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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.
Tick tock motherfuckers!
“But what about the lurkers?”
Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.
Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.
The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.
Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.
Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.
This really is a full service blog.
And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.
Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.
You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.
Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.
… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact
Usually wrong but never in doubt
They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!
That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.
My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.
When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.
Their freedom requires your slavery.
Everybody saw this coming.
Accountability, motherfuckers.
A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.
Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.
PeakVT
RIP (despite the hypocritical wingnut hate fest starting in 3… 2… 1…).
joeyess
I have $50 that says Erick Son of Erick Erickson makes some crass, tasteless and downright nasty comment on his little blog today.
Right after he peels his crusty pajamas bottoms out of the crack of his fat ass.
Napoleon
RIP Sen Byrd.
WV vacancy law:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/06/senator-byrd-is-ill-note-on-west.html
valdivia
RIP
Rod Majors
The wingnut-o-sphere will surely be focusing on the Klan angle and little else. Because you know, the liberals are the real racists.
cmorenc
@Napolean
I believe the way this shakes out is that had Byrd lived past July 6th, the appointment of Byrd’s interim replacement selected by WVa Democratic Gov Joe Manchin would not have needed to undergo election until the general election in Nov 2012, but since he died before then, the interim replacement will have to run in the election in Nov 2010 (or more properly the seat will be up for grabs this coming November whether the interim replacement chooses to run in that election or not.)
bob h
It is gratifying that Byrd lived long enough for the big one-HCR.
Warren Terra
He was mostly an undistinguished porkbarrel Pol, a bit better than some other rural conservadems and much better than his contemporaries – but was damn eloquent on the Constitution in the Iraq debate.
geg6
RIP, Senator Byrd. He was a lesson to those who say a leopard cannot change its spots. A racist who learned empathy and compassion is a truly rare thing today, an example for us all in these reactionary times. And I can even forgive his pork barrel politics since his state has such entrenched poverty that pork was often required to keep the citzens going. I honor him for his beautifully old fashioned and eloquent defense of the Constitution during the debate over Iraq and for his taking on Big Coal at the very end of his life. West Virginia will mourn him with great sadness and I extend my sympathies to our blog host and his entire state. I considered him a good neighbor.
Lysana
He was a man who saw sensible change and changed with it instead of standing against it. A true liberal, in short. A gentleman and a fighter. The Senate and the country is poorer without him.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Rod Majors: They’ll find the time to say something mean and stupid about Byrd in amongst the Kagan is a socialist (LEZBO!) activist judge who wants to melt all your guns into sickles for the harvest.
Keith G
@cmorenc:
As I said yesterday, accommodating his ego will end up being more costly than necessary.
That’s some public service.
Keith G
BTW, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s husband passed away this morning. My thoughts are with this great and most necessary woman.
TomG
I can’t think of anything good to say about this politician so…
MMM
The Constitution lost a friend.
PaulW
The worst thing I can say is that he stayed in too long. Byrd should have used his considerable patronage in West Virginia with all that pork to build up a better Democratic machine and promoted someone to his job 10 years ago.
You can bet the Far Right wingnuts are going to make a big deal about Byrd having been in the Klueless Klucker Klans… even though it’s the Far Right that invite the KKK ’round to dinner nowadays.
So who gets to be Third in line to the White House now?
TomG
okay, I spoke too soon. Some good things that Byrd did include opposing the creation of the DHS (for the right reasons), opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq, getting a 67% approval rating from the ACLU in 2006, opposing the stupid Flag Desecration Act efforts, and opposing the Federal Marriage Amendment.
Maude
He was a senator before we had 50 states.
Don’t think we’ll see one like him again.
harlana peppper
Byrd also said, in 2005,
“ I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times… and I don’t mind apologizing over and over again. I can’t erase what happened. ”
wiki
SciVo
You’re gonna die. Maybe not today. Could be tomorrow, though! For lots of reasons! Maybe not the day after that. Anyway, death comes to us all, sooner rather than later — unless you think a century is a long time, in which case your perspective is off. Robert Byrd did lots of things, some better than others, and I’m not very familiar with them. So, here’s where I honor not the man but rather his surviving kin and loved ones. Today, they lost someone they cared about, and that’s going to happen to everyone. A lot. I honor their sorrow and I can only hope that someday someone will feel the same way about my passing. I wish you all the best.
Bob Loblaw
@geg6:
Have we considered that maybe these people shouldn’t all be living in West Virginia then?
Ash Can
@harlana peppper: Those are the words of a principled individual. May he rest.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Remarkable career, remarkable man.
RIP.
TR
The real tragedy here is that conservatives will no longer be able to respond to remarks about their current racism by sputtering that Byrd was in the Klan 70 years ago.
First, they lost their ability to make Chappaquiddick jokes, and now this. It’s been a really tough year for them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The “ominous silence” speech makes up for a lot, IMHO.
PurpleGirl
We can never look into a person’s heart and soul and judge how real changes are. But, and it’s a real, big but, Robert Byrd shows that it is possible to change, to learn and to see life differently. And to then act on those changes. Flawed but human. May he rest in peace.
debit
I remember the speech he gave after Vick was indicted for dog fighting, how he was unashamedly emotional. I loved him for that.
Chyron HR
@TR:
Wanna bet?
harlana peppper
@debit: I’m glad you reminded me of that, that was great
EconWatcher
During one of his statements of regret about his time in the Klan (which to my ear sounded sincere), he made the comment: “I have to live with this: No matter what I do with the rest of my life, my obituary will describe me as a former member of the Klan.”
And so it does.
RedKitten
And I’m guessing that wingnuttia will use this and other blogs’ refusal to spit on Byrd’s grave as “proof” of how liberals are the real racists.
geg6
@Bob Loblaw:
Yeah, because it’s so damn easy for those people of the hills to just pick it up and move to get jobs for which they aren’t qualified.
Jeebus.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
This has to be one of the dumbest things ever said on this blog.
RIP Senator Byrd.
mai naem
RIP Sen.Byrd. Can’t say much more than has already been said. Don’t forget the HCR vote when he yelled out his yea vote and said I am doing this for my friend Teddy. Decent human being .
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Robert Byrd was proof that there is such a thing as redemption.
For all *my* life, he was a defender of tolerance, and an enemy of white supremacy.
He was a man who unabashedly loved the concept of our country, and yet understood that we continue to work toward “a more perfect union.”
As for the conservative freak-out… well, fuck those guys, fuck ’em sideways, fuck ’em every fucking day of the fucking week.
Rest in peace, Senator Byrd. We will continue the fight.
Bob Loblaw
Yes, let’s pretend that the state with the third lowest income per capita and least developed educational system in the nation has a bright fucking future ahead of it.
States like WV should be hemorrhaging population. That they aren’t continues to speak towards the lack of labor mobility in this country, as well as the perpetuation of failed agricultural and energy policies that subsidize inefficient and anachronistic rural communities. West Virginia has no place in a 21st century America, and Robert Byrd shouldn’t be valorized for trying to spend the state out of the inevitable.
Honus
@geg6: And they’ve been doing just that for decades. West Virginia has been losing population since at least the 1950s. I know, I’m one.
I can’t think of any project Byrd brought to West Virginia that was a waste or didn’t really belong there. Most things, like the FBI communications center, were things that just would have built anyway, somewhere else, that didn’t need the economic activity as much. And some things, like the Sugar Grove Naval Base, really couldn’t be anywhere else. So he didn’t waste the country’s money by helping out West Virginia, and it’s an unfair slur to say so.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
No one is valorizing Byrd for his pork barrel spending ways, but suggesting because a state is poor it has no place in the 21at century is offensive, in a Malkin kind of way.
Bob Loblaw
The world’s a cruel place, General.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Bob Loblaw: No doubt with folks like you in it.
eemom
@Keith G:
RIP Mr. Ginsburg.
“Most necessary woman” indeed. Well said.
And if the Grim Reaper is still lingering in Washington, D.C. today, I do hope he pays a call on the former vice president.
debit
@Bob Loblaw: All the more reason to have compassion.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@eemom:
The former vice president IS the Grim Reaper. Maybe he will visit himself and do the right thing, for once in his miserable life.
geg6
@Honus:
Well, I think that’s what I said. The pork he brought into the state was the good kind of pork, IMHO. The kind that actually benefits the citizens there. I’m a fan of that sort of thing.
And although WVA has been losing population steadily (as has my own state just over the border), the idea that it is easy for people to leave and start over is ridiculous. Yeah, it can happen for the lucky duckies who are young with few ties to the state (with the exception of their families) and/or who have gotten an education that allows them to get the hell out. But many, many, many people in WVA cannot, realistically, just pick up and move somewhere else. Where the hell is a guy my age (over 50) who has never worked anywhere other than a coal mine supposed to go or what is he supposed to do for work, pray tell?
Gromit
@eemom:
I despise Cheney as much as the next liberal, but wishing death on him only discredits those doing the wishing.
Besides, every breath he draws is another chance for him to face the horror of what he has done to the soul of this nation. I’m not holding out hope, but neither am I anxious to foreclose the possibility.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Gromit:
I agree, but not before thinking about it some.
Tom Hilton
Adam Serwer has the best commentary I’ve seen so far; he doesn’t let Byrd off the hook for his Klan days, but he does acknowledge the distance Byrd ultimately traveled.
J sub D
@Honus:
Robert C. Byrd Academic and Technology Center
Robert C. Byrd addition to the lodge at Oglebay Park, Wheeling
Byrd Aerospace Technology Center
Robert C. Byrd Bridge between Huntington and Chesapeake, Ohio
Robert C. Byrd Cancer Research Center
Robert C. Byrd Clinical Addition to the veteran’s hospital in Huntington
Robert C. Byrd Community Center, Pine Grove
Robert C. Byrd Community Center in the naval station, Sugar Grove
Robert C. Byrd Drive, from Beckley to Sophia (Byrd’s hometown)
Robert C. Byrd Expressway, U.S. 22 near Weirton
Robert C. Byrd Federal Building
Robert C. Byrd Federal Courthouse
Robert C. Byrd Freeway
Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope
Robert C. Byrd Hardwood Technologies Center, near Princeton
Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center of West Virginia
Robert C. Byrd High school in Bridgeport
Robert C. Byrd Highway
Robert C. Byrd Hilltop Office Complex, Mineral County
Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarships
Robert C. Byrd Industrial Park, Hardy County
Robert C. Byrd Institute in Charleston
Robert C. Byrd Institute for Advanced Flexible Manufacturing
Robert C. Byrd Library and Robert C. Byrd Learning Resource Center
Robert C. Byrd Life Long Learning Center
Robert C. Byrd Locks and Dam
Robert C. Byrd National Technology Transfer Center
Robert C. Byrd Rural Health Center
Robert C. Byrd Scholastic Recognition Award
Byrd Science Center, Shepherd University
Robert C. Byrd Technology Center at Alderson-Broaddus College
Robert C. Byrd United Technical Center
Robert C. Byrd Visitor Center at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park
Nope, no waste or pork there.
Tom Hilton
For the sake of clarity, let’s look at that list without Byrd’s name in front of every item:
Now, how about you tell us which of these are wasteful and unnecessary, and why. Maybe some of them are–I’m not taking a position on that, because I don’t know–but just listing a bunch of things that happen to have Byrd’s name on them is a cheap shot that doesn’t actually make the argument that any of them are wasteful or unnecessary.
Cacti
Imagine that, a Senator who actually brings useful public works to his State.
My State’s senior Senator, in contrast, prides himself on not bringing Federal money to my State. At the moment, all highway rest areas here are closed for lack of funds.
Thanks Senator McCain! You rawwwk!
gwangung
Um, how can you tell? I can’t, just from the name.
Or are your knees jerking again?
J sub D
@Tom Hilton:
How about I merely highlight those projects in WV that shouldn’t be payed for by citizens in the other 49 states?
Academic and Technology Center
addition to the lodge at Oglebay Park, Wheeling
Aerospace Technology Center
Bridge between Huntington and Chesapeake, Ohio
Cancer Research Center
Clinical Addition to the veteran’s hospital in Huntington
Community Center, Pine Grove
Community Center in the naval station, Sugar Grove
Drive, from Beckley to Sophia (Byrd’s hometown)Expressway, U.S. 22 near Weirton
Federal Building
Federal Courthouse
Freeway
Green Bank Telescope
Hardwood Technologies Center, near Princeton
Health Sciences Center of West Virginia
High school in Bridgeport (Dunno if the feds payed for this, sounds unlikely).
Highway
Hilltop Office Complex, Mineral County
Honors Scholarships
Industrial Park, Hardy County
Institute in Charleston
Institute for Advanced Flexible Manufacturing
Library and Learning Resource Center
Life Long Learning Center
Locks and Dam
National Technology Transfer Center
Rural Health Center
Scholastic Recognition Award
Science Center, Shepherd University
Technology Center at Alderson-Broaddus College
United Technical Center
Visitor Center at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park
But don’t worry, I despised and decried Ted Stevens proclivities and skills at bringing home the bacon as well. I’m beginning to think that the posters here would have thought that the Bridge to Nowhere was a good use of federal dollars if Ted were a Dem and Alaska were blue.
Lastly, no government facility, highway, program, etc. should be named after a person till they’ve been dead for a decade. Not Reagan National, not Cape Kennedy and not the Robert C. Byrd fereral yogurt research center.
Preview would be nice here but the ability to edit after posting is waaay cool and suffices to mask my HTML incompetence.
geg6
@J sub D:
From your first comment and all the way to this one, I can only assume you know absolutely nothing at all about how things like technology research, health science research, astronomy and physics research, public education and student aid, and highways and bridges are funded and operated. If you do and you still posted this, you are probably a Randite and not worth listening to anyway.
J sub D
@geg6:
Not a “Randite” by which I assume you mean objectivist. I’m definitely a libertarian who believes in limited government. I know the feds sink a lot of money into research, I think they shouldn’t. Even if you think the government should be investing in things like aerospace and advanced flexible manufacturing you must recognize that doing it in West Virginia is not a wise way to go about it.
But don’t mind me, go back to praising a guy who never mret a social spending bill or pork laden addition to same he didn’t like. Because as we all know in D.C you get “Money for nothin’ and your chicks for free”.
Mnemosyne
@J sub D:
So all R&D should be paid for solely by private businesses? I’ll go along with that as long as you’re willing to have prices for prescription drugs skyrocket once the companies are no longer able to use government research and facilities to develop their drugs.
I assume you’re also talking about shutting down NASA and having the armed forces build all of their own planes and tanks in-house rather than having Boeing and Raytheon get massive payments from the government to do it for them.
geg6
@J sub D:
Ah, a libertarian who thinks there is a distinction between “objectivism” and libertarianism. Hate to break it to you, but they are one and the same. Just like “progressive” is the exact same thing as a liberal. Except one word has been demonized and the other is simply a deception to cover for the first one.
And why would that be? What is it about West Virginia that makes it unworthy of doing research and development? Couldn’t possibly be some sort of prejudice against a very poor state and its population? Or is there something you know about West Virginia that even my extremely close proximity has kept hidden from me?
J sub D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism
Read, follow some of the links and get back to me when you have some idea of what the hell you’re talking about.
ETA – There is some overlap, there is some overlap between fascism and communism as well. Only an ignorant boob would call them the same thing.
gwangung
Then I think your train of thought is unwise and unrealistic.
Also, “Columbus was a dope.”
J sub D
@geg6: @Mnemosyne:
I’ve no problem with military research, defense is a perfectly legitimate use of tax dollars. We go waaaay overboard in this country on it, but defense related R&D doesn’t raise red flags with me. As you are undoubtably aware, the space program, including the race to the moon, was largely defense driven. Sending probes to roll around on the surface of mars, do fly-bys of the other planets, collect comet dust, the Hubble telescope et al are really neato cool and I can honstly say I’ve got my money’s worth out of those spending programs.
What I cannot honestly say is that other people should be paying for what is essentially welfare for astronmers and physicists and subsidizing my interests. Some people get their kicks from bowling and baseball, not science. I don’t think the government should be subsidizing their hobbies either. To be consistent, I can’t support them subsidizing mine.