[ Posted Friday, February 6th, 2015 – 18:04 UTC ]
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams (or, as we affectionately refer to him, "BriWi") was ruthlessly mocked online this week, after a war story he told turned out to be a complete fabrication. Our headline today refers to the funniest mockery we've yet seen on the subject, titled "That one live shot I did from the moon," for no other reason than it makes a funny headline. We really have no news to report from the moon, although (as usual) there are quite a few bits of lunacy to report from the political world. As for BriWi, well, we'll see what happens next. Perhaps it's time to give Lester Holt a shot at the big chair? It's a little hard to feel too sorry for BriWi, since he reportedly rakes in $10 million a year to read the news to America every night. Nice work if you can get it, eh? Or hold onto it, for that matter.
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[ Posted Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015 – 18:22 UTC ]
My interest was piqued because of the wide-ranging possible repercussions of a decision by the Justice Department last year that got little attention in the media. A few Native American tribes -- including one in Washington state, where recreational adult use had just been legalized -- asked the Justice Department for legal guidance on the issue of marijuana sales on tribal lands. The Justice Department, surprisingly, not only endorsed the idea but also seemed to throw the gates wide open for any other Native American tribe to grow and sell marijuana as well -- even in states that hadn't already legalized it. They essentially said tribes would have to adhere to the same set of federal legal guidelines that were created after Colorado and Washington legalized recreational marijuana sales.
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[ Posted Friday, January 30th, 2015 – 17:54 UTC ]
That headline certainly does promise a large amount of schadenfreude over the misfortunes of a certain former vice presidential nominee (and half-term governor of Alaska), doesn't it? Well, that'll all have to wait for the end of this column, where we will be supplanting our normal talking points section with a few choice conservative reviews of Sarah Palin's recent speech in Iowa. But before we dive into this snarktastic dessert of vicious quips, we've first got to get through the meat and potatoes of the politics of the week.
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[ Posted Monday, January 26th, 2015 – 17:57 UTC ]
Marijuana just keeps growing. That's a weak attempt at a punny metaphor for which I apologize (hey, I could have used some variation such as "growing like a weed," so I did exercise a little restraint...), but its deeper meaning is that marijuana is actually outgrowing such cheap jokes and entering the realm where it demands to be taken seriously -- especially by politicians. Marijuana is now the nation's fastest-growing industry. The legal marijuana industry brought in $2.4 billion last year, so it's certainly no longer any sort of laughing matter. That figure represents an increase of a whopping 74 percent in one year's time, and it is estimated that the total legal market could be worth $11 billion as soon as 2019.
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[ Posted Friday, January 16th, 2015 – 17:58 UTC ]
This was a busy week in politics, as the Republicans in the new Congress began a bout of legislating and President Obama ramped up his agenda in preparation for next Tuesday's big speech to Congress and the country. So let's just dive in to the week that was, shall we?
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[ Posted Monday, January 12th, 2015 – 16:31 UTC ]
The New York Times disclosed over the weekend that federal prosecutors have recommended that the Justice Department should bring charges against former general and C.I.A. director David Petraeus. Unless President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder (or his successor) want to be seen as flaming hypocrites, Petraeus must now be prosecuted.
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[ Posted Wednesday, December 31st, 2014 – 14:39 UTC ]
This is the second part of Monday's article, which consists of a "link dump" of all the stories I really meant to write about last year, but never got around to. Before I get to the second part of the list, though, I have to address a comment from Monday. Here's a second link on a subject mentioned earlier (to an extensive New Yorker article) about "asset forfeiture," also known as "highway robbery by the police." Got too much cash in your car? Well, why don't you just sign it over to our local police force, and you can be on your way (and we won't call Child Protective Services to take your kids away).... This is beyond outrageous, and has been happening in some places in America for a very long time now.
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[ Posted Monday, December 29th, 2014 – 18:28 UTC ]
Today's article is nothing more than a giant collection of links to some stories you may have missed during 2014. Another way to put this is: I am clearing out my list of "things I should write about, when I have the time" -- articles which got me thinking, but which I never followed up on by actually writing about them. I'm cleaning up my bookmarks, and so I thought I'd dump all these out there for others to read, perhaps waiting for a flight home or perhaps hiding in your old bedroom because you are sick of dealing with your extended family's drama right now. Ahem.
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[ Posted Friday, December 26th, 2014 – 19:14 UTC ]
Welcome back to our annual year-end awards column!
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[ Posted Friday, December 19th, 2014 – 19:34 UTC ]
As we do every year, we are pre-empting our "Friday Talking Points" columns for the next two weeks, to bring you our best and worst of 2014. And, yes, we are going to continue our supercilious and no-doubt-annoying habit of using the editorial "we" throughout these two columns, so thanks for asking! Heh.
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