Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Saturday, April 17, 2010

If He Only Had A Brain

Commentary By Ron Beasley



Scarecrowmitch

 

Joe Gandelman on Mitch McConnell:

Politics is often about having�finesse�style�flair..the ability to make
it sound like the sun is shining when it�s raining or that it�s raining
when the sun is shining. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has
proven he has none of these abilities in his ham-handed use of talking
points provided to GOPers by pollster Frank Luntz on how to stop
financial reform (points provided before there was even a bill).





Joe also has some great video clips at the link above.



McClatchy asks a question:



Why's Sen. McConnell trashing Wall Street regulation bill? 



And then answers the question:


WASHINGTON � Senate Republican Leader Mitch
McConnell this week threw a rhetorical stick of dynamite into what had
been a collegial debate about overhauling the nation's financial
regulations, triggering criticism and confusion about what the usually
careful Kentucky senator was doing.




McConnell says that he was reacting strongly to
concerns from Kentucky bankers, as well as to a Democratic effort to
shut Republicans out of the process.



However, critics say it was
no coincidence that his blasts came after he met with Wall Street
executives, and that his comments mirrored advice from Republican
strategist Frank Luntz on how best to defeat the Democrats' legislation.






As I have pointed out before the current Republican leadership in the House and Senate were chosen for their willingness to walk in lockstep with the Bush administration and blindly repeat Rovian talking points.  They were not chosen for intelligence or original thought.



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