The Market Speaks

Supply-sider, Larry Kudlow is occasionally seen blaming a downed stock market on Democrats, as he did last week:
Are the Denver Dems downing the stock market today? The Dow is off 230 points, starting right from the get-go. So-called market analysts are blaming financials and the credit crunch as they always do. But there’s more.
Obama and [...]

Just Sayin’

Patrick Deneen (Ph.D. Rutgers, 95), who holds the “Markos and Eleni Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis Chair in Hellenic Studies” at Georgetown and is the author of Democratic Faith (Princeton University press,2005); really admires the way that Sarah Palin handles snooty, coastal elites:
Above all, she was able to make the genuine case against Obama’s effete elitism. Hearing Mitt Romney [...]

Last Night, In Nuremberg

Watching the Republican convention is like something out of It Can’t Happen Here, the prescient novel by Sinclair Lewis, of how authoritarianism could come to this country in the name of “Americanism”. With Orson Swindle — truly a Sinclair-ish moniker –  the exemplar of cornpone populism, leading off the festivities, what we saw was panoply [...]

Ventura 2012?

Yes, Jesse Venture, former Reform Party governor of Minnesota, said he might run for president in 2012, at Ron Paul’s Rally for the Republic today.  I doubt he actually will make the effort — although in his talk he called for leveling the playing field for third parties, he knows full well that any third-party [...]

You Mean The Free Speech Zone Wasn’t Free?

One of many, many ironies today.
From the Star Tribune:
Just a few hours into the protest activity, city workers were ordered to shut down the free speech stage that was placed near the X. The stage was supposed to run for up to 12 hours a day during the convention as a forum for public sentiment. [...]

I’m confused

(a) Sarah Palin, Buchananite.
(b) “Over the next weeks, Ms. Palin will be prepared by Mr. McCain’s foreign policy staff, led by Randy Scheunemann, for the vice-presidential debate with Mr. Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who moves easily among heads of state.” (New York Times, August 30, 2008).
(c) Randy Scheunemann is “a dual [...]

City of Steel

What I wrote earlier about these conventions being a sort of “war gaming” exercise for federal, state and local law enforcement community seems to have been quite inspired. I spent a good deal of time yesterday in the “calm before the storm” in downtown St. Paul, outside the Excel Center, that is, as close as [...]

It’s Finally Happening

Sweeping police raids across the Twin Cities. Manhandled, handcuffed, intimidated and detained: lawyers, journalists and activists in anticipation of the Republican convention. Public meetings dispersed, “hippie houses” raided by black-clad, heavily armed SWAT teams. Glenn Greenwald, who was at one of the houses raided this morning, has the scoop.
UPDATE : Thanks Dennis!
UPDATE II : [...]

Palin Rocks

John McCain’s never seemed to me to merit his “maverick” moniker, but the Palin pick is clear evidence of an independent spirit. He met the women only in February, barely knows her, yet was clearly sufficiently smitten to disregard all professional party insider advice and the heavy neocon lobbying [...]

Palin Comparison

SPIVEY
Well, it’s a well-run campaign, midget’n broom’n whatnot.
ECKARD
Devil his due.
SPIVEY
Helluva awgazation.
JUNIOR
Say, I gotten idee.
ECKARD
What sat, Junior?
JUNIOR
We could hire us a little fella even smaller’n Stokes’s.
Pappy whips at him with his hat.
PAPPY
Y’ignorant slope-shouldered sack a guts! Why we’d look like a buncha satchel-ass Johnnie Come-Latelies braggin’ on our own midget! Don’t matter how stumpy! And that’s [...]