From The Depths, the North Carolina-based anarchist crust-metal band, played in Washington on Friday. The West Point speech was still very redolent. N., one of From The Depth’s guitarists, addressed the war by asking the assemblage what they really expected from Obama. Back in 2008, “I saw those Obama-O peace signs,” he said, surprised that [...]

Like Homer Simpson after eating 64 slices of individually wrapped American cheese, I think I’m blind. You missed a ludicrous amount of GOP screaming about the International Criminal Court, including a red-faced Dan Burton shout at two officials who have absolutely nothing to do with the ICC. Bob Inglis started off in that crazy direction [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 963-09 December 10, 2009 DoD Identifies Marine Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Cpl. Xhacob Latorre, 21, of Waterbury, Conn., died Dec. 8 of wounds sustained while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, [...]

I’m still covering the McChrystal/Eikenberry hearings, but may I direct you to this Washington Independent post of mine on the Pakistan arrests, CAIR, and U.S. Muslim resistance to extremist incitement? I’ll tease a bit: There may also be something indicative about the capabilities of groups that seek to employ U.S. Muslims as cell participants: with [...]

Maybe it’s because his disgraceful ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, issues arguendo like this: Addressing a breakfast session at the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s biennial convention December 7, Ambassador Michael Oren described J Street as “a unique problem in that it not only opposes one policy of one Israeli government, it opposes all [...]

Regularly scheduled blogging to resume sometime this afternoon. This gauntlet is nearly over and not a moment too soon. I might have a navel-gaze-y post wondering if the internet still finds this kind of modular hearing coverage valuable or if it’s moved on to twitter. I’m open to change. Also I haven’t read the Obama [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 962-09 December 09, 2009 DOD Identifies Army Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Sgt. Elijah J. Rao, 26, of Lake Oswego, Ore., died Dec. 5 in Nuristan, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised [...]

If you weren’t or aren’t a hardcore kid, this post isn’t going to make sense. Fair warning. There’s some good stuff up on the FDL flagship I can recommend. This is also pretty funny. I think I mentioned earlier that I’m reading Brian Peterson’s oral history of 90s hardcore, Burning Fight. Back in October 2006 [...]

Matthew Yglesias has a good and subtle post making the point that the military plays such an outsized role in American politics that it’s hard for them to avoid placing a heavy thumb on the scale of public debate even when they don’t mean to do so. This is the heart of the point: The [...]

A Jawbox reunion. A. Jawbox. Reunion. How DC is it to see a bunch of awkward-looking adults aggressively nodding their heads behind the band while otherwise immobilized.