NEW YORK TIMES: “We’re broke! We’re broke!” Speaker John Boehner said on Sunday. “We’re broke in this state,” Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin said a few days ago. “New Jersey’s broke,” Gov. Chris Christie has said repeatedly. The United States faces a “looming bankruptcy,” Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. It’s all obfuscating nonsense, of course, a scare tactic employed for political ends. A country with a deficit is not necessarily any more “broke” than a family with a mortgage or a college loan. And states have to balance their budgets. Though it […]
Phawker Presents The Sixth Installment Of Blotto
BY LANCE DOILY So it looks like Freddy got popped again. Depending on who you ask, it went from a routine traffic stop for a broken taillight to him taking a page out of Rex’s book and getting nailed going a buck-twenty on the wrong side of the Parkway. Either way, it ended with Freddy blowing a county record .48% and nearly paralyzing a state trooper with a perfectly executed atomic drop. After all the paperwork goes through this will end up being his 11th DUI, not bad considering he’s been consistently inebriated for the past 26 years (any break […]
SIDEWALKING: NASA, We Have A Problem
City Hall, 3:37 PM WednesdaY by JEFF FUSCO
INCOMING: George Washington’s Teeth Slept Here
Soon to be joining the plethora of exhibits that preserve Philadelphia’s status as the most historical city in the United States is the National Constitution Center’s summer exhibition Discover the Real George Washington: New Views from Mount Vernon. Running from July 1 to September 5 2011, courtesy of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, avid history-lovers and American patriots will marvel at the revelation of previously undisclosed facts about George Washington and his life as an entrepreneur and a Founding Father. As the sole preservers of Mount Vernon, Washington’s plantation home in Virginaia,, the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association will be transporting […]
WORTH REPEATING: In Defense Of Bradley Manning
CBS NEWS: When Bradley Manning deployed to Iraq in October 2009, he thought that he’d be helping the Iraqi people build a free society after the long nightmare of Saddam Hussein. What he witnessed firsthand was quite another matter. He soon found himself helping the Iraqi authorities detain civilians for distributing “anti-Iraqi literature” — which turned out to be an investigative report into financial corruption in their own government entitled “Where does the money go?” The penalty for this “crime” in Iraq was not a slap on the wrist. Imprisonment and torture, as well as systematic abuse of prisoners, are […]
EPK: The Wilderness Of Manitoba
If you like Fleet Foxes or old Iron & Wine, you will probably dig The Wildnerness Of Manitoba.
PAPERBOY: Slow-Jamming The Alt-Weeklies
ON THE COVER CP: Lots of nice stuff in the Music Issue, including nicely-drawn connections between hip-hop and poetry in a spot on Curly Castro. I’m drawn most to Patrick Rapa’s cover treatment of Kurt Vile, which manages to reveal new things about a subject who’s been covered extensively in recent years. Observe: His new album, Smoke Ring For My Halo, is due out next week on Matador. Where some of his earlier releases reveled in their mysterious, overcast sound, this new one’s noticeably crisper, with a few more mellow moments. Instead of charging out of the gate with a […]
WORTH REPEATING: The Kochtopus Sure Eats An Awful Lot Of Big Government Money For A Libertarian
THINK PROGRESS: Koch Industries CEO Charles Koch fired back at his critics, who have grown more vocal as it has become clear that Koch groups are providing the political muscle for Gov. Scott Walker’s (R-WI) union-busting power grab. In his piece, Charles portrays himself as simply an ideological advocate, and says his money to political groups is only meant to “enhance true economic freedom.” He chides special interests that have “successfully lobbied for special favors,” claiming “crony capitalism is much easier than competing in an open market.” But in reality, the focus of the Koch political machine is geared towards […]
REVIEW: Jonathan Richman At First Unitarian
[Illustration via EDGEART] BY JONATHAN VALANIA If Jonathan Richman didn’t already exist, we would have never thought to invent him, which is a testament to both his originality and the shortcomings of our collective imagination. For more than 35 years, Richman has been a tireless advocate of hopeful romanticism, rugged individualism and unyielding optimism, travelling the world like some post-modern Jimmy Stewart with a guitar telling anyone that would listen that, despite all the hard-bitten cynicism that surrounds him, it’s still a wonderful life. He is, in short, the immaculate heart on the dirty sleeve of rock n’ roll. Performing […]
SIDEWALKING: Remain In The Light
Cira Center Parking Garage 7:15 AM by JEFF FUSCO
D.A. Will Seek Death Penalty For Rogue Abortionist
PHILLY CONFIDENTIAL: “We are seeking the death penalty” against Gosnell because of two “aggravating factors” — he’s accused of multiple murders and his alleged victims are younger than age 12, Pescatore said. Attorney Jack McMahon, who represents Gosnell, said seeking execution for Gosnell “makes no sense.” “He’s a 70-year-old man with no previous record. And Pennsylvania hasn’t carried out an execution in years (since 1999). The reality is there will be no death penalty for Mr. Gosnell, so why clog up the court system with a death penalty case that is death penalty in name only?” McMahon said. MORE
Wisconsin Dems Go On Offense, Plan To Recall GOP State Senators And Take Back Control Of The Senate
TALKING POINTS MEMO: Wisconsin Democrats are now going on the offense in the fight over Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal and its anti-public employee union provisions. An e-mail to the party’s supporter list, sent out Wednesday, seeks fundraising to mobilize recalls against Republican state senators — with the goal of taking a majority in the chamber. […] Wisconsin state senators serve four-year terms, with half of them up every two years. Wisconsin does have a recall law, though, with the condition that a recall cannot begin until at least one year into a term. Under that stipulation, eight out of […]
FRIENDLY FIRE: NATO Gunships Mistake Nine Afghan Boys Collecting Firewood For Insurgents
NEW YORK TIMES: The boys, who were 9 to 15 years old, were attacked on Tuesday in what amounted to one of the war’s worst cases of mistaken killings by foreign-led forces. The victims included two sets of brothers. A 10th boy survived. The NATO statement, which included an unusual personal apology by the commander of the NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, said the boys had been misidentified as the attackers of a NATO base earlier in the day. News of the attack enraged Afghans and led to an anti-American demonstration on Wednesday in the village of […]