Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

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

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Republicans do not trust women.

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

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

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

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

Most of you should go to bed and try to be better Jackals in the morning.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Let there be snark.

You are here: Home / Archives for 2009

Archives for 2009

Speaking my language

by | 224 Comments

This post is in: 

Apocalypse talk is catching on!

And on Monday, John Weaver, McCain’s closest political adviser for much of the past decade, said that he was nearly certain that the former governor would never be the Republican nominee and added that, if she was, “it would surely mean a political apocalypse is upon us.”

Steve Schmidt goes with the more moderate “catastrophic” in describing a possible Palin nomination.

Perhaps I’m being overly dramatic here, but a Palin presidency and the end of the world are inextricably linked in my mind.

Update. Can you think of some clever word or phrase combining “apocalypse” with the words “Sarah Palin” or words associated with Sarah Palin? You guys are good at this stuff.

Speaking my languagePost + Comments (224)

The Torture Tapes

by | 28 Comments

This post is in: ,

Looks like we might one day see Rumsfeld’s handy work:

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) learned today of the existence of video and audio tapes of the abusive interrogations of client Mohammed al Qahtani, the victim of the “First Special Interrogation Plan” personally overseen by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

“After the intense scrutiny of the government’s torture and interrogation of Mr. al Qahtani, it is shocking that the government has hidden the existence of these tapes from the public for so many years,” said CCR Attorney Gitanjali S. Gutierrez. “The government’s interrogation of him has been the topic of multiple military, Justice Department and congressional investigations. These tapes should have been acknowledged long ago.”

Until recently, the Government had adamantly denied that any U.S. personnel engaged in acts of torture during Mr. al Qahtani’s interrogation, but on January 14, 2009, Military Commission Convening Authority Susan Crawford conceded that by subjecting Mr. al Qahtani to systematic 20-hour interrogations, prolonged sleep deprivation, 160 days of severe isolation, forced nudity, sexual and religious humiliation, and other aggressive interrogation tactics, the government had engaged in acts of torture. Much of this information appeared in interrogation logs leaked to the press as early as 2006.

I’m surprised these have not been disappeared like the other tapes. I wonder if like waterboarding, the wingnuts are going to recreate all of these interrogations to prove torture is not torture.

Did Hannity ever get waterboarded yet?

The Torture TapesPost + Comments (28)

Special Rights For HomeOwners

by | 102 Comments

This post is in: 

This post at Sullivan’s brings up something I have always wondered about- why does the government do such much to encourage home ownership? Tax credits, ta breaks and write-offs, etc. What is the history of this? How did it come to be? Why do they think it is a behavior they want to encourage? Why does the government prefer someone who owns a home over someone who rents?

Special Rights For HomeOwnersPost + Comments (102)

No More Excuses

by | 29 Comments

This post is in: 

About damned time:

The United States Supreme Court on Monday rejected a request by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport to delay the court-ordered release of thousands of legal documents from lawsuits filed against priests accused of child sex abuse.

The decision leaves few options for the diocese after a seven-year tug-of-war with four newspapers, including The New York Times, over the release of more than 12,000 pages of depositions and church records.

The diocese still has another request before the court, asking the justices to hear arguments that release of the records would violate the First Amendment rights accorded to religious groups. But such a hearing appears unlikely after the court’s refusal on Monday, in a single-sentence ruling, to stay a lower-court order that the records be unsealed.

I honestly wonder what the Church is thinking by trying to keep covering up this stuff. Wouldn’t you want to do the document dump as close to the revelations of abuse, rather than keeping it lingering in the public mind? Dump the info, take your hit, and move on. Although I suppose that only works if you have stopped buggering children, have reassigned all the priests, that or if the information in the documents is truly well beyond what any of us knew was going on.

No More ExcusesPost + Comments (29)

Fuck America, Yeah!

by | 41 Comments

This post is in: 

I missed this the first time Kos posted it but saw it in this piece:

So when did wingnuts start cheering against America? Their unbridled joy at losing out to Brazil is a bit unseemly, isn’t it? “America, fuck yeah!” has become “Fuck America, Yeah!”

I like it because (a) it sums things up perfectly and (b) it sounds *exactly* like something from the Balloon Juice comments.

Fuck America, Yeah!Post + Comments (41)

I Blame Excessive Government Interference

by | 62 Comments

This post is in: ,

And burdensome regulations:

Simmons says it will soon file for bankruptcy protection, as part of an agreement by its current owners to sell the company — the seventh time it has been sold in a little more than two decades — all after being owned for short periods by a parade of different investment groups, known as private equity firms, which try to buy undervalued companies, mostly with borrowed money.

For many of the company’s investors, the sale will be a disaster. Its bondholders alone stand to lose more than $575 million. The company’s downfall has also devastated employees like Noble Rogers, who worked for 22 years at Simmons, most of that time at a factory outside Atlanta. He is one of 1,000 employees — more than one-quarter of the work force — laid off last year.

But Thomas H. Lee Partners of Boston has not only escaped unscathed, it has made a profit. The investment firm, which bought Simmons in 2003, has pocketed around $77 million in profit, even as the company’s fortunes have declined. THL collected hundreds of millions of dollars from the company in the form of special dividends. It also paid itself millions more in fees, first for buying the company, then for helping run it. Last year, the firm even gave itself a small raise.

Wall Street investment banks also cashed in. They collected millions for helping to arrange the takeovers and for selling the bonds that made those deals possible. All told, the various private equity owners have made around $750 million in profits from Simmons over the years.

I think I speak for everyone when I say how much I enjoy it when the invisible hand of the free market gives me the finger. How ’bout we let some dope smokers out of jail and round up some of these pricks? Plus, we could auction off their private islands and country club memberships and help balance our budgets.

And has that WATB Jake Desantis quit his job at AIG yet?

I Blame Excessive Government InterferencePost + Comments (62)

Paul Krugman is Still Shrill

by | 100 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Here:

There was what President Obama likes to call a teachable moment last week, when the International Olympic Committee rejected Chicago’s bid to be host of the 2016 Summer Games.

“Cheers erupted” at the headquarters of the conservative Weekly Standard, according to a blog post by a member of the magazine’s staff, with the headline “Obama loses! Obama loses!” Rush Limbaugh declared himself “gleeful.” “World Rejects Obama,” gloated the Drudge Report. And so on.

So what did we learn from this moment? For one thing, we learned that the modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old.

But more important, the episode illustrated an essential truth about the state of American politics: at this point, the guiding principle of one of our nation’s two great political parties is spite pure and simple. If Republicans think something might be good for the president, they’re against it — whether or not it’s good for America.

You know what this means, don’t you? By the end of the day there will be 15 Reason blog posts explaining that the cheer at the loss of the Olympics bid was actually motivated by a concern for fiscal restraint and limited government, and by the end of the week one of their editors will be on blogging heads claiming it demonstrated a deep fear of government takeovers and central planning.

Paul Krugman is Still ShrillPost + Comments (100)