Eric Alterman has an outstanding column in The Nation on how the media’s mean girls (of all genders) develop the narratives they use to bring down the presidential candidates they take a dislike to. With examples of what they did to Gore in 2000, and what they’re doing to Obama and Edwards right now.
Two of […]

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General Petraeus says that “victory” in Iraq will require 9-10 more years. I’m trying to imagine how ten more years of bloody occupation can possibly work out to a victory. More on that subject here.

A bill has been introduced in Venezuela to restrict baby names to a list of 100 approved choices. “The bill’s ambition, […]

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Via Towleroad, the trailer for the new movie Rendition, scheduled for release October 19 in the US.

 
I’m not usually one for movies that get the “thriller” label, but the political dimension to this one — and the quality of the cast — make it look like an early standout among fall releases.
There’s some interview with […]

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Forgive me for posting twice in a row about Larry Craig. After the past week, surely it’s time for him to begin shrinking in the collective rear-view mirror of our culture.
But I can’t help it. On Sunday, someone who goes by the nom de net Blueness posted an absolutely beautiful diary on Daily Kos, called […]

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Proving that the Republican Party truly is just one big puppet show:

 
… I can’t find it now, but I swear that at some point in the 24 hours after the Craig story broke, there was a headline referring to him as “Toilet Sex Senator.”
And of course my first thought was that The Toilet Sex […]

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About 50 Americans have died since yesterday because they couldn’t afford health care.
That brings the total to 350 people who have died thanks to our profit-focused health care system just since I started keeping this count, six days ago.
If 350 US citizens had died in a plane crash this week, we’d be hearing about it […]

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About 300 Americans have died because they couldn’t afford health care since I started this count five days ago.
About 50 more will die today.
Since this is turning into a kind of daily witness, I suppose I should document my source for the statistic this is based on.
Michael Moore says in Sicko, and he […]

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Since I last updated this count, on Friday, about 100 more people have died in the United States because they couldn’t afford health care.
That makes about 250 Americans who were allowed to die because they couldn’t pay for treatment, just since I started this count four days ago.
About 50 more will die today.

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Since I started this count two days ago, about 150 people have died here in the US because they couldn’t afford health care.
That’s enough people to fill, what, three or four CTA buses?
About 50 more will die today.

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About 50 more people died yesterday, here in the United States of America, because they couldn’t afford health care.
That means that about 100 Americans have died due to lack of affordable health care since I started this tally yesterday.
About 50 more will die today.

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About 50 people died yesterday, here in America, because they couldn’t afford health care.
About 50 more people will die today, for the same reason.

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You may have noticed things have been a little slow around the OcPot this week, because I spent the past weekend visiting my parents in scenic Peoria, Illinois. I’m now paying the usual price for taking a couple of days off, with everything I have to do piled up to twice its normal height. It’ll […]

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POLITICS: The Senate Judiciary committee has voted 13-3 to authorize subpoenas for documents related to the NSA warrantless surveillance program. That includes three Republicans on the committee voting in favor of the subpeonas: Sens. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

Poland “stuns” other members of the European Union by demanding that the […]

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Gonzales is now helpfully explaining that he only had an “indirect” role in the firing of the U.S. attorneys. Yes, just like I had an indirect role in what happened to the passersby who got hit by those water balloons I dropped yesterday. I mean, all I did was let go! It was the water […]

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