All modern day presidents and arguably every president in history has tried to go around the dominant media of the day. But TPM Reader JA notes that usually this is done in the context of a campaign or for an explicitly political purpose. Here, though, there’s a difference …
It goes without saying that any handwringing over President Obama’s appearance on an online comedy talk show is at best hypocritical coming from the Beltway press corp. and right wing. Afterall, where were these people when George W. Bush took photos of himself looking for WMDs in the Oval Office for the WH Press Corp. Dinner, or when Richard Nixon went on “Laugh In” and said “Sock It To Me”?
You should take the time to either read or watch Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s explosive statement this morning on the Senate floor about the Senate Intelligence Committee’s battle with the CIA over the committee’s access to CIA documents, the agency’s access to committee computers, and competing allegations of potential criminal wrongdoing. We have the video and the statement posted here.
Various versions of this latest news are being reported. But I’m going mainly off the live report broadcast over CNN a short while ago. In brief, it seems the story of that missing Malaysian jet disappearance is dramatically different than we thought.
Again, going on this report (and given what’s happened so far I don’t think we can assume this latest ‘news’ won’t change), around the time it was entering Vietnamese airspace, the planes transponders turned off. Around that time, the plane appears to have made close to a u-turn back toward Malaysia. It flew for roughly an hour, which took it across Malaysia and over the Straits of Malacca where it finally dropped off radars entirely off a small island between Malaysia and Indonesia.
Right-wing radio pastor concerned Satan using ‘Frozen’ to turn little boys and girls gay.
Here’s an interesting article about how states and municipalities are wrestling with creating a framework of rules for when, where and how law enforcement organizations can use drones. Some of the uses are non-controversial: tracking forest fires, finding lost hikers. But obviously they can be used for all sorts of things that turn into real invasions of privacy.
This is a new thing for us. But in a few cases where the brands have seemed like a strong match I’ve told advertisers that if they offered a genuinely exclusive deal for our readers, one that was better than people could get anywhere else, I’d mention it here in the Editor’s Blog. And The Economist has stepped forward to do just that. This is the best introductory price you can get for a print and digital bundle subscription to The Economist: $15 for first 12 weeks, then $38 every 3 months thereafter for the print + digital package.
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We’re hiring a Reporter to work out of our New York City office. Job description and listing after the jump …
“Progressives have had a lot of sport recently contrasting conservative attacks on Barack Obama as a vicious law-breaking tyrant in domestic affairs with their simultaneous attacks on him as a weak, trembling figure on the world scene. How could Vladimir Putin fail to notice that Obama has struck so much fear into the hearts of his enemies at home, who are cowering in their homes awaiting assaults from IRS agents and affianced gay people? Hard to say.
But conservative self-contradiction about Obama’s spine reflects a much broader and deeper ambivalence about whether they are winning or losing the great battle for America’s culture and political system.”
Read the rest here from Ed Kilgore.
The rise of a new conservative rallying cry “No Free School Lunches!”