Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Republicans do not trust women.

“woke” is the new caravan.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

He really is that stupid.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

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

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

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Archives for 2008

Voter ID

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Big SCOTUS ruling:

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights, validating Republican-inspired voter ID laws.

In a splintered 6-3 ruling, the court upheld Indiana’s strict photo ID requirement, which Democrats and civil rights groups said would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. Its backers said it was needed to prevent fraud.

Putting aside the legal arguments, as I botch those any time I discuss them, let me put it this way- I really don’t have a problem with this decision, nor do I have a problem with being required to present photo id when voting. It just does not seem unreasonable to me, not to mention that I have managed to present photo id every time I have voted my entire adult life.

Now, having said that, I do understand several aspects of this issue which make things, well, difficult. I understand that currently this is going to put a disproportionate burden on the poor and the elderly and the handicapped, who will have a more difficult time getting the requisite identification. I think the solution to this problem is not simple, but it is straight-forward- make it easier to obtain valid photo identification. If I remember correctly, when voter-id laws were passed in Georgia (I think it was Georgia), I was appalled at how few locations there were for people to get identification. That needs to be addressed.

Again, I am not dealing with the legal arguments, nor am I dealing with the fact that must of the allegations of voter fraud have turned out to be pure bullshit drummed up by the usual suspects, but rather I am trying to deal with certain realities. To most of the population, requiring a photo id when voting does not seem to be an unreasonable requirement, and now it is the law of the land. No point bickering about it at this point, but rather address the underlying issues which will make this requirement a burden for some. That seems to be the only reasonable thing to do at this point.

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Chutzpah

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The lending industry has it:

The mortgage industry, facing the prospect of tougher regulations for its central role in the housing crisis, has begun an intensive campaign to fight back.

As the Federal Reserve completes work on rules to root out abuses by lenders, its plan has run into a buzz saw of criticism from bankers, mortgage brokers and other parts of the housing industry. One common industry criticism is that at a time of tight credit, tighter rules could make many mortgages more expensive by creating more paperwork and potentially exposing lenders to more lawsuits.

Discuss.

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Open Thread

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$7795 with 157 donations, which ain’t half bad.

I tried to find something to blog about today, but just got disgusted with the whole mess after 5 minutes at memorandum. If Jeralynn Merritt and the rest of the folks who make up the Axis of Hillary can’t figure out they sound like Red State and Hot Air, what the fuck could I possibly say that will pull them out of their stupor? And if they manage to damage Obama enough in their failed attempts to win this for Hillary that the GOP wins in the fall, well, I guess will have plenty of blogging material then, as I throw it in their faces for four years.

Regardless, after watching them the last few months, I have almost decided Rove was too good for ’em.

Piss off, the lot of them. I am as disgusted with politics as I have ever been. Bunch of children who can’t figure out their candidate lost fair and square, squandered millions and name recognition and a huge lead, and now they want a do-over or to destroy the opposition so their first-choice gets it handed to them. To hell with them all.

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We’ll Be Fine As Long As Nobody Has To Eat

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WaPo:

Prices for some crops — such as wheat — have already begun to descend off their highs. As farmers rush to plant more wheat now that profit prospects have climbed, analysts predict that prices may come down as much as 30 percent in the coming months. But that would still leave a year-over-year price hike of 45 percent. Few believe prices will go back to where they were in early 2006, suggesting that the world must cope with a new reality of more expensive food.

[…] A big reason for higher wheat prices, for instance, is the multiyear drought in Australia, something that scientists say may become persistent because of global warming. But wheat prices are also rising because U.S. farmers have been planting less of it, or moving wheat to less fertile ground. That is partly because they are planting more corn to capitalize on the biofuel frenzy.

Regarding food prices, it’s nice to know that we can win some value back by phasing out food-based biofuel. It might ameliorate the price shock quite a bit. But as I said earlier the fundamentals haven’t changed. The price of refined fuel products has barely started to register the effect of the $100+ barrel of crude, and arable land lost to climate warming won’t come back.

I predicted years ago that food security will eclipse every other concern about climate warming, at least until sea levels start to threaten the billions in coastal cities. A good argument could be made, then, that we’re better off if price spike now while the system still has some flex in it. The situation would be much worse if the spike only hit later when pressure only comes from inflexibles like climate, fuel and population. Instead of rising, plateauing and sinking a little from elasticity food costs would do the crazy dance that commodities do when inflexible demand meets a fixed supply. Sometimes pain has the useful effect of making people take a problem seriously.

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Nutshell

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Imagine that I had to describe the Bush administration in one paragraph…

The public-private face-off at West Point illustrates just what Bush envisioned when he proposed the “competitive sourcing” initiative in 2001 as part of his management agenda. It turned on a simple idea: Force federal employees to compete for their jobs against private contractors and costs will decrease, even if the work ultimately stays in-house.

[…] “The competitive sourcing initiative did little to improve management, produced a ton of worthless paper, demoralized thousands of workers and cost a bundle, all to prove that federal employees are pretty good after all,” said Paul C. Light, a professor of government at New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

If privatization is the Republican god, George Bush is the radical fundamentalist who would sooner lead his followers to ruin than compromise with reality.

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