Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

White supremacy is terrorism.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

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

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

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

“woke” is the new caravan.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

No one could have predicted…

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

He really is that stupid.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

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

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

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Archives for 2009

But what kind of countertops does she have?

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I don’t want to tar all teabaggers with this brush, but I think it’s fair to say that Malkin and her ilk are partly responsible for this kind of behavior (via Steve Benen):

A group called the Chicago Tea Party Patriots publicly heckled a grieving family and suggested that the couple fabricated their tragic story.

At a town hall held by Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) on Nov. 14,, Dan and Midge Hough spoke about how they believed the death of their daughter-in-law and her unborn child were caused, in part, by a lack of health insurance. Twenty-four-year old Jennifer was uninsured. According to her in-laws, she was not receiving regular prenatal care and was not properly treated when she got sick. She ended up in an emergency room with double pneumonia that developed into septic shock, had a heart attack, a brain bleed and a stroke. The baby died and Jennifer died a few weeks later.

Midge Hough was heckled by anti-reform crowd members. “You can laugh at me, that’s okay,” she said, crying. “But I lost two people, and I know you think that’s funny, that’s okay.”

Update. It is a little surprising that the wingers weren’t more sympathetic, given that one of the people who died was unborn. I thought the lives of the unborn counted for something with these people.

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Always Room for Fearmongering in the Idiocracy

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Some days I’ve about had it with this country. The absurd over-reaction to the WH dinner crashers was way too much the last few days, but I just saw a ten minute piece on CNN that treated this like it was an enormous deal, and I can’t take much more of this kind of idiocy.

In a sane society, the reaction to this sort of thing would be for people to say to themselves “Wow, the cheeky bastards” and move on with life while the Secret Service quietly performed an internal investigation. But we are not a sane society, and instead have national leaders like this gaping jackhole:

Some lawmakers are calling for a Congressional investigation. Although the couple did go through a magnometer, “They could have had anthrax on them,” said Peter King, the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee. “They could have grabbed a knife from the dining room table.”

Or they could have had a suitcase nuke made out to look like a great ass in a red dress. Or they could have been carrying vials of cyanide and poured it into the drink of every ranking government official. Or they could have kidnapped the Obama kids and held the President ransom to release everyone at Gitmo.

But they didn’t now, did they? They sneaked in, got away with some free eats and a few drinks, and went on their merry way. So grow up. Grabbed a knife from the dinner table- that is too stupid for even an Austin Powers movie. Christ.

And it bears repeating- that is ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee leading the pantswetting brigade. The next time you have to take your shoes off at the airport or throw out your 6 ounce container of hand creme, you can thank jackasses like him.

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He’s Talking To You, Chuck

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Unserious person and DFH James Fallow is being all sorts of unvillagelike and calling you out, Chuck Todd:

Seriously, when does an official part of the chattering class — one of the weekend talkers, someone from the leading newspapers — look back on these past two weeks in journalism’s effort to represent reality and ask how the dominant narrative could have been so wrong, and wrong in a way that was easily noticeable at the time? Just curious. The guiding motto for the inquiry should be the deathless subhead on Tish Durkin’s article: “Even through a veil of censorship and propaganda, the Chinese people managed a clearer view of Obama’s visit than the US media did.”

Any comments from the bobbleheads? Chuck Todd? Mr. Gregory? Georgie? Anyone?

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What Is Good For Priests is Good for Filmmakers

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Bernard-Henri Levy:

The decision to free Roman Polanski is a wise decision. It honors the people who took it. It shows that the arguments developed by the movie director’s partisans — including those published on the French review’s website of La Règle du Jeu — have finally been fruitful. It shows that Polanski’s French lawyers, Hervé Témime and Georges Kiejman, were right to remain tenacious. At this very moment, I am thinking about Emmanuelle, his wife. I am thinking about his two kids who saw their dad’s name ignominiously dragged through the mud. I am mostly thinking about him: Roman Polanski whom I don’t know but whose fate has moved me so much. Nothing will repair the days he has spent in prison. Nothing will erase the immense, unbelievable injustice he has been subjected to. Nothing will take away the hysteria of those ones who have never stopped pouring contempt upon him, hounding him through hatred and asking for his punishment as if we were living the darkest and most ferocious hours of the McCarthysm era all over again. At least, the nightmare is about to end. At least the end of the hell is looming. And this, for the time being, is what does matter.

Do these guys understand how stupid they sound talking about the “injustice” of jailing a man who anally raped a kid after feeding her booze and quaaludes? He raped a fucking teenager, then fled the country to escape justice.

You know, I used to be of the position that it has been decades, the girl apparently has decided to let this pass, that it is no big deal. But after listening to Polanski’s defenders try to excuse the inexcusable and act like hunting down child rapists is a witchhunt, I almost want Polanski to spend the rest of his life in jail.

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Because the right

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Bobo (link fixed) has a piece today about Bruce Springsteen. Shorter Bobo: I really love Bruce Springsteen and feel that I learned from listening to his stories of “teenage couples out on a desperate lark, workers struggling as the mills close down, and drifters on the wrong side of the law”.

George Will once composed a paean to the boss as well and Ronald Reagan spoke of “message of hope in the songs of a man so many young Americans admire: New Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen.”

Why do righties like the Boss so much? Aren’t they at least mad that he did that song about Charlie Starkweather?

Update. I like this answer from commenter Paris:

Bruce lives the macho stereotype many of the righties can only dream of. They’re too busy standing in airport mens rooms, indulging in fetishes, and wearing bow ties.

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