Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When we show up, we win.

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

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Come on, man.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

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

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

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

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

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

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

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Archives for 2009

MLB’s Authenticators

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I thought this was an interesting piece:

Nearly a decade ago, embarrassed about reports of widespread fraud in the $1-billion-per-year sports memorabilia industry — dominated by baseball and filled mostly with fakes and forgeries, according to an F.B.I. investigation — Major League Baseball did something about it.

Now every game has at least one authenticator, watching from a dugout or near one. The authenticators are part of a team of 120 active and retired law-enforcement officials sharing the duties for the 30 franchises. Several worked the home openers for the Yankees and the Mets, helping track firsts at the new stadiums. They verified balls, bases, jerseys, the pitchers’ rosin bag, even the pitching rubber and the home plate that were removed after the first game at Yankee Stadium.

I had no idea this was happening.

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Seriously, Was This A Joke?

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This honestly is the most tone deaf thing I have ever seen Obama do:

A president’s first Cabinet meeting, like the White House Easter Egg Roll, is a spring rite that’s more photo op than substantive event.

Barack Obama gathered his Cabinet members around a White House table Monday and asked them collectively to find $100 million in cost cuts over the next three months. That’s a fraction of a fraction of the federal deficit, and it quickly drew ridicule from pundits and Republicans.

What on earth are they thinking? Earlier I thought he was asking every cabinet head to come up with 100 million, and thought that was laughable. $100 million for all of them is even more ridiculous, and not to mention it undercuts the message that the government should be spending during the recession to make up for lost demand in the private sector.

So what gives with this?

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Oh For Goodness Sakes

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Tom Maguire:

He’s prepared to call “bullshit”, but not to my face – what’s missing in his response to my argument is any link at all to me. He’s a bold one!

At issue is I apparently forgot to include Sullivan’s link to Maguire in this post I made the other day about the fauxtrage regarding the DHS report.

Because I’m afraid to say it to his face. Please don’t beat me up after school.

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Of Course It Goes Without Saying

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It goes without saying that Newt Gingrich is a complete and total idiot. Of course our Presidents frolicked around with Russian and Soviet leaders. Almost as funny today was when the worst spokesperson/analyst/whateveritisthesepeoplearepaidfor ever, Brad Blakeman, tried to trot out that nonsense over at the Politico story DougJ linked to earlier:

The answer is a simple one. The President of the United States should never shake the hand of a brutal dictator from a country we do not have formal diplomatic relations with.

When the moderator pointed out that Nixon shook Mao’s hand, Blakeman’s response was essentially “that was different.” Blakeman then stuck around to get schooled by another member of the “arena.” Good times.

Later on, apparently butthurt, Blakeman thought he had another in:

For all the Arena gladhanders: Was it rude for the US to walk out on the Iranian President’s UN Speech today? What’s the harm in listening?

Of course, poor Brad apparently didn’t read the NY Times piece he linked, or he would have known that the US didn’t walk out on the Iranian President’s speech today, because the US was not attending:

A stream of delegates from France and other European nations walked out of a United Nations conference here on Monday in protest during a speech by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who criticized the formation of a “racist government” in the Middle East in a clear reference to Israel.

***

The conference, the first United Nations conference in eight years to address the issue of racism, was already being boycotted by Israel, the United States and several important allies.

That would seem to suggest to me that President Obama does in fact seem to recognize the difference between statecraft and merely being polite. But then again, I’m not a blithering idiot like Newt Gingrich or Brad Blakeman.

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The Facts and Captain Ed

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The Facts (via):

The aim of the FBI’s effort with the Defense Department, which was rolled into the Vigilant Eagle program, is to “share information regarding Iraqi and Afghanistan war veterans whose involvement in white supremacy and/or militia sovereign citizen extremist groups poses a domestic terrorism threat,” according to the Feb. 23 FBI memo.

Michael Ward, FBI deputy assistant director for counterterrorism, said in an interview Thursday that the portion of the operation focusing on the military related only to veterans who draw the attention of Defense Department officials for joining white-supremacist or other extremist groups.

“We’re not doing an investigation into the military, we’re not looking at former military members,” he said. “It would have to be something they were concerned about, or someone they’re concerned is involved” with extremist groups.

Mr. Ward said that the FBI’s general counsel reviewed the operation before it began, “to make sure any tripwires we set do not violate any civil liberties.”

Captain Ed:

Napolitano: Returning vets too stupid to avoid extremists

Janet Napolitano continues to thrash around for any rationalization she can find for the DHS report that painted political organizing on abortion, federalism, and immigration as potential national-security threats and called returining military vets a danger to the country they served…

Yes, the poor dears are victims that obviously can’t decide themselves not to join violent groups … none of which the report bothers to name, by the way. Unlike the report on left-wing extremism, which names several known groups with track records of violence, the DHS report that Napolitano continues to defend never bothers to name an actual threat.

Like oil and water.

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Crackheads

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I seriously do not understand Wall Street:

Investors are back to worrying about banks.

Long-present unease about soured loans bubbled over on Monday after Bank of America (BAC) said it set aside $13.4 billion to cover lending losses, even as it posted a profit for the first quarter, and as anxiety grew about the results of the government’s “stress tests” to determine if banks will need more government bailout money.

While Bank of America and other big banks like Citigroup (C) have fared better so far this year than many believed they would, nervousness is growing now over the massive losses from defaulting loans that are yet to come. On Sunday, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said some banks will need help.

Financial stocks suffered some of the day’s worst declines: Bank of America plunged 24.3% and Citigroup fell 19%.

When I saw the Bank of America report this morning, my first (and admittedly uninformed) thought was “here comes the pump and dump.” Maybe I’ve grown overly cynical, but it just looks to me like this is just another little feeding frenzy before the next dive.

But what I really don’t understand about the crackheads on Wall Street is how any of them could honestly think things would be back to the way they were in just a short amount of time. From what I understand, things are never going to be back the “way things were.” That era just seems to be over, and with the imminent CRE crash and tons of loans about to go bad, I can’t honestly figure out why anyone would think this was over.

And by the way, I just love all the banks who took hundreds of billions in TARP money, didn’t start lending again, and now want to repay the money back (but just never seem to get around to it). Is there anyone, and I mean anyone, who thinks that is motivated by anything other than executive compensation?

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