Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

In after Baud. Damn.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Bark louder, little dog.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

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46Comments

  2. 2.

    Jack Roy

    I was under the impression we New Yorkers got it worse than New England. Maybe that’s just our habit of thinking nothing matters if it doesn’t happen here, though. Plus, New Englanders get to be excited about their (and my) hometown BEST BASEBALL TEAM EVER starting training camp this week. Whoo!

  5. 5.

    Gold Star for Robot Boy

    Not bad for a Monday morning.
    Of course, I live in sunny Arizona, where we haven’t seen a drop of rain – let alone snow – in 118 days.

  6. 6.

    Eural

    Goldstar – read the essay and it was excellent! I sent it to a “conservative” friend of mine who was full of ideas about restrictions on power, deficits and “wagging the dog” during the 90’s but has found an excuse for every one of Bush’s policies.

    On a related note – just watched a German film called Downfall about the last days in Hitler’s bunker in 1945. The material was based on numerous survivors (including his personal secretary) many of whom have just died in the last few years (!). A great movie with some unbelievable scenes. Sadly, the dialogue (adjusted in minor details) could be transplanted to our current situation. Just shows that human nature doesn’t really change. That’s scarey.

  7. 7.

    ppGaz

    What’s up? Well, thanks to my good friend, Lefty O’Blog, this ….

    Forget Iran, Americans Should be Hysterical About This
    Nuking the Economy
    By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

    Last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics re-benchmarked the payroll jobs data back to 2000. Thanks to Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services, I have the adjusted data from January 2001 through January 2006. If you are worried about terrorists, you don’t know what worry is.

    Job growth over the last five years is the weakest on record. The US economy came up more than 7 million jobs short of keeping up with population growth. That’s one good reason for controlling immigration. An economy that cannot keep up with population growth should not be boosting population with heavy rates of legal and illegal immigration.

    Over the past five years the US economy experienced a net job loss in goods producing activities. The entire job growth was in service-providing activities–primarily credit intermediation, health care and social assistance, waiters, waitresses and bartenders, and state and local government.

    US manufacturing lost 2.9 million jobs, almost 17% of the manufacturing work force. The wipeout is across the board. Not a single manufacturing payroll classification created a single new job.

    The declines in some manufacturing sectors have more in common with a country undergoing saturation bombing during war than with a super-economy that is “the envy of the world.” Communications equipment lost 43% of its workforce. Semiconductors and electronic components lost 37% of its workforce. The workforce in computers and electronic products declined 30%. Electrical equipment and appliances lost 25% of its employees. The workforce in motor vehicles and parts declined 12%. Furniture and related products lost 17% of its jobs. Apparel manufacturers lost almost half of the work force. Employment in textile mills declined 43%. Paper and paper products lost one-fifth of its jobs. The work force in plastics and rubber products declined by 15%. Even manufacturers of beverages and tobacco products experienced a 7% shrinkage in jobs.

    The knowledge jobs that were supposed to take the place of lost manufacturing jobs in the globalized “new economy” never appeared. The information sector lost 17% of its jobs, with the telecommunications work force declining by 25%. Even wholesale and retail trade lost jobs. Despite massive new accounting burdens imposed by Sarbanes-Oxley, accounting and bookkeeping employment shrank by 4%. Computer systems design and related lost 9% of its jobs. Today there are 209,000 fewer managerial and supervisory jobs than 5 years ago.

    In five years the US economy only created 70,000 jobs in architecture and engineering, many of which are clerical. Little wonder engineering enrollments are shrinking. There are no jobs for graduates. The talk about engineering shortages is absolute ignorance. There are several hundred thousand American engineers who are unemployed and have been for years. No student wants a degree that is nothing but a ticket to a soup line. Many engineers have written to me that they cannot even get Wal-Mart jobs because their education makes them over-qualified.

    Offshore outsourcing and offshore production have left the US awash with unemployment among the highly educated. The low measured rate of unemployment does not include discouraged workers. Labor arbitrage has made the unemployment rate less and less a meaningful indicator. In the past unemployment resulted mainly from turnover in the labor force and recession. Recoveries pulled people back into jobs.

    Unemployment benefits were intended to help people over the down time in the cycle when workers were laid off. Today the unemployment is permanent as entire occupations and industries are wiped out by labor arbitrage as corporations replace their American employees with foreign ones.

    Economists who look beyond political press releases estimate the US unemployment rate to be between 7% and 8.5%. There are now hundreds of thousands of Americans who will never recover their investment in their university education.

    Unless the BLS is falsifying the data or businesses are reporting the opposite of the facts, the US is experiencing a job depression. Most economists refuse to acknowledge the facts, because they endorsed globalization. It was a win-win situation, they said.

    They were wrong.

    At a time when America desperately needs the voices of educated people as a counterweight to the disinformation that emanates from the Bush administration and its supporters, economists have discredited themselves. This is especially true for “free market economists” who foolishly assumed that international labor arbitrage was an example of free trade that was benefitting Americans. Where is the benefit when employment in US export industries and import-competitive industries is shrinking? After decades of struggle to regain credibility, free market economics is on the verge of another wipeout.

    No sane economist can possibly maintain that a deplorable record of merely 1,054,000 net new private sector jobs over five years is an indication of a healthy economy. The total number of private sector jobs created over the five year period is 500,000 jobs less than one year’s legal and illegal immigration! (In a December 2005 Center for Immigration Studies report based on the Census Bureau’s March 2005 Current Population Survey, Steven Camarota writes that there were 7,9 million new immigrants between January 2000 and March 2005.)

    The economics profession has failed America. It touts a meaningless number while joblessness soars. Lazy journalists at the New York Times simply rewrite the Bush administration’s press releases.

    On February 10 the Commerce Department released a record US trade deficit in goods and services for 2005–$726 billion. The US deficit in Advanced Technology Products reached a new high. Offshore production for home markets and jobs outsourcing has made the US highly dependent on foreign provided goods and services, while simultaneously reducing the export capability of the US economy. It is possible that there might be no exchange rate at which the US can balance its trade.

    Polls indicate that the Bush administration is succeeding in whipping up fear and hysteria about Iran. The secretary of defense is promising Americans decades-long war. Is death in battle Bush’s solution to the job depression? Will Asians finance a decades-long war for a bankrupt country?

    Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: [email protected]

  8. 8.

    erez

    Slow monday morning. Big sympathy to New Englanders who now have to put up with a president they don’t like and six gajillion inches of fresh snow.

    Putting things into perspective like that, I guess things aren’t nearly so bad.

  9. 9.

    ppGaz

    No sane economist can possibly maintain that a deplorable record of merely 1,054,000 net new private sector jobs over five years is an indication of a healthy economy. The total number of private sector jobs created over the five year period is 500,000 jobs less than one year’s legal and illegal immigration!

    I keep reading that Roberts piece, and trying to stop my jaw from dropping. I knew the situation was bad, but I had no idea it was this bad.

    So, a nice little war in Iran, then, to distract the masses from the catastrophe that is their government in the United States?

    Darrell, Mac Buckets, anyone?

  11. 11.

    ppGaz

    Americans have forgotten what it takes to remain free. Instead, every ideology, every group is determined to use government to advance its agenda. As the government’s power grows, the people are eclipsed.

    We have reached a point where the Bush administration is determined to totally eclipse the people. Bewitched by neoconservatives and lustful for power, the Bush administration and the Republican Party are aligning themselves firmly against the American people. Their first victims, of course, were the true conservatives. Having eliminated internal opposition, the Bush administration is now using blackmail obtained through illegal spying on American citizens to silence the media and the opposition party.

    More Roberts. Reagan administration insider. Washington Times columnist. And now, sounding the alarm: America is in peril.

    News flash for intellectual ostriches who want to bury their heads in the sand and talk as if “voting Libertarian” is not only a useful, but even a responsible, thing to do in this day and age: Get your heads out! You are the Nader voters of our time, the fools who decided that standing by the side of the road and “making a statement” was the right thing to do, when the fate of your country hung in the balance on the thread of those precious votes that were wasted for nothing.

    Don’t repeat the mistake in 2006 and 2008.

  12. 12.

    Richard Bottoms

    More Roberts. Reagan administration insider. Washington Times columnist. And now, sounding the alarm: America is in peril.

    At least Bush doesn’t speak French and act all smart and snooty. Shut up and have a pretzel.

  13. 13.

    Jim Allen

    Meh. We got 18″ and the roads are clear this morning. Schools are all closed for the day. Otherwise, no big deal.

  14. 14.

    Zifnab

    So, a nice little war in Iran, then, to distract the masses from the catastrophe that is their government in the United States?

    Even a war won’t keep people distracted if they can’t afford basic cable.

  15. 15.

    ppGaz

    Overall, the House report said, the federal government’s response to Katrina was marked by “fecklessness, flailing and organizational paralysis.”

    “Our investigation revealed that Katrina was a national failure, an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare,” said a summary of the scathing report obtained Sunday by The Associated Press.

    That’s the report of the Republican House of Representatives. Not DKos.

    This is how your ctastrophe of a government responds to a disaster that it saw coming … for years, and had specific advance warning of … for days.

    Imagine how it will respond on the day we hope will not come …. another serious and profound terrorist attack on a city in America?

    We are fighting the terrorists “there” so that we can distract you from the fact that we can’t really protect you from them “here.” In fact, we can’t really do much of anything for you.

    Hey, how about a nice little war in Iran? After the Olymics are over, I mean.

  16. 16.

    Blue Neponset

    Big sympathy to New Englanders [and Mid-Atlantic state-ers] who now have to put up with a president they don’t like and six gajillion inches of fresh snow.

    This ain’t South Carolina. We eat a “gajillion inches of fresh snow” for breakfast here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We don’t need no stinkin’ sympathy. /snark

  17. 17.

    ppGaz

    This is an enormous sum to spend on a war that President Bush says is based on mistaken intelligence. Why, then, does Bush continue to fight the war?

    The mistaken war has damaged America’s reputation, harmed our alliances, enraged Muslims against us, and radicalized Middle Eastern politics. The CIA reports that the war has provided al Qaeda with recruitment and a training ground. The US military is trying to ascertain whether its attempted occupation of Iraq is creating insurgents faster than they are being killed.

    In view of the available facts, how can Bush in his state of the union address tell Congress and the world that the US is winning in Iraq? Why did Congress stand and applaud? What does it mean to win a war that should not have been started?

    Having admitted that his invasion of Iraq is based on incorrect intelligence, why did Bush claim in his state of the union address that his war in Iraq is central to the war against terrorism? He must mean that his mistake created terrorism where it did not exist, and, having created the terrorism, he must now fight it even if doing so creates yet more terrorists.

    Roberts again.

    So you have a badly damaged economy being floated by foreign support, a government that can’t handle a crisis in the Superdome, a crisis it could have prevented in the first place with a little planning and due diligence, a war based on bad intelligence but now used as an applause prop in big speeches ….

    Isn’t it about time for a Cindy Sheehan thread?

  18. 18.

    Slide

    Another Bush Pioneer demonstrating his “Family Values”

    TOLEDO — Thomas W. Noe, the coin dealer and prominent Republican contributor whose $50 million state coin investment sparked one of the biggest scandals in Ohio state government history, was indicted today on 53 felonies, including theft of more than $1 million.

    The charges include engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, 11 counts of theft, 11 of money laundering, 8 of tampering with records and 22 of forgery. He could be sentenced to a maximum 175 years in prison, although such a sentence is considered unlikely.

    Noe, who was recognized as a “pioneer” for raising $100,000 for Bush’s re-election, and his wife have given more than $150,000 in campaign contributions to various GOP candidates and groups over the years, records show.

    .

  19. 19.

    Edmund Dantes

    I still don’t get why people buy the excuse from Brownie that “they were too focused on responding to a terrorist attack. This is why they sucked responding to a natural disaster”. I think he even put it in terms of if the levee had been breached by terrorists the response would have been better.

    Does anyone else see the problem with that statement? Is the American public that bereft of reasoning skills that they can’t see how the argument doesn’t make any sense?

  20. 20.

    Slide

    This is interesting, Andrew Sullivan calling Rumsfeld a murderer:

    The brutal murders of some innocent Aghan prisoners in Bagram, Afghanistan, are a horrifying reminder that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were not exceptions, but typical of much detainee-handling in the war on terror; that those committing them believed they were authorized to do so; that inquiries trying to determine who in the command structure was really responsible have been stymied; and that the perpetrators, because they were indeed trying to follow confused or liberalized strictures on prisoner abuse, have largely gotten away with murder. Money quote:

    “[N]or did [prosecutors] mention a secret memorandum showing that around the time of the two deaths, interrogators at Bagram were using new, aggressive methods that were not authorized for use in Afghanistan. The 10-page memorandum, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, was written by the military’s acting chief lawyer at Bagram, Lt. Col. Robert J. Cotell Jr., on Jan. 24, 2003. It indicates that interrogators there adopted some of the more extreme interrogation methods that Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld approved on Dec. 2, 2002, exclusively for use at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.”

    And so you have a direct line from Rumsfeld’s approval of abuse to the murder of two completely innocent men, by having them hung from their wrists and their legs pummeled by a series of American soldiers until the legs were reduced to pulp. The harshest sentence in the Bush military for murdering innocents by this kind of method is five months. The vast majority have received no punishment at all. One soldier who confessed to beating the hanging man was given an honorable discharge. You can judge how seriously this administration takes the abuse of detainees by what they do about it. We just found out – in the clearest possible case..

  21. 21.

    ppGaz

    the argument doesn’t make any sense?

    Well, it makes perfect sense. Brown went up there to do one thing: Reconstruct his image. He fucked the country, he fucked FEMA, and he now has the stones to stand up there and claim that he is the victim.

    He’s a failed lawyer, but he’s doing a lawyerly job of putting on a defense for the “heckuva lousy job” he did on your nickel. It was a classic demonstration of the Clarence Thomas strategy. When you are called on being a creepy worthless piece of shit, get mad and fight back. It worked for Thomas. Watch it work for Brown.

  22. 22.

    Krista

    I wonder if I’ll finally get to use my new snowshoes.

    We are fighting the terrorists “there” so that we can distract you from the fact that we can’t really protect you from them “here.” In fact, we can’t really do much of anything for you.

    He’s on fire today, kids. Look out!

  23. 23.

    neil

    Edmund Dantes, I think it makes sense, actually. As has been pointed out, responding to a generic ‘terrorist attack’ is exactly the same as responding to a natural disaster. We have a huge terrorist attack and Congress feels it must respond by pumping up our terrorist response capabilities. But we already have a perfectly good government office that responds to disasters, it’s just not specifically tied to terrorists.

    So what do we do? We create a new office which is really just the old one with a new head. Bush staffs the head with incompetents and cronies who don’t have experience running this pre-existing bureaucracy. And the rest is history.

    Oh, but I haven’t explained yet. These incompetents were all on vacation when the hurricane hit, and they didn’t realize it was a big deal and didn’t care, because it wasn’t a terrorist attack. If it had been a terrorist attack, they would have done their job.

  24. 24.

    ppGaz

    These incompetents were all on vacation when the hurricane hit

    Bush was in San Diego pimping the Iraq war.

    We’d have been better off if he had been on vacation.

  25. 25.

    MN Politics Guru

    Edmund Dantes, I think it makes sense, actually. As has been pointed out, responding to a generic ‘terrorist attack’ is exactly the same as responding to a natural disaster.

    Bingo. What’s the difference between a levee that fails due to flooding and a levee that is blown up? What’s the differece between a building that is destroyed by terrorists and an building that is destroyed by an earthquake? Nothing. So how in the world can anybody argue that the terrorist response would be better?

    It’s now more than four years since 9/11, and our country’s disaster response has worsened. What would happen if we encountered another attach? We. Are. Screwed.

  26. 26.

    Ancient Purple

    So, Chertoff wants to reform FEMA and one of the first items on his agenda is to hire 1,500 new staff members.

    Assuming the average salary is $45,000 a year, that is $65 million just for wages (benefits, etc. would be separate).

    One wonders how that is going to be paid for.

    Oh, that’s right… time for another tax cut for the wealthiest 1% of Americans.

  27. 27.

    Stormy70

    There’s a tear in my beer…lots of whining here today. I would rather watch 24, than listen to the latest Bash Bush litany from the standard players.

    Even a snowstorm is an excuse to blame Bush. I loves it! Carry on, intrepids.

    Maybe you could come up with some sort of National Security plan for the Dems to piss all over. I do like the way the “spying” scandal is imploding all over the Democratic party. “Whaaa! Bush is spying on Al Qaeda! We would never do that to the terrorists! It’s too mean.”

  28. 28.

    The Other Steve

    ppGaz – With regards to employment figures. I think it’s a result of extreme underemployment in the economy.

    I’ve seen some figures that show the employment rate of teens(16-20) is only around 20%, compared to 50% back in the 1980s. This seems to be an increasing trend.

    Also, I know a number of women who have been forced out of the workforce due to low wages and high child care expenses. They can’t afford to work.

    However… I will caveat this. I think the increased wealth of many Americans has contributed to this. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. I know many families now who can live off of one income again, which wasn’t the case for many years.

    The children not working actually concerns me, but again it’s due to wealth. Why work when daddy will just buy you a car?

    Also the debt load of Americans has contributed to this.

  29. 29.

    nyrev

    Well, Stormy’s certainly cranky today. What’s the matter? Did the GOP forget to leave your tax refund on the nightstand on their way out?

  30. 30.

    The Disenfranchised Voter

    Even a snowstorm is an excuse to blame Bush. I loves it! Carry on, intrepids.

    Show me one example in these comments of someone blaming Bush for the snow storm.

    Just one.

    Check yourself into a mental institute stormy. I’m honestly worried about you.

  31. 31.

    Gold Star for Robot Boy

    Also the debt load of Americans has contributed to this.

    On a related note, any explanation for the waaaaay low level of savings by Americans? Never understood that. It’s as if saving, like energy conservation, is unmanly.

  32. 32.

    Stormy70

    Did you read the open thread post with the dig at Bush? Or does its plain language throw you off?

    I’m not cranky today, but I see all of you are in fine form this morning.

    Me? I am going to watch four hours of Season 4 of 24, then I will watch some Olympics, play with my cats, and read Mad Ship by Robin Hobb.

    Snarky commenting will be light, if at all.

    Have a good one, BDS sufferers.

  33. 33.

    Perry Como

    Also the debt load of Americans has contributed to this.

    Along with the -1.5% savings rate, a rate that is the lowest since 1933. Add to that the $27,000 we each owe thanks to compassionate conservatism.

    Keep watching TV Stormy. You’d hate to see what’s really going on in this country.

  34. 34.

    Richard Bottoms

    So how in the world can anybody argue that the terrorist response would be better?

    He was saying if it had been a terrorist attack on the levees the feds would have jumped into action. Could you imagine them not?

  35. 35.

    Davebo

    I would rather watch 24, than listen to the latest Bash Bush litany from the standard players.

    So bashing mythical GOP presidents is ok but bashing actual GOP presidents is bad?

    Or should Jack torture the president first and then bash him?

  37. 37.

    Blue Neponset

    Stormy,

    Me? I am going to watch four hours of Season 4 of 24

    I watched season 4 a few weeks ago. It was definately an improvement over season 2. I haven’t watched season 3 because I heard it sucked. (If anyone feels different let me know.) 4 was pretty good though.

    Re: Politics

    You are a crazy person. No one is saying Bush had anything to do with the snow storm.

  38. 38.

    Pooh

    You are a crazy person. No one is saying Bush had anything to do with the snow storm.

    Give ppGaz a few minutes, he’s working his way up to it.

  41. 41.

    Steve

    I do like the way the “spying” scandal is imploding all over the Democratic party. “Whaaa! Bush is spying on Al Qaeda! We would never do that to the terrorists! It’s too mean.”

    Kind of odd how both houses of Congress are conducting investigations, every day another Republican comes out publicly saying the administration shouldn’t be doing this, but in Stormyland it’s all blowing up in the Democrats’ face.

  43. 43.

    Otto Man

    There’s a tear in my beer…lots of whining here today. I would rather watch 24, than listen to the latest Bash Bush litany from the standard players.

    Man, that Glenn Greenwald essay was practically written with Stormy in mind. Maybe he lurks here.

  44. 44.

    Otto Man

    In Stormy’s world, Bush = Cobra Commander

    In my world, too. The difference is, I think it’s a bad thing.

    Although, I have to say that Cheney would really look great as Destro.

  46. 46.

    Lines

    Alexandra is a nutcase. Wow, thanks Pooh, I’m going to go attempt to scrub my brain with Ajax after reading that trash.

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