Liberal Talk Radio

This week’s Sunday NYT Magazine profile on Chris Matthews is fascinating. Though I think Matthews is a bit of a buffoon, I still find his show interesting and I tune in to watch whenever I can. But he’s clearly operating in the politics of another era. Consider:
Matthews is as pure a political [...]

I suspect that this is a feature, not a bug:
In 1990, Congress enacted legislation requiring all federal agencies to pass independent audits. Every year, the Defense inspector general dispatched dozens of auditors to the military’s financial and accounting centers. Every year, they reported back that the job couldn’t be done. Defense Department records were [...]

. . . or whatever:
A Sept. 11 memorial dedicated to NYPD and Port Authority cops who lost their lives in the terror attacks was defaced over the weekend.
Funded by the National Police Defense Foundation (NPDF), it was destined to be displayed at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, N.J.
“It was almost seven [...]

Damon Agnos reminds me of the best chart ever for countering the argument that we’re too heavily taxed in Seattle (Seattle ranks #42 out of 50 and Seattlites pay less in total taxes than residents of Phoenix, AZ or Billings, MT).
But his solution seems wrong to me:
Our low tax burden is one reason [...]

Apropos of Bruno’s conversation with Eugene this week, a list of the largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the country without a NBA team (rankings in parentheses):
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA (14)
San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA (17) (RIP Clippers!)
St. Louis, MO-IL (18)
Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL (19)
Baltimore-Towson, MD (20)
Pittsburgh, PA (22) (go Fish!)
Cincinnati-Middletown, OH-KY-IN (24)
Kansas City, MO-KS (29)
Las Vegas-Paradise, NV (30)
San [...]

Years hence, when historians pour over this era, they will find impossible to understand how so many beautiful, sad ironies appeared in one short amount of time. Consider, for example, the client list of the D.C. Madam:
The client list included Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana; Randall L. Tobias, who stepped down as [...]

I see that Seattle indie-rockers The Presidents of the United States of America are engaged in a little guerilla marketing this campaign season:

One wonders why they’re using the non-standard acronym “PUSA” instead of the much more widely-recognized “POTUS.”
I do however, like the sentiment of the sign, “These are the Good Times.” Much [...]

The P-I Editorial Board wonders why Detroit won’t sell Americans the awesome small cars they’re selling in Europe and Asia. I wonder the same thing.
Detroit often claims that they can’t make money selling small cars. They make huge profits on trucks, but often lose money selling small cars. Ford loses $3,000 on every Focus [...]

The New Republic has a great piece catching up with Andy Stern, the Prof and my favorite union boss. The reason we like Stern is that he seems to understand that unions are organizing against massive, multinational corporations, and to succeed, they will need to be massive and multinational themselves.
However, as the article makes [...]