Because I can.
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by John Cole| 89 Comments
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.
These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.
Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.
You cannot shame the shameless.
Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.
Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.
if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.
There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.
Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.
It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.
People are complicated. Love is not.
We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.
Innocent people do not delay justice.
Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.
A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.
Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.
“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”
Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?
Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.
Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.
“But what about the lurkers?”
We will not go back.
At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.
Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.
Zifnab
Who do you think you are! No man should weld this type of power! Gaaaah!
Krista
So, John, dare I ask you what you think of Dan Riehl’s assertion that the DOJ just shuts down when Bush leaves the country?
AkaDad
DOJ = Department of Obstructing Justice
It looks like we have the “smoking” gun…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/21/AR2007032102713.html
pharniel
wow. thanks for the links to the mortgage stuff.
*sigh* and I just baught a house.
only good news is that it’s in SE michigan, where apperently we’re 10 years ahead in the death spiral!
WOK!
err,e xpect it’s wastenaw county, where there was a boom….D’Oh. good thing i like the house.
i’ll be in it for awhile.
Krista
Lucky you. We’re planning on going for a mortgage this fall, but I have no idea what’ll happen because the non-profit for which I work, well…the project that we’re trying to accomplish is receiving some very small, but very vocal, organized and utterly ruthless opposition. So the whole thing is in jeopardy.
Whee-ha.
Zifnab
Recreational abortions?
Rusty Shackleford
I really, truly hope that Elizabeth Edwards is healthy and the press conference is to announce something positive…but I have a bad feeling that it won’t be so.
Of all the women in politics – whether they’re pundits, politicians or married to politicians – Elizabeth Edwards comes across as the most intelligent, caring, and thoughtful. I hope her health is strong and John Edwards will be able to continue his campaign.
For those who pray and have better relationship with God than I, please say a quick one for Elizabeth and John Edwards – every little bit counts.
Halffasthero
it is ironic that when the House and Senate subpoena the WH about the Justice Dept crisis, that it will fall to the Justice Dept to enforce the subpoena.
Dreggas
Can someone on the Senate Judiciary committee just bitch slap jeff sessions?
Zifnab
That’s what we in the computer industry refer to as a feature, not a bug.
Seriously, though, shouldn’t this automatically default to a Special Prosecutor? We got one for Clinton. It can’t possibly be that hard to get one for Gonezo.
Dreggas
NEWS FLASH
The Senate voted to authorize subpoenas, it was a voice vote and sounded like only 2 members voted “nay”.
Zifnab
haha. They should totally ask for a head-count tally. Don’t let those guys in the back get away.
demimondian
Well, seeing as how the law enabling them was allowed to lapse during Clinton’s tenure, I don’t exactly see how.
Dreggas
The only two I heard make an argument against voting for authorization were sessions and brownback.
Dreggas
Tony Snow on CBS today:
Ummm…isn’t that very much the definition of “Checks and Balances”?
Article and transcript here
pharniel
more and more i feel that 90% of the white house would fail the (addmittedly grueling) high school civics course i endured (at the hieght of the OJ trial no less. i got my fill of ‘courtroom drama’, the biggest bait and switch EVER).
Punchy
How does a subpeona’d Atty Genny ajudicate his own self? Should he not show, and Congress contempts his ass, who litigates this contempt of Congress if Gonzo is the subject of it? Assuming, of course (and it’s a big assumption) that Bush chooses to follow correct procedures and laws…
pharniel
Krista said
Shitfuck. I feel for yha. I’m always worried about my lady-love or myself getting the old axe-handle prostate exam of layoff w/out severance. I’m just glad my company isn’t publically traded right now and that her’s has been in bankrupcy since 1997 (due to asbestos liability). If my company decides to try to IPO though, i could very well be proper fucked.
Pb
Tell that to Bill Clinton… D’oh!
Dreggas
Heh read the transcript or watch the video, Snow got bitch slapped with his own words during the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal.
Snow can’t pull a snow job on this one.
Punchy
Dreggs….you gunna update your website?
Dreggas
I’ve been so damn busy I haven’t bothered LOL. I should start up again, didn’t know I had an audience LOL.
Third Eye Open
So does anyone wanna take bets on outfit changes that may be required in the planned Hooters in Israel?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17688651
RSA
Those of us who caught the Daily Show last night and the night before were treated to another democratic principle, from John Bolton:
demimondian
Which, of course, does not entail any responsibility to the people who didn’t vote for him.
Seems consistent to me.
John D.
My wife and I caught that last night, and all I can say is that I’m glad we’d planned on replacing the TV. Since, you know, I broke mine when I threw the book I was reading at it when he said that.
No, Mr. Mustache, the President has a fucking responsibility to the country as a whole, not just the ones who voted for him.
Pb
Coming from Bolton, I’m surprised it wasn’t “The people have a responsibility to be true to the President
they voted for.”.Krista
Nah. It’s not the scope of the project they’re pissy about. It’s just a classic case of NIMBY, with people spazzing out because they don’t want tourists coming here. (And no, they see absolutely no connection between their aversion to tourists and the fact that the local schools and hospitals are slated for closure. And yes, I have banged my head against the wall. Often.)
Tsulagi
Wrong, Pb,
Paul L.
I await the screams from NARAL and the feminists of how this violates a woman’s right to choose.
i.e.
Abortion is a constitutional right that get unlike the second amendment should not have any laws that affect it.
To Face Your Actions, To Face Life
On the plus side maybe some pro-abortion feminist will want have a sonogram during the abortion to record as a empowerment video.
pharniel
Krista Says:
Y’know, I need to ‘lead in my community’ for my dojo, and we’re pretty close to kanukistan, so if you need a cadre of literate, articulate and affeble killing machines to make some ‘points’ for you in a very traditional manor let me know.
in all seriousness, I 100% understand, as I live in Ann Arbor, a/k/a 25 square miles surrounded by reality.
Pb
Against abortion? Don’t have one.
Why does South Carolina hate blind women?
Bubblegum Tate
Maybe it’s just an accent thing. Like, you say “tourist,” they hear “terrorist.”
If so, the GOP would like to speak to them about making them ‘Murrican citizens.
demimondian
I don’t see why feminists will scream, Paul. They’ll simply go to court to get the law overturned. And they’ll win, too, of course, since the law is unconstitutional.
Hey, what is it you’re supposed to be looking for these days? It isn’t stupid citations from any of your would-be rapist friends, I know…so why are you doing that?
Paul L.
Thanks, I will use this argument for gun control.
Against private ownership of firearms, Don’t buy one.
jg
Great argument. I can’t tell you how often I’ve been worried about geting killed by a stray fetus from an abortion. Those things fly all over because gangbangers give abortions like Yosemite Sam.
Dreggas
I use this argument all the time, don’t like guns…don’t own one.
cleek
Against private ownership of firearms, Don’t buy one.
i’m not against private ownership of firearms. i’m against being shot by the owners of those guns.
demimondian
You don’t understand. Paul L. sees a parallel because he views the right to abortion as a threat to his own existence. After all, if a woman need not suffer putting up with one kind of parasite with no life of its own, why would she put up with Paul?
Krista
Dude, you’re more shrill and emotional than any feminist I’ve ever met…
Zifnab
Because, after all, state mandates are far more effective than actually providing funding for a woman’s health care costs. And we can’t have women coming in and pretending to want an abortion just to get free ultra-sounds.
Millions for rhetoric, not a penny for progress!
Paul L.
I take it that you never met Amanda Marcotte.
John S.
Have fun with Paul “Qana was a fake” L., everyone.
I don’t bother with him much since he has proven that he can put up about as good of an intellectual fight as a piñata.
demimondian
I know, Paul — it totally destroys somebody’s political associates when he or she gets caught in an ideologically motivated mistake, right?
So, what happened to the conservative movement when you apologized for being wrong about the missing bodies in Qana?
Perry Como
That’s the smartest thing I’ve ever seen you write.
Tsulagi
Don’t be too hard on Paul. He and other principled like-minds really are the party of choice. As long as they get to make the choice and enforce it.
Like with the Chinese. Model Christian Pat Robertson, when he said abortion sometimes makes sense, and he could look the other way regarding enforced abortion in China to combat unemployment or a population “too restive”…
See, their problem isn’t with choice. It’s the whole voluntary/involuntary thingy. As long as they get to make the choice, and it’s involuntary, they’re fine with that.
Paul L.
I know I won a argument when my Qana gaffe is brought up.
I never said I was wrong about the missing bodies in Qana.
I say I have no proof that the destruction of the building was caused by the Hezbollah storing explosives in the building instead of the Israeli air strike. So I have to go with the theory that the Israeli made a mistake.
So you are saying that Hezbollah did not manipulate the media coverage and inflated the Qana body count? The video of green helmet acting as a director is fake.
Paul L.
Also I did not try to hide/deny my previous posts on the subject.
Unlike Amanda Marcotte.
Punchy
I think they need to go the next logical step and pass a law that mandates that a woman shove her hand up her cooch and actually hold the fetus before having the abortion.
Krista
Considering that the cervix opening is roughly the same size as the male urethra, why don’t you shove your hand up your peehole and show us how it’s done, then?
Punchy
Again?
Zifnab
Psh… I do that all the time. What’s the big deal, then?
chopper
great, we’re getting lectured to by an idiot who can’t even write a proper sentence.
chopper
please do. i will as well. as long as you use the same above regarding abortion. deal?
Punchy
Let’s just use guns to kill fetuses (feti?). Problem solved. Gunpowder and milkshakes for everyone.
Dreggas
It’s called “sounding” and uh…yeah some people get off on it.
Krista
Dreggas – you have GOT to be kidding me. Please tell me you’re kidding me.
The Other Steve
Perhaps men should be required to shove their hands up their peehole before having sex, so they can better know how it feels.
chopper
get rid of that “and” and you’re in business.
The Other Steve
Ok, I’ve come to the conclusion the Democrats are stupid.
The Republicans have chosen this bullshit line about how you either go with the Bush plan and get the truth, or you go down this plan with subpoenas.
Why don’t the fucking Democrats just call them on their fucking bullshit and say… “so you’re saying if we call you before Congress, you intend on lying to us?”
Quit playing Senator… These guys don’t deserve your respect. Start treating htem like the 2 year olds they behave like.
Sheesh. This is a big waste of time, if you don’t know how to belittle these buffoons. There’s no point in holding a hearing, the point is making a mockery of them.
Dreggas
No, “sounds” as they are called are actual medical devices but can be employed in other ways (which leads to the old addage that those of us in Alt Lifestyles have…”If you can think it we can kink it”). Some people enjoy it, some even use metal ones (most are metal) and hook up TENs units to them (a electrical device meant to be used for back pain that sends pulses of electricity into a person).
pharniel
rule 34 violation.
Krista
Dreggas – well, a chacun son gout, I guess. It still sounds pretty cringe-worthy to me, though.
pharniel
Don’t forget the violet wand add on. Seriously, somone just informed me that there are websites for ‘tying a girl up by her body hair (specifically leg and arm)”
Rule 34 btw, is that at the mention of a hertofore unkown sexual proclivity a website dedicated to that practice is thus spontaniously created.
That is, mentioning a strange and bizzare sex act is all it takes to generate a comunity dedicated to said sex act.
Dreggas
It is cringe worthy and not an activity I want to experience, I have seen it done though.
Dreggas
I didn’t know there was violet wand attachment, violet wands are fun though hehehe. As for tying someone up by their body hair it seems to me that that would require the hair to be as long as cousin its’ which is gross.
Name it and it is out there, as is most of this is not really unknown, it’s just not known to what we call “vanilla” people LOL.
Umm the BDSM community is quite large especially here in So-Cal one of the reasons I came here from BFE in Upstate NY.
Face
Somewhere John Cole is smiling that “Balloon Juice” has become “Balloons in your Peehole and Other Insanely Disgusting Things”
Tomorrow, we discuss both John Edwards and Ed’s wads of whatever stuffed in his whatever.
Krista
That just sounds logistically impossible. Leg and arm hair only grow so long. I’ve seen some pretty hairy people, and even then, their leg and arm hair tends to be thick, not long.
Wacky, wacky stuff. But, as one who goes to great lengths to avoid pain, the entire concept of one getting their jollies from pain is really pretty foreign to me.
Krista
Hey, for all we know, John himself might get his jollies that way. :)
Jake
Activist Judges (Heart) Porn.
Dreggas
Yeah Activist to the point where they believe it is the PARENTS’ responsibility to monitor their children’s activities.
pharniel
please. BDSM is so passe. Rule 34 is specifcially for those extreme weirdness like “Human Corn on the cob” or NCRP. Or achieving gratification by sniffing the ground flaked skin from the feet of models.
and go uber-activist judge!
Paul L.
And so it begins:
S.C. Abortion Bill Requiring Ultrasound Advances
The talking points are:
So much for the taking point of keeping abortions being safe, legal and rare.
From the linked story:
Dreggas
Uh I know someone who likes doing that to any woman.
Buck
Buck
to finish my thought…….
Please stop. I am just now getting over the shock and awe of the Dirty Sanchez.
Dreggas
Wow and that’s an old one…
chopper
what about the Kilty Monroe?
Dreggas
ROFLMMFAO!
John S.
Whatever gets you through the day, cubby.
I always know I’ve won my arguments when people bring up how full of shit and intellectually bankrupt I am… but seriously, you and Bush were made for each other.
Jake
Gee. It sounds like you think the shrill cries of “We must protect the children!” were like…an excuse to monitor and control adults’ behaviour or somethin’.
Now if someone wants to pass a law that bans fat guys from wearing banana hammocks on the beach…
Tulkinghorn
In Quebec? I heard about the negative fertility rate… is that the problem? This can’t be the Maritimes, they have been too desperate for too long.
Richard 23
Somebody finally noticed!
And enough with the fisting peeholes conversation. I’m trying to eat rocky mountain oysters here.
jake
That takes balls.
Nick Kasoff
Smoking gun? Actually, the original decision to pursue the tobacco companies was a political one, and in my view, a bad one. I’m a former smoker myself … but there is some serious hypocrisy when the government allows a product to be legally sold long after the harmful effects are known, taxes the heck out of it, then still claims the company is liable for the known effects.
Sure, the companies tried to promote “science” that downplayed the risk of smoking. But it doesn’t take a degree in biology to know that lighting something on fire, and inhaling the smoke, is going to be bad for your lungs. It’s just plain common sense.
There are serious health consequences to eating too much, and particularly of certain foods. I’m sure that poor people and Michael Moore eat more pork rinds, Twinkies, and fast food, and are more likely to be overweight. And somewhere out there, a lawyer is planning a massive class action suit against the food manufacturers and distributors, and perhaps even the evil farmers who grow the stuff. Just you wait.
Nick Kasoff
The Thug Report
demimondian
This is the classic libertarian lie about fraud. The companies didn’t just “promote ‘science'”, they actively marketed that science. They manipulated test results to report that their product was less dangerous than it actually was. They marketed to a vulnerable population — children — and lied about that in court.
It’s not illegal to sell rat poison. It is, however, illegal to sell rat poison and mark it as safe for human or animal consumption.
The Other Steve
But when people tried to get the product made illegal or at least regulated as a drug, you guys fought that too.
Aren’t you the real hypocrite?
The Other Steve
Unless you mix it with wheat and import it from China.
mrmobi
LOOK! A PONY!
First of all, someone who puts up a blatantly racist website (complete with links to holocaust deniers and other tin-foil hat cretins) should probably be a little careful about decrying hypocrisy. You might end up looking like a hypocritical asshole.
Yes, Nick, we know. Michael Moore and all poor people are fat.
Yes, we also know that class action lawsuits are the biggest problem we have as a nation.
How is a company supposed to stay in business when the people it is poisoning are claiming the right to sue? It’s outrageous!
On a serious note, the linked article, if true, shows an administration which believes it is above the law, and which has very likely committed crimes against the American people by interfering with an on-going Justice Department case.
But I’m sure that’s ok with you, Nick, because the people committing those crimes are probably white.
I’m curious, Nick. If Abu Gonzales were to be convicted of a crime, would he get to be on your vile website?