Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

You are here: Home / z-Retired Categories / Previous Site Maintenance / Early Afternoon Open Thread

Reader Interactions

29Comments

  1. 1.

    Soylent Green

    Regarding Hillary’s taking of that boy’s bicycle and video games:

    Child, let me explain something quite important to you. Under my new order, I allow you to live. In return for your obedience, you enjoy my generous protection. I expect tribute. Your tricycle, your dolls, everything you own. All these you will gladly give to me.

    Kneel before Hillary!

  3. 3.

    Warren Terra

    Jeez. The site is barely accessible today. Should I assume this is because someone – the GOS again? Sullivan? – is linking to it.

    Before this happens, do they send John and the rest of you a note saying “Nice website you’ve got here; shame if something happened linked to it”?

  4. 4.

    IanY77

    And the sky turned black, the moon turned as red as blood, and AJ Strata writes something I agree with totally:

    Well, it started back in 2006 when Bush nominated ex-democrat (wasn’t Reagan an ex-dem?) Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and the far right went ape. The far right rose up again on Dubai Ports World’s selection to run some US docks. Even though the UAE, home of DPW, hosts the largest US naval port in the Middle East, some felt those Ayrabs were too much of a threat to be allied to have majority ownership (no dock hands of course) in a company that loads and unloads ships. The ignorance on how things work demonstrated at the time was stunning – and ugly.

    Then came a real issue, a national issue. Then came comprehensive immigration reform and the far right went ballistic and called all who disagree with them traitors, un-American and worse. Compounding their disgusting behavior towards political allies (acting like Sadrists to Maliki’s Shiites) they basically started lying to themselves and America about what was in the bill, what was the utility of existing laws, and equating all immigrants with the few bad apples all populations have. In the irony of all ironies the bad apples they held up as examples of the evils of immigration were the very ones they insured would stay around as they stopped a bill that would deport criminals! Great thinking there.

    Now that issue is back because all those who opposed comprehensive immigration reform have fallen by the wayside since 2006 and 2007. The standard bearer of the hard line crowd on immigration, Tom Tancredo, lost his bid for President and his seat in Congress. Many others followed his example and the one left standing is John McCain. McCain, like Bush and many other republican conservatives (as opposed to ‘true’ conservatives), supported the comprehensive bills proposed in 2006 and 2007. He supports it now. Bush has done more than any other President to seal our borders, turning back 1.3 million illegals last year alone. There is no more catch and release plan. Caught and sent home.

    Now is the time to deal with registering workers and those who have been here a long time making a living as undocumented workers. Now is the time to register foreign workers and remove the underground economy that can not only hide 20 million illegal immigrants for decades, but hide cells of terrorists. It is time to step away from the fringes on the right and left (who have unrealistic desires with no public backing) and deal with the problem realistically. And that is what McCain is going to do:

    In yet another sign of his pivoting toward the general election, Senator John McCain said at a roundtable with business leaders here today that comprehensive immigration reform should be a top priority for the next president.

    Mr. McCain’s willingness to address the issue was striking given how the topic became something of a third-rail for Republican presidential candidates during the primary.

    The response by the far right was predictable and swift – and signaled the final chapter in the purity wars of the conservative movement. Either the purists win and the GOP goes into terminal minority status or the broader coalition wins and progress is made through compromise and teamwork. Personally I already know the answer because politics in a democracy only divvies out power to those who make broad alliances and who can compromise. Ideologues who demand everyone bow to them always end up on the margins.

    If McCain wins he will have made clear that the GOP and conservative movement can achieve success without the ‘true’ conservatives. I am an independent conservative. I have resisted joining the GOP for decades because of the purists. It is a combination of being repulsed by their arrogance and completely unimpressed with their solutions. Arrogance needs to be backed up with something, and there is not a lot there in many cases (not all of course, and I am focused on leaders and leading voices). I actually have no dog in this fight accept to find the best opposition to liberal policies. I don’t look for the purist conservative because the world changes to much and too fast to lock into one concept. It is a false sense fo security some seek in defining rigid dogma.

    It is not my path, nor the path of many. Who will win? In the long run the ‘true’ conservatives will lose. the question is whether a short term success can be won when fighting the liberals on the left and the fringes on the right. I think this is the year of the centrists where America shrugs off the fringes and marches to the center to get some problems solved.

  6. 6.

    SnarkyShark

    Damn dude, you got linked to this morning by the Big Orange Borg, and you been crashed every since. By the lack of thread comments, I can see I am not the only one.

    Every time Subkomandante Markos links to a blog, it crashes. That guy swings a real big digital stick.

    Better get a bigger server if your going to keep getting turkee from him. He seems to like your cranky curmudgeon ways.

  7. 7.

    kindness

    Definitely the WordPress…it should be a crime if it isn’t.

    Do us a favor though, go out in you Sunday best stained & torn white tank t-shirt with a cheap beer in one hand and hide what every you have in the other. When you hear a bull horn, start swearing up a storm. It’ll be easy, just think Hillery at the Democratic Convention trying to overturn EVERYTHING.

    Don’t get yerself killed though.

  8. 8.

    John S.

    Better get a bigger server if your going to keep getting turkee from him. He seems to like your cranky curmudgeon ways.

    Ol’ Crank Cole knows how inadequate this joint is and promised us flowers and candy by the end of July.

  9. 9.

    Mary

    If I lose this post, I swear to God I’m taking out the staple gun.

    Al Giordano says that the “Cordoza 40”, a group of Clinton SDs and pledged delegates from California, are ready to switch to Obama.

    The endorsement by US Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-California) of Obama today sends an extremely firm message to the Clinton campaign, and not only because he was, until today, a Clinton superdelegate.

    The Field has learned that Cardoza is the first of a group of at least 40 Clinton delegates, many of them from California, that through talking among themselves came to a joint decision that all of them would vote for Obama at the convention. They have informed Senator Clinton that it’s time to unite around Obama, and that they will be coming out, one or two at a time, and announcing their switch between now and the convention if Senator Clinton doesn’t do the same.

    Cardoza is one of the leaders of this effort (which includes not only superdelegates, but here’s something that should set off some paranoia in Camp Clinton: there are pledged Clinton delegates in “The Cardoza 40,” too). One Field Hand reports that during a recent Cardoza fundraising event in California the effort was discussed openly in front of other Democrats. Cardoza’s announcement, today, sent the message that the effort is serious and for real.

    This is not “excellent news for Hillary Clinton.”

    An exodus of 40 delegates from Clinton to Obama, mathematically, increases his lead by 80 delegates, because she loses one for every one he gains.

  11. 11.

    EdTheRed

    Jeez. The site is barely accessible today. Should I assume this is because someone – the GOS again? Sullivan? – is linking to it.

    Before this happens, do they send John and the rest of you a note saying “Nice website you’ve got here; shame if something happened linked to it”?

    It was the double-whammy Linkpocalyspse – GOS *and* Sullivan.

  14. 14.

    PeterJ

    Cardoza is one of the leaders of this effort (which includes not only superdelegates, but here’s something that should set off some paranoia in Camp Clinton: there are pledged Clinton delegates in “The Cardoza 40,” too).

    Great news, but pledged delegates should respect the will of the voters and vote for the candidate that they were appointed to vote for.

    The fact that super delegates can change their mind up to the voting during the convention is bad, since that means a candidate could go all the way to the convention trying to get them to change their mind. But it’s a lot worse if pledged delegates start to change their vote, it would seriously damage the whole process.

  15. 15.

    crw

    Damn dude, you got linked to this morning by the Big Orange Borg, and you been crashed every since. By the lack of thread comments, I can see I am not the only one.

    Actually, he was tag teamed this morning. The GOS AND Sully both linked him in.

  16. 16.

    Jasonconga

    hey ya’ll!

    I’m starting my birthday party here in Germany, celebrating “into” my 34th birthday as they do here. Have a few cases of beer, two bottles each of rum and vodka, a jaegermeister and some wine…bring on the bitches! just kidding, the girlfriend is here, and the roommate and I am going to buy tickets to see the Black Crowes in September around 11pm Central Europe time, in about 90 minutes… we just did a jaegermeister, the party is starting!

  17. 17.

    Billy K

    Every time Subkomandante Markos links to a blog, it crashes. That guy swings a real big digital stick.

    Swings a big digital what?

    Better get a bigger server if your going to keep getting turkee from him.

    Dude. The linkage from GOS just brings more DFH liberal Obama-lovers. That’s not the kind of links we need!

    Seriously, though. I think the fact that the site never works keeps a lot of the whack-jobs out. It’s not a bug, it’s a FEATURE!

  18. 18.

    Billy K

    I am going to buy tickets to see the Black Crowes in September around 11pm Central Europe time, in about 90 minutes… we just did a jaegermeister, the party is starting!

    Um….what? See, the DFHes are already propagating!

  19. 19.

    greynoldsct00

    I couldn’t get my John Cole fix until now either…! I hope Kos linked in a complimentary way…in any case, glad the rush is over.

  20. 20.

    SnarkyShark

    Actually, he was tag teamed this morning. The GOS AND Sully both linked him in.

    All I know is, every time Kos links to a blog that doesn’t have 10,000 terabytes and a galljillion Megajoules, that sight goes down faster than David Vitter at a Pampers(tm) promotional event.

    I guess Sully carries some weight too, but I don’t read him, so I don’t know.

    Kos is actually a reformed Republican too, and I us reformed Republican types just love Johns take no bullshit attitude from that crowd. And we know Republican lite when we see it, and we see it manifested writ large in the Hillbot phenomena.

  21. 21.

    Adam

    Maybe the police have something to do with all those cats serenading you last night?

    I don’t want to know.

  22. 22.

    4tehlulz

    I thought BJ was being DDoS’d by Hillaryis44.

    Turns out it got double teamed by Sully and Kos. lulz

  23. 23.

    Gilmore

    I miss back when this blog was fun and interesting and readable. Am I the only one who pretty much stopped reading once the Hillary obsession kicked in? It’s so boring to check here every day and see nothing but 10 more stories about the awful procedural things Hillary did. (note: not a Hillary supporter, I’m just tired of hearing about the boring minutiae)

    Maybe I’ll check back in a couple months and see if it went back to normal. These silly Michael D posts don’t help either.

  24. 24.

    SnarkyShark

    Swings a big digital what?

    Yes, I just don’t feel right until I write my first vile misogynistic post of the day.

  25. 25.

    EnderWiggin

    This is way late, but I just caught up on podcasts. If anyone is interested in a great summary of the credit crisis, check out this episode of “The American Life” called the ‘The Giant Pool of Money’.

    It covers the demand for credit instruments created by the growth of the world economy, the borrowers at the beginning of the chain, the small mortgage brokers and CBO creators in the middle and the Wall Street firms at the end. Especially good for playing to friends and family members would are confused about WTF happened.

  26. 26.

    SnarkyShark

    Am I the only one who pretty much stopped reading once the Hillary obsession kicked in?

    Probably. Go read TLC, and then check back with your revised definition of readable. And John really really really really really really tried to quit harping on Hillary. But like the Alien who just can’t be killed, she keeps trying to redefine annoying.

    Its an itch that just can’t be scratched.

  27. 27.

    tom.a

    A few years ago I had the same experience, sirens all around, cops driving up and down the street, no helicopter. I walk out front, walk around the side of the house and running through my yard goes a guy in his 40’s with no pants on! He was apprehended a couple minutes later and got busted for breaking and entering an empty house, not sure why his pants were missing.

  28. 28.

    Cain

    Michael,

    That sounds like the beginnings of a very bad day, I’d run back inside :-)

    cain

  29. 29.

    Doug Wieboldt

    She may be annoying, but she kills McSame in the polls…. Just wait until Obama loses to rethuglican dirty tricks. I just know that we will all be regreting whats happening on the Demo ticket now…

    Pray that Obama can win… Doesn’t seem likely… The thugs are going to have him for dinner…

Comments are closed.