is a peak because it’s election season and so many tea partiers are on the ballot. Right wing politicians, their followers, and their media outlets are latching onto this issue because the ground zero mosque gave them an opening. It’s an effective one-two fear punch along with ‘black obama administration officials are coming to get you white people’.
From the Daily Show: Obama’s the Donald Trump of governance. He’ll fire anyone.