Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Everybody saw this coming.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Let there be snark.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

We do not need to pander to people who do not like what we stand for.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

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

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

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

When we show up, we win.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

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

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Archives for 2009

“Better Than Expected” Is the New “No One Could Have Predicted”

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Am I missing something here, or are these paragraphs at odds with each other:

For the last eight weeks, nearly 200 federal examiners have labored inside some of the nation’s biggest banks to determine how those institutions would hold up if the recession deepened.

What they are discovering may come as a relief to both the financial industry and the public: the banking industry, broadly speaking, seems to be in better shape than many people think, officials involved in the examinations say.

That is the good news. The bad news is that many of the largest American lenders, despite all those bailouts, probably need to be bailed out again, either by private investors or, more likely, the federal government. After receiving many millions, and in some cases, many billions of taxpayer dollars, banks still need more capital, these officials say.

Exactly how bad did they think things were that they in better shape than they thought they would be, but STILL need hundreds of billions of dollars? And why aren’t the results being made public so people outside of government can discuss them?

*** Update ***

The more I read about this, the more the stress tests sound like a t-ball game rather than an inspection of the bank’s viability. Everyone gets credit for playing the game, we’re all winners, but we never kept score.

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Best WaPo chat question ever

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I have a feeling one of you wrote this as a joke.

Norfolk, Va.: Massive anti-waste, anti-corruption, anti-government-bloat Tea Parties scheduled for April 15 — tax day. Will The Washington Post cover them?

Note: you trot out an investigative crew every time a race-baiting Al Sharpton feels offended or some smelly ACORN hippies protest a patchouli shortage. Do you feel like a hypocrite for ignoring the Tea Parties?

If it’s serious, I still maintain that we should be happy he’s spending his time tea-bagging and writing crazy questions rather than amassing ammo.

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Killing The Farmers Market

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These days, it is hard to tell if this is good intentions gone awry or just another giveaway to Big Ag, but this certainly appears problematic:

The panics over salmonella, E. Coli and unsafe foodstuffs from China have heightened the prospects that Congress will enact a measure known as H.R. 875, the “Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009″. radishseedShould the measure in its current form become law, “food establishments”, which to quote Patrick at Popehat “means anyone selling or storing food of any type for transmission to third parties via the act of commerce”*, will have to register with a new federal regulatory agency, submit to federal inspections, and, perhaps most significant, keep “copious records of sales and shipment by lot and label”. Penalties for infractions will be very, very steep.

Acccording to OverLawyered and all the links therein, this will essentially kill the farmer’s markets all over the country where I go and buy really good vegetables and locally raised products.

You know what to do. Contact congress.

(via Cain in the comments)

*** Update ***

And as is the case with almost every hysterical claim on the intertrons, this is turning out to be a bunch of nonsense. I will always be a sucker, it seems.

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The right to spank shall not be infringed

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From the Politico’s breathless piece about Pete Hoekstra’s crazy plan to amend the constitution:

Hoekstra last week introduced a bill in the House to amend the U.S. Constitution to permanently “enshrine” in American society an inviolable set of parents’ rights. The bill had 70 co-sponsors, all Republicans, including Minority Whip Eric Cantor and Minority Leader John A. Boehner.

The bill, said Hoekstra, is intended to stem the “slow erosion” of parents’ rights and to circumvent the effects of a United Nations treaty he believes “clearly undermines parental rights in the United States.”

[….]

While a treaty that seeks to protect children may sound innocuous, its opponents, such as Michael Farris, the Christian conservative founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association, see in it a dystopian future in which “Parents would no longer be able to administer reasonable spankings to their children”;

It’s always, always, always about something like spanking or diapers or torture with these people. Lest we forget, supporting spanking is what put James Dobson on the map

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A Rambling Open Thread

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Sort of out of it tonight. Spent the better part of the afternoon dealing with people on the phone, then when that was finished ended up on the phone with USAA for about 45 minutes. I have to say I like that company, though- nice people and good service.

For whatever reason, I picked up a thing of the SoupMan’s gourmet soup for dinner (you know him as the guy who inspired the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld). I had never had it before and got the Italian Wedding Soup. It was good, and ginger in wedding soup was interesting, but it was really overpriced. I doubt I will do that again.

***

“I wonder if any of them will ever realize they can buy loose tea.” – Atrios

In other news, it appears the ACORN plan to take over the world by infiltrating a series of silly protests by even sillier people is such a cunning plan that not even the head of ACORN knows anything about it, but then again that may just show how disciplined they are (“Anyone who runs is a VC. Anyone who stands still is a well-disciplined VC.”). Everywhere I look in the wingnuttosphere, though, it is all ACORN, all the time. ACORN even made an appearance in today’s farewell letter to Norm Coleman in the NRO:

The Board of Canvassers that was convened to preside over the recount and rule on challenged ballots conducted itself honorably under difficult circumstances. In addition to board chairman Mark Ritchie, the Man from ACORN who is Minnesota’s secretary of state, four judges served on the board: Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson, Associate Justice Barry Anderson, and Ramsey County District Court Judges Ed Cleary and Kathleen Gearin.

ACORN is turning into the phlogiston of wingnut conspiracy theories. They can’t tell you what they do, but if it upsets Republicans, ACORN is there, colorless, odorless, and pissing off Rush Limbaugh. I remember when it used to be A.N.S.W.E.R. and the ACLU that had these guys up in arms over everything. Maybe they are just working their way through the alphabet. If that is the case Big Brothers/Big Sisters and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation better get ready for the shitstorm of poorly written emails they are going to get during the 2010 midterms.

***

This fellow is having surgery today:

I’d like to watch some television tonight, but the igoogle tv guide thing is informing there isn’t much on. I suppose I will just read and insult some of you in the comments.

Staples picture stolen without permission from Cleek, who doesn’t get near the traffic he deserves.

*** Update ***

Not enough people appreciate Delbert McClinton.

Also, I am giving the Unusuals a test drive tonight. Figure it is new, so I will give it a shot. Also, Rescue Me.

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Local global principles

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When the topic of the demise of the newspaper industry comes up, a lot of people seem to forget how different small market journalism is from national journalism. Obviously, I’d like to see Fred Hiatt and Adam Nagourney (for example) lose their jobs, but I’d hate to see some hardworking beat reporter in a third-tier city like mine be unemployed. Thinking about this, I was reminded of a post on the blog I used to write for about how a local reporter was aghast at the gullibility of the national media with respect to Scott McClellan. Local reporter Rachel Barnhart wrote:

Traitor! Sellout! Opportunist!

Scott McClellan may be all of those things, but the self-righteousness of the media covering his new book absolutely amazes me.

[….]

Journalists find out pretty quick the job of spokesperson is designed to serve the agency’s best interest. It’s designed to be the mouthpiece for the person at the helm. It’s designed to be a buffer between the media and the top dogs. Sometimes, these positions are purely patronage jobs. Sometimes, spokespeople form a very effective wall between the media and information that serves the public.

I say this after 10 years covering local news. It’s no different on the national level. Government agencies have adopted public relations models that the private sector has used for years. I’m not saying it’s right, but that’s the system….I try to avoid talking to spokespeople for my stories as much as possible.

Nearly that very same day, there was the following exchange in a WaPo reporter chat:

SW Nebraska: Will any future president be able to do the job on the press, Congress and the public that George Bush has been able to do? What about the politicization of the Justice Department, science, etc? It seems that McClellan has taken the press to task in his book. Will the press be so cooperative with a President again or has the media been reminded that they actually have an important, difficult job to do?

Anne E. Kornblut: I haven’t read McClellan’s book yet, but really look forward to it, especially on the point you raise. My immediate reaction upon hearing he’d said that was, “Wait, what!? Isn’t it the job of those employed at the White House to be straightforward in the first place?”

I don’t know for sure why local reporters are often much savvier and tougher than national ones, but I think it is related to the fact that reporters in podunk towns have nothing to gain professionally or financially from getting into the good graces of local muckety mucks. A reporter from a small city will never appear on “Meet the Press” or go on wingnut welfare or get access to write a best-selling book about Condi Rice.

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