thoughts, observations and other miscellany

textsfromhillaryclinton:

Original image by Diana Walker for Time.

Duh.

This is maybe the best thing on the Internet ever.  Click through to see all of the amazingly outrageous headlines.

{From BuzzFeed: The 9 Best Headlines From “Conservative Teen” Magazine}

A great edition of “Really?!? With Seth & Amy” from SNL.

Jezebel: Congressional Birth Control Hearing Involves Exactly Zero People Who Have a Uterus

motherjones:

Public Policy Polling, FTW.

newsweek:

“Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

Snap.

Today is the 23^rd anniversary of one of the greatest-put downs in American political history—the 1988 vice presidential debate, in which Lloyd Bentsen, a Democrat, delivered a positively Churchillian retort when Dan Quayle told Americans he “had as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did.”

The line is great, but the video’s even greater—you can see Bentsen, in the background, react immediately with a mix of both disbelief and mouth-watering at the opening Quayle has given him. The great irony is how little the quip mattered: Quayle and running mate George H. W. Bush still destroyed Michael Dukakis and Bentsen. Quayle, in the meantime, is more remembered for his spelling follies than his misplaced self-regard.

I know it’s old news to some, but if you haven’t read it yet, set aside 20 minutes to read The New Yorker’s profile piece (by Ryan Lizza) on Michele Bachmann, from August 15.  Bachmann’s extremity is nothing new.  Here extreme right-wing Christian beliefs are not a gimmick.  This is not what our country needs right now.  We need logic. Moderation. Statesmanship.

From The Atlantic:  The Chart That Should Accompany All Discussions of the Debt Ceiling

It’s based on data from the Congressional Budget Office and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Its significance is not partisan (who’s “to blame” for the deficit) but intellectual. It demonstrates the utter incoherence of being very concerned about a structural federal deficit but ruling out of consideration the policy that was largest single contributor to that deficit, namely the Bush-era tax cuts.

Question: Is it really fair to call President Obama a failure, and cite the 9% unemployment rate as evidence?  Shouldn’t at least partial blame be laid on large corporations, making multi-billion dollar profits, but refusing to create new jobs?