The House passed the $900 billion stimulus package on what was an almost party-line vote. The bill now moves to the Senate, where good legislation goes to die. However, it appears likely that more Senate Republicans are willing to support the bill so it may have an easier time passing. I gave you your talking points on this yesterday. Slate pointed out that USA Today has a great little outline of what is contained in the bill. Read it and say things like, “Everyone is talking about infrastructure, but the $53.4 billion to support science facilities, high-speed Internet and other energy programs are what really could transform the US economy.” THAT will make you cool, I think.
Republicans are trying to figure out who they are at the RNC winter meeting. If I might suggest something to my differently inclined brethren, don’t go in this direction.
You know what I miss from the campaign? Profiles about how awesome Obama is that include lots of great behinds the scenes Obama porn. What’s that? No suit jackets in the Oval Office? He likes to keep the thermostat really high? Business casual? Aloha zen? Yes, that’s what daddy likes…
On what I can only assume was a dare, The Wall Street Journal has an Op-Ed from Rush Limbaugh over how he would structure a bipartisan bailout bill. He is not an economist, but he does use the word “porkulus.”
To get the taste out of my mouth I turned to Kristof, who is advocating for a high-level commission to investigate torture, secret detention and wiretapping.
And finally, because we have a duty to our readers to provide as much pirate-related news as we can find, BBC magazine has a great article about how exactly pirates get paid their ransoms for the ships they hijack.
Six days left until the election that the country has been building up to for 21 months (seriously, the third ever post on this very blog mentioned the election) and everyone is trying to pull out their A-game. Since no one on the internet seems to care about anything but the election and because this stuff is like crack to me, I thought I would run through some election-related stuff that you should check out.
While Jon Stewart is a few hours from doing the opening of The Daily Show in an Obama T-shirt, a lot of the correspondents are stepping up and delivering segments that brutally satirize both sides and the political process.The video embedded above and this one are great examples of what the Daily Show is pumped out all week.
To find out how The Onion, Brian Williams and a random Obama volunteer are dealing with the pressure, keep reading after the jump.
Today is a scattershot news day, all of the major papers led with different stories. I will do my best to give a quick roundup of the things that will probably end up being important over the next week.
We kick things off by talking about the food crisis. We have mentioned it a few days in a row, and on Thursday the Daily Show did a perfect summation of how it is effecting America.
To get a more depressing picture of the REAL food crisis, head to today’s Washington Post, which has a story on how the crisis is affecting Mauritania. Unfortunately, this story has completely ruined the fact that it is free bagel day at the office.
The mortgage industry, Lt. Gen. Odierno, and Candy after the jump.
The Democratic candidates for President met last night in a Congressional Black Caucus debate that we here at 2.0somethings skipped to watch American Gladiators. Apparently, the real barbaric conflict was in the debate and not the show with “Gladiators” in the title.
In the true spirit of Dr. King, the candidates were nasty, rancorous, and downright bitchy. Sen. Obama attacked Senator Clinton over statements being made by her husband, and Sen. Clinton attacked Sen. Obama over ties to… Oh who the hell cares one way or another. The South Carolina primary is at some point in the next week. We will try to find out when by tomorrow morning. If you live in South Carolina you should probably check to make sure it isn’t tomorrow.
Today’s biggest story, but one that it would be hard to accompany with a photo of kangaroos fighting, is the effect the US economic slowdown is having on the world. Most of the developed countries in the world have their own stock markets, and while ours was closed yesterday, all of them were open and experienced massive sell-offs. In some cases, markets dropped up to 10%. By all accounts, we ain’t seen nothing yet. Apparently, every bank in the world owned a piece of the subprime mortgage market.
Filed under “Quit Picking on Me.” Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg has an op-ed in the LA Times talking about his experience on the Daily Show. If you don’t care, just know that Goldberg is kind of a jackass. and you are done with the Morning News. If you are interested, keep reading.
Goldberg has recently published a book called “Liberal Fascism,” which he went on The Daily Show show to promote. He and Stewart got into a 20-minute argument and the show aired 6 minutes of it, heavily edited. It was kind of like political surrealism (watch the video). Goldberg echoes the points he tried to make on the show. He doesn’t, however, explain the inherent contradiction of a book trying to stop people from misusing and sensationalizing the word “fascist” that’s title and cover (watch the video) clearly sensationalize the word “fascist” to sell books. He also doesn’t explain his claim that organic food is fascist (Seriously, watch the video).
The Democratic candidates for President met last night in a Congressional Black Caucus debate that we here at 2.0somethings skipped to watch American Gladiators. Apparently, the real barbaric conflict was in the debate and not the show with “Gladiators” in the title.