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Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor (slightly modified)

 

If there’s chaos, things will tend toward simple solutions. In chaos people don’t listen to reason.

Sen. Tom Harkin, quoted in George Packer’s The Empty Chamber: Just how broken is the Senate

Like investment bankers on Wall Street, senators these days direct much of their creative energy toward the manipulation of arcane rules and loopholes, scoring short-term successes while magnifying their institution’s broader dysfunction.

George Packer, The Empty Chamber: Just how broken is the Senate

News about, by, and for a tiny kingdom of political obsessives dominates the attention of senators and staff, while stories that might affect their constituents go unreported because their home-state papers can no longer afford to have bureaus in Washington.

George Packer, Filibusters and arcane obstructions in the Senate [via Kevin Drum]

[Intolerance and xenophobia is] a short-term strategy that eats itself, because sooner or later, everyone is a stranger, and fear is no foundation for work that matters.

Seth Godin, Intolerance and xenophobia as a (short-term) marketing strategy

…it’s never been easier for people to be wrong, and at the same time feel more certain that they’re right.

Joe Keohane, How facts backfire [via Political Wire]

…demagogues benefit from keeping people agitated. The more threatened people feel, the less likely they are to listen to dissenting opinions, and the more easily controlled they are.

Joe Keohane, How facts backfire [via Political Wire]

Why We Must Reduce Military Spending

Reps. Barney Frank and Ron Paul: “The nations of Western Europe now collectively have greater resources at their command than we do, yet they continue to depend overwhelmingly on American taxpayers to provide for their defense.”

The gradual abandonment of on-the-ground campaign coverage means that polls are fast becoming the only way to glimpse voter sentiment. Since most polls in statewide races (particularly primaries) are automated short-answer surveys, it becomes easy to jump to blunderbuss conclusions like “all incumbents are imperiled” or “the Tea Party movement is all-powerful.

Walter Shapiro, Nikki Haley and Rand Paul Races: Where Have All the Reporters Gone? [via Political Wire]

‘Business as usual’ is the abiding legacy of the Obama administration with regard to the systemic risks posed by this financial system. Treasury and White House let us down repeatedly and completely in the last 18 months on financial sector issues — just as they did (as decision-making bodies and as some of the same individuals) at the end of the 1990s.

Simon Johnson, The Last Hold Out: Senator Blanche Lincoln Against 13 Bankers

These analysts had spent their entire lives working off the assumption that the NSA does not spy on Americans. That spying on Americans is wrong. When the NSA began to spy on Americans, however carefully they did it, it would not be irresponsible to say that a large number of the people who do their jobs at NSA very well began to question whether their job was worth doing.

Marc Ambinder, The Intelligence Community Had 14 Chances to Connect the Dots

Essentially, any Supreme Court appointment this cycle has two tasks: 1) vote the right way; and 2) convince Anthony Kennedy to do the same.

Jonathan Zasloff, …in which I become petty and backbiting — sort of [via Kevin Drum]

Congress has perfected the art of defending the status quo because it is dependent—for its campaign funds—upon the status quo.

Lawrence Lessig and Mark McKinnon, How to Sober Up Washington