Why the liars are winning

Couple of days ago, Rick Perlstein published an essay on The Daily Beast that sets out, in succinct and convincing terms, one of the most important reasons that our friends to the south are in such trouble.

I'm not alone in lamenting the debasement and vulgarization of civil discourse and the attendant coarsening of political culture, but Perlstein's got one of the most influential and worrisome dynamics down pat: the far-right crazies, teabaggers and Palinbots lie their asses off, and no one – not the Obama administration, the Democratic establishment, the Villagers nor the "lamestream media" – will call them on it.

Best use of Craigslist ever

Someone in Toronto wants to swap mayors with Calgary. I can't imagine why.

Or maybe it's the other way around. I could be wrong, you know. Who knows what kids get up to on the intertoobz these days?

Live tweets from the CCLA's G20 hearings

Anyone who still thinks the cops are here to serve and protect should follow here ...



And here as well.

Stephen Harper's pathetic Zio-fawning

Over at Let Freedom Rain*, two posts from Jymn note the courageous stand taken by the activists of Young Jewish Proud, in contrast to Steve's craven leg-humping. By now we're all familiar with the pattern: "standing with Israel" inevitably dovetails with pathetic and transparent attempts to equate all criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, making it easier to criminalize it as "hate speech" and thus silence it along with any substantive debate. Anyone think Ezra, that principled Free Speech Warrior, will have a problem with that? What are the odds? If these little Ziobots have their way, the very phrase "Palestinian human rights" will soon be verboten.

Olbermann to return?

Over at Unrepentant Old Hippie, JJ's got the only possible reaction to this news. I'll believe it when I see it, but ...

Oh, what the hey. I'm steal – er, reproducing it here.



Update: Seems KO's not the only MSNBC host to make political contributions.

Care for a chaw, S-Supt. McGuire?

This weekend's Globe chronicles the story of four people caught in the infamous police "kettle" that became one of the central themes emerging from Toronto's G20 clusterfuck.

Maddow, Maher and the trap of false equivalence

Crazy weekend, but Maher's got it bang on. It's long past time to stop pretending that the left and the right, at least in the context of modern American political discourse, are mirror images of one another. If we buy into that, we're fighting on the Evil Ones' turf by letting them frame the debate – and once we let them do it, the fight's over before it's even begun.