Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

We are learning that “working class” means “white” for way too many people.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

“They all knew.”

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Giving up is unforgivable.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Consistently wrong since 2002

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

This blog will pay for itself.

He really is that stupid.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Books are my comfort food!

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Archives for 2009

Right-center Far right nation

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I’m seeing more and more of this meme, from Bobo for example:

The Democrats have their problems too. And if anything, their problems are deeper because they are intellectual, not merely partisan. The Obama administration has sent the country off to the right. The president is creating a counter-realignment.

Voters don’t identify with the G.O.P. but the number of people who call themselves conservative is now near an all-time high.

What could be more than conservative than 60+% approval for a public option, right?

Meanwhile, Rove is pushing the “conservatives win even if they lose in NY-23” thing — the idea being that if the conservative candidate total plus the Republican candidate total exceeds 50%, then it means conservatives really won.

You know what, how about this? The teabaggers form a real third party that runs in all the elections. Their total plus the Republican total will be over 50% in a lot of races, we can all agree this means we’re a conservative country, and Democrats can actually run the country in peace.

There is nothing, nada, zilch, zero, nothing, that is bad news for conservatives. When they win elections, it proves we’re a conservative country. When they lose, it proves it. When we pass health care bills, it proves it. When we lower taxes, it proves it. When we raise taxes, it proves it. Everything proves it always.


Update. I can accept that in this particular universe, the sentence “everything is always good for conservatives” is true. What I’d like to know is if that sentence is true in any model where certain weaker statements about conservatives hold. Here’s what I’m driving at: is there a formal proof of the sentence “everything is always good for conservatives” using only the statement “Reagan is good” along with the usual first-order logical axioms and the “no true Scotsman” fallacy?

Update. Bob Somerby has more on Kristol’s similar claims about the conservative renaissance we are living in.

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The Best Legislators Money Can Buy

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I guess it makes sense that Evan Bayh is vociferously opposed to the public option:

His wife, Susan Bayh, sits on the board of WellPoint(WLP Quote) in her hometown of Indianapolis. Over the last six years, Susan Bayh has received at least $2 million in compensation from WellPoint alone for serving on its board.

Evan Bayh, bought and paid for in full for the price of two million bucks. What a country.

Thanks to the emailer who sent this in.

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Slow on the Uptake

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Looks like the members of the Iowa GOP are a little dimwitted:

A conservative Iowa group’s effort to lure Sarah Palin to its banquet next month has had an unintended effect: Rather than exciting conservatives about the prospect of a visit from the former Alaska governor, the group’s plan to raise a six-figure sum to bring her to the state has GOP activists recoiling at the thought of paying to land a politician’s speaking appearance.

The Iowa Family Policy Center’s effort to cobble together $100,000 for Palin would represent a striking departure from customary practice in the first-in-the-nation state, these Republicans say, noting that a generation of White House hopefuls has paid their own way to boost their party and presidential ambitions.

Umm, guys? SHE’S. A. GRIFTER. She quit her damned job to go on the wingnut welfare circuit. Seven in ten people think she is unqualified to be President. She’s just in this for the money, and she is currently having a public feud with the father of her teenage daughter’s child who is himself cashing in by posing for Playgirl.

This isn’t a credible politician. It’s a Jerry Springer episode.

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He Still Won’t Say It!

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Obama’s remarks at the signing yesterday:

In the most recent year for which we have data, the FBI reported roughly 7,600 hate crimes in this country. Over the past 10 years, there were more than 12,000 reported hate crimes based on sexual orientation alone. And we will never know how many incidents were never reported at all.

And that’s why, through this law, we will strengthen the protections against crimes based on the color of your skin, the faith in your heart, or the place of your birth. We will finally add federal protections against crimes based on gender, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation. (Applause.) And prosecutors will have new tools to work with states in order to prosecute to the fullest those who would perpetrate such crimes. Because no one in America should ever be afraid to walk down the street holding the hands of the person they love. No one in America should be forced to look over their shoulder because of who they are or because they live with a disability.

At root, this isn’t just about our laws; this is about who we are as a people. This is about whether we value one another — whether we embrace our differences, rather than allowing them to become a source of animus. It’s hard for any of us to imagine the mind-set of someone who would kidnap a young man and beat him to within an inch of his life, tie him to a fence, and leave him for dead. It’s hard for any of us to imagine the twisted mentality of those who’d offer a neighbor a ride home, attack him, chain him to the back of a truck, and drag him for miles until he finally died.

But we sense where such cruelty begins: the moment we fail to see in another our common humanity — the very moment when we fail to recognize in a person the same fears and hopes, the same passions and imperfections, the same dreams that we all share.

Just words, right Sully? And he won’t even say Gay!

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Some Good News

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The economy grew in the third quarter:

For the first time in a year, the United States economy grew, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. But even if a recovery is technically in the offing, job seekers likely will not begin to feel the benefits for months to come.

Gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the three months ending in September, a significant spike from a relatively shrunken base. The economy had contracted at annual rates of 0.7 percent and 6.4 percent in the second and first quarters of this year, respectively.

Robust government spending, exports, consumer spending — buoyed by auto purchases Congress’s now-expired cash-for-clunkers program — and housing helped finally push the measure into positive territory. Spending on consumer durable goods like cars shot up an astounding 22.3 percent at an annual rate, compared to a decrease of 23.3 percent the previous quarter.

Obviously, this proves what a failure Obama is. Had he only listened to bloggers, the economy would have grown twice as fast.

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Now Obama’s a drug pusher

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Michael Scherer tries to get literary:

The great American poet and prose-mangler William Burroughs once offered some words of advice for young people, words that work just as well for inhabitants of Washington D.C.: “An old junk pusher told me,” he wrote, “ ‘Watch whose money you pick up.’ ”

[…..]

This is the same problem that Barack Obama faces today, after a terrific bit of reporting in the Washington Times by Matthew Mosk. The story examines the many ways in which Obama has rewarded his top fundraisers since arriving at the White House—through ambassadorships, a golf game on Martha’s Vineyard, events at the White House, bowling at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, private briefings with senior officials like Jim Messina and Austan Goolsbee, etc.

I guess it beats being compared to Hitler….

I’m beginning to wonder if I was right that the Moonies to get their money’s worth from the Times. A paper with a subscription of under 70K writes a fairly nondescript piece about the way that Obama offers donors the same perks that all recent presidents have, and suddenly he’s a drug pusher, it’s Lincoln Bedroom 2, where’s the post-partisanship, he said he’d be different! No disrespect to Mosk, it sounds like solid reporting. The underlying story just isn’t that big a deal. But, now that media elites have declared that they need to follow every story that comes out of Fox/Drudge/Moonie, it demands oodles of mainstream news coverage.

Maybe that kind of thing is worth a $100 million a year.

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