Political quotes of the moment

[The Good Reverend Roger]

http://imdb.com/title/tt0060665/

WILLIAM ROPER: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

SIR THOMAS MORE: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

ROPER: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

NICE.

[Adios]

I like that one very much.

[Telarus]

Me too.

[LMNO]

I like reading Krugmsn's NYT Blog.

Ezra Klein points us to the House GOP's rather pitiful jobs manifesto. Ezra describes it as "now more than ever": the GOP's response to the employment crisis is to demand exactly the same things it demands when the economy is doing well.

Actually, the same is true of the Ryan plan: when the GOP claimed that deficits don't matter, it called for privatizing major social insurance programs while cutting taxes on the rich, and now that it claims to be deeply concerned about deficits, it calls for privatizing major social insurance programs while cutting taxes on the rich.

[Disco Pickle]

I like reading Krugmsn's NYT Blog.

Ezra Klein points us to the House GOP's rather pitiful jobs manifesto. Ezra describes it as "now more than ever": the GOP's response to the employment crisis is to demand exactly the same things it demands when the economy is doing well.

Actually, the same is true of the Ryan plan: when the GOP claimed that deficits don't matter, it called for privatizing major social insurance programs while cutting taxes on the rich, and now that it claims to be deeply concerned about deficits, it calls for privatizing major social insurance programs while cutting taxes on the rich.

  That Cheney quip that preceded the firing of Paul O'Neill still gets me to this day.  They got rid of possibly the only really useful guy in the entire administration because he wouldn't toe that line and instead pointed out that water is in fact the cause of wetness.

[Cain]

I've always been somewhat wary of Krugman, mainly because of the way certain liberals idolize him (and that he thinks Brad DeLong is worth paying attention to, which he isn't)....but I have to say, on reading, he's not only a pretty good writer, he also seems to use a lot more established political science than any other mainstream writer I could name.

Anyway, someone a little less contemporary:

Waste no time with revolutions that do not remove the causes of your complaints but simply change the faces of those in charge.
- Francesco Guicciardini

The fact is, you can get a lot further in life by paying attention to 15th century Italians.  They understood power.

[Cain]

People who point this out and fight the tax code and fight the monetary code are heroic. I compare them to people like Gandhi, who's willing to speak out and try to bring about change in a peaceful manner; Martin Luther King fought laws that were unfair and unjust, and he suffered, too.

[Disco Pickle]

Anatomy of a Weiner roast:

Luke Russert: "That's not a picture of you?"

Rep. Weiner: "You know, I can't say with certitude. My system was hacked. Pictures can be manipulated. Pictures can be dropped in and inserted,"

Rep. Weiner: "I will say that we're trying to figure out exactly what happened here. Whether a photograph was manipulated that was found in my account, whether something was dropped in to my account."

During Wolfman Blitzer interview suggesting he should be able to recognize his own underwear:

Rep. Weiner: "Photographs can be manipulated, doctored. I want to be sure we know. It certainly doesn't look familiar to me but I don't want to say with certitude to you something that I don't know to be the certain truth."

When asked if he has ever taken a picture like this of himself:

"I can tell you this. There are... I have photographs. I don't know what photographs are out there in the world of me. I don't know what things have been manipulated and doctored. And we're going to try to find out what happened."  --Rep. Weiner, Photo and computer forensics specialist

Really, if he would just stand firm and hose this fire down with a "No, that's not my junk", it wouldn't be popping up all over the internet.  

[Luna]

Really, if he would just stand firm and hose this fire down with a "No, that's not my junk", it wouldn't be popping up all over the internet.  

Except, of course, it is, most likely, his junk, taken on his smartphone to send to somebody NOT his wife, and accidentally attached to a tweet rather than an IM...

[Disco Pickle]

Really, if he would just stand firm and hose this fire down with a "No, that's not my junk", it wouldn't be popping up all over the internet.  

Except, of course, it is, most likely, his junk, taken on his smartphone to send to somebody NOT his wife, and accidentally attached to a tweet rather than an IM...

Well yeah, or he'd have gotten the FBI involved and gotten someone indicted for hacking across state lines.  I've seen the guy speak, he doesn't like Republicans one bit and if he was hacked by someone trying for a smear campaign I don't see him as the type to let it go.  But him admitting it wouldn't allow me to make such lame innuendo with little to no effort at all, and I thank him for that.

[Cain]

More from Ze'evi

It's hard to get a justification for this wanton globetrotting shooting spree out of the White House, since they simply never talk about it. The scum — John Brennan, Tom Donilon, Jay Carney, Leon Panetta, Tyrannosaurus Dem ad infinitum — mugged for the cameras for days, perfecting their mock sobriety over the pulverizing of a fifty-four year-old dilettante with the physical presence of Jessica Tandy. They've waxed lyrical about Justice and Closure with all the persuasion of a country drunk at harvest time, boorishly pressing his thumb on the scale. Of course there was never any debate in the Obama White House about capturing him — where have you been the past two years? This junta is addicted to assassination, the Phoenix Program and Operación Cóndor taken global, and they will not be taking any questions about it, thank you very much.

But if they won't talk, the true masters of this system of poison control will. America is just copying this style of play from the global champion of assassination: Israel. And boy, has it done wonders for them. Since they started whacking their enemies in some fairly complex and cinematic rub-outs, they've had nothing but peace dividends, like when they killed Hamas spiritual godfather Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. And of course, after Yassin was dead, they had to hit his successor, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi. And naturally one of Rantissi's successors in the Gaza Hamas triumvirate, Said Siam. Simple — eliminated the problem right there. Though those are just the political guys. Naturally, they first had to take out operations guys, like Yehya Ayyash. It goes without saying that that edifying hit obviously also required the death of the next operations and weapons chief, Adnan al-Ghoul. And of course al-Ghoul's successor, weapons buyer Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. But still, that's decimation. Though of course, that's just Hamas. Islamic Jihad was certainly dealt a blow with the death of their founder, Fathi al-Shikaki, the same way Fatah had been greviously wounded by the loss of that bastard Raed Karmi, a move that naturally followed the killing of previous Fatah military martinet Khalil al-Wazir a couple decades prior. Apart from that, assassination has been a pretty easy recipe for peace. Though of course they also had to remember the Marxist terrorists, like Abu Ali Mustafa. And of course Hezbollah's heavy hitters, like Imad Mugniyeh.

It's an effective, efficient weapon in the right hands. Peace in our time.

[LMNO]

Yowch.  Is this Lo5, or is there good evidence that these are systematic assasinations for the benefit of Israel?

The way that Netanyahu is acting doesn't seem to jibe.

[Disco Pickle]

Is he being facetious?  I honestly can't tell.  

[Cain]

Yowch.  Is this Lo5, or is there good evidence that these are systematic assasinations for the benefit of Israel?

The way that Netanyahu is acting doesn't seem to jibe.

There is no good evidence assassination per se as a tactic is useful in combating terrorism.

Is he being facetious?  I honestly can't tell.  

Yes, he is.  In the article he is mocking the American government's addiction to assassination as a "solution" by pointing out it doesn't actually work for one of the world's greatest exporters of state-sponsored assassination.

The simple fact is asssassination only works if the next guy in the chain of command is your guy, or is going to do things in such a way that benefit you.  I'm an advocate of a quick knife in the ribs or sniper rifle as anyone...but only when it will actually work.  Otherwise, it is fairly useless and to be honest, introduces a level of instability and unpredictability into what may be an otherwise predictable group (see: South Vietnam, where Diem's assassination meant eventually that the Presidency was up for grabs by any general with enough loyal thugs and caused massive shifts in war and domestic policy every time a coup was launched).

[LMNO]

Ah... I seem to be a bit slow this morning.  Thanks for helping me along.