This is SO cool!! Most people don't realize that before the Tudor period, British monarchs rarely had what we would call true-to-life portraits done of themselves. They were either quite crude or more representational than realistic. Quite famous kings and queens such as Henry V, Henry VI and even from the Tudor period such as Henry VIII's fifth wife Katherine Howard have no verifiable portraits of them that have survived. I think there are only 2-3 images that exist of Richard III from when he was king. So this is quite a coup!!
UP-FRONT RIGHT WING PUNDIT CRAZINESS NUGGET!!
Calling Out Bugnut Idiocy (Leonard Pitts Jr.) from the National Memo
Reminder: John Lewis, now a member of Congress, was a civil rights leader in the 1960s. He went on the Freedom rides and walked across the Edward Pettis bridge in Selma.
"Rush Limbaugh thinks John Lewis should have been armed. “If a lot of African-Americans back in the ’60s had guns and the legal right to use them for self-defense, you think they would have needed Selma?” he said... “If John Lewis had had a gun, would he have been beat upside the head on the bridge?”"
WHERE does one even begin when faced with the depth of this man's stupidity and/or craven demagoguery?! Would they have beat Lewis "upside the head"? No ... they would have pumped him and every other civil rights protester around him full of lead. And, because Lewis had a gun, they would have gotten away with it. Oddly, this (dare one use the term?) "thought experiment" on Limbaugh's part actually proves the exact opposite of what I suspect Limbaugh intended. What would have happened to Lewis in the 1960s is exactly what will happen to the extremist gun nuts out there who are stocking for the day when Obama, the ATF, or the UN guys in their black helicopters come for them -- which is to say, the extremists will exit this earth in a hail of bullets.
Another news item proves the point:
Jimmy Lee Dykes Dead: 5-Year-Old Hostage Rescued In Alabama Standoff from the Huffington Post
"The standoff between law enforcement and an Alabama man who held a boy in a bunker for seven days ended with the suspect dead and the 5-year-old safely rescued."
The NRA’s Tone-Deaf rhetoric (Eugene Robinson) from the Washington Post
"... reducing gun violence remains stubbornly high on the nation’s agenda. This is partly due to the ravings of Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice president and spokesman, who almost single-handedly, or single-mouthedly, is making the pro-gun argument sound even crazier and more irresponsible than it is. And that’s saying something."
John Kasich’s Obamacare Flip Burns Conservatives from Politico
"Kasich’s not alone. He’s joining four other Republican governors in accepting the expansion, though they’re still outnumbered by the nine GOP governors who are refusing to do it — including Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Rick Perry of Texas — and others who are leaning against it. And now that Kasich has taken the plunge, some of Obamacare’s supporters hope others will follow."
Assault Weapons Ban Likely To Die So That Broader Gun Policy Legislation Can Live (Sam Stein) from the Huffington Post
"The ban is the most controversial of four major components of the gun control platform that the Obama administration introduced and that congressional Democrats have touted. The other three -- a universal background check for firearms sales, a federal trafficking law, and a ban on high-capacity magazines -- are likely to be part of a final bill, Democratic aides say, though there is growing concern about whether a ban on high-capacity magazines can make it into law."
Hillary Clinton Debuts New Website (Pema Levy) from Talking Points Memo
"Hillary Clinton appears to have a new website. So far, hillaryclintonoffice.com has a picture of the former secretary of state and a form for contacting her."
I think Hillary is not going to wait and hope that Obama will let her use his social networking campaign machine. She's starting to create her own now.
The GOP’s Anti-Democratic Panic (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
"What interests me about it, and what inspired my piece, is it suggests a certain panic about democracy itself at work in the Republican Party right now. ... All of these things are an attempt to handle political adversity by expanding the ability of the conservative minority to wield political power. "
The Winter of the Neocons’ Discontent (Michael Hirsh) from the National Journal
"Like Richard III, the hawks fear that Obama, Hagel, and Brennan will make all the wars go away."
The Three-Pronged Plan for a GOP Revival (Greg Sargent) from the
Washington Post
"... this suggests that it won’t be doing much to address the basic underlying problem, which is that Republicans still don’t seem able to convincingly articulate a positive role for government to play in people’s lives. ... As far as I can tell, at this point there are three major prongs to the GOP plan for a revival:..."
How A Very Smart Senator Showed Us Everything Wrong With The Modern GOP In One Week (Zack Beauchamp) from Think Progress
"Cruz had two golden opportunities to showcase his keen analytical mind, as he sits on both Senate committees that held high profile hearings last week, one on gun violence prevention, the other on Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE)’s nomination to be Secretary of Defense. And Cruz distinguished himself alright. Just not in the way one might have hoped."
ANOTHER RICHARD III NUGGET!!
The Humiliation of Richard III (Amy Davidson) from the New Yorker
"Shakespeare’s “Richard III,” which portrays Richard as a hunchbacked villain murdering his brother and nephews and then trying to marry his niece, doesn’t exactly say, though Derby’s lines as he hands Henry his crown ... are consistent with historical accounts saying that the body was stripped. So is the damage done to it."
CHINESE DISSIDENT NUGGET!!
Ping Fu Defends ‘Bend, Not Break’ Memoir Against Online Chinese Attack (Katie Baker) from the Daily Beast
"Furious at the airing of China’s dirty laundry in Ping Fu’s new memoir, Chinese commenters have kicked off an online assault. The tech entrepreneur tells Katie Baker the vitriol feels like the public shame sessions of her youth."
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