Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

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

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

I really should read my own blog.

This fight is for everything.

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

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

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173Comments

  3. 3.

    J.

    Using perverse Tea Party logic, I am going to post the most brilliant thing I’ve seen on the Internet today, this new video from OK Go, which features some very talented pooches (and as far as I know, no business or economics editors from The Atlantic).

  5. 5.

    freelancer

    Lady Gaga (via TBogg):

    “Equality is the prime rib of America, but because I am gay, I don’t get to enjoy the greatest cut of meat my country has to offer,” Lady Gaga said, referencing a dress she wore last week to the MTV Video Music Awards that was made out of cuts of steak.
    “Shouldn’t everyone deserve to wear the same meat dress I do?” she said.

    This is fun, we should make this a weekly thing.

    BTW, Gaga has been awesome in her activism over DADT, and I greatly admire her actions, but this quote, however…

  13. 13.

    Dave

    I nominate Victor Davis Hanson’s screed about DREAM:

    If we establish the principle that good deeds in one sphere trump illegality in another (we are not talking about offering citizenship to aliens abroad, but to those who are presently residing in the United States illegally and so far have not rectified that infraction), why not extend the concept to others in violation of the law as well? Perhaps four years in the army allows you to be exempt from being held liable for not filing 1040s; straight A’s at UCLA means that the city won’t call in all those traffic warrants; having built that addition without a formal building permit can be offset by joining the Marines.

  19. 19.

    Rosalita

    anything to do with Bristol Palin’s crappy-ass cha-cha last night. Hope she gets voted off ASAP so this all goes away.

  20. 20.

    Warren Terra

    @Dave:
    I thought Victor Davis Handjob spent all his time wanking off to times of classical antiquity, a time when the Romans rewarded non-citizen soldiers with citizenship?

    Ah well, on second thought, he’s more interested in Sparta than in Rome. Must be all the oiled pectorals.

  21. 21.

    Mark D

    “Republicans have always been fiscally responsible.”
    –Some dumbass guy I know on Facebook, replying to a link I posted by Krugthulu.

    As far as linked content goes:

    “All I’m saying now is that this is a place where we really do need — it’s an awful word — but we need another gang. We need a bipartisan gang to come to a bipartisan agreement on tax cuts,” Lieberman said. ”
    Joe Lieberman (I-Dumbass)

    Because, ya know, he’s with the left on everything but the war …

  23. 23.

    Cliff

    Dumbest thing I saw on the internet today was the usual running of stops that occurs on the /es every time the FOMC releases something.

    of course, now that the markets closed, after walking the dog, I shall soon be experiencing torrents of stupid as I scour the net till bedtime.

  24. 24.

    phoebes-in-santa fe

    This is from the business section of the NYT today. When you go to the link, make sure you really look at the picture of the “saddle seat” that is being offered to make standing-room sections on planes.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/business/21road.html

    I certainly hope the “seats” also contain toilets because there’s no way in hell that anyone sitting in the “seats” could ever get by the adjoining “seat” to get to the aisle…

  26. 26.

    dmsilev

    Can’t we just link to Sarah Palin’s Twitter feed and Facebook page and just retire this category?

    dms

  30. 30.

    PopeRatzy

    From my brother the unreformed liberal asshole.
    Subj: This week on USENET.
    “This week’s extra special wingnut newsgroup is alt.autos.toyota.”

    So, I check it out in google groups, so can someone please explain how a newsgroup that is about Japanese automobiles is also a bastion of xenophobic & anti-islamic wingnuttery?

  31. 31.

    Allison W.

    Does McCain’s face on TPM’s front page count? Or would he only qualify in the Nastiest Thing contest?

  32. 32.

    dmsilev

    @phoebes-in-santa fe: I read that earlier today. I think the inevitable end result of the “squeeze in as many passengers as possible” trend will be standing-room-only planes. Followed by professional “push people in through the door” staff, as pioneered by the Tokyo subway system.

    dms

  34. 34.

    SRW1

    To make this somewhat of a challenge, we will not accept entries from the Business and Economics editor of the Atlantic or glibertarians in general.

    This reminds me: Has the Business and Economics editor of the Atlantic already congratulated the newly appointed Business and Economics editor of BJ to his promotion?

  42. 42.

    TooManyJens

    @BombIranForChrist: Sweet mother of fuck.

    BTW, I didn’t see the picture until I clicked on the “Reply” arrow, so I think we may have a case of FYWP here.

    …and now the comment I was replying to is gone. ::sigh:: Ignore the crazy lady talking to herself.

  44. 44.

    DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.

    @jonas:

    I don’t think he was ever considered a distinguished classics scholar.

  45. 45.

    j low

    @ajr22: I hadn’t yet seen that when I posted my link. Lesson= never, ever, ever, claim to have found the dumbest thing on the internets without checking Salon first.

  46. 46.

    merrinc

    The dumbest thing I’ve read today is a diary at GOS by a woman whose neighbor forced his way into her house and beat the crap out of her. She escaped to a more sane neighbors house and the cops were called. LAPD. Sigh.

    …when the cops arrived I told them my story. They asked me if anyone witnessed what happened…but there were no witnesses. They took pictures of my fat lip and egg sized lump on my head and took my statement. Then they told me that they couldn’t arrest my neighbor unless I wanted them to make a private arrest for me. That this was misdemenor assault, not felony assault, and that I had to do all the work on prosecuting this guy.

    WTF is a private arrest? Sounds like something a rent-a-cop at the mall might do.

  47. 47.

    noncarborundum

    @dmsilev:

    From Bob Newhart’s “Grace L. Ferguson Airline” sketch, the pilot speaking over the intercom to his passengers:

    . . . If I can give you a little tip there, every, oh, half hour or so, you want to alternate your arms through those straps above your head.
    __
    Uh… you folks flying tourist, you don’t have any straps… so, don’t bother looking for them. . . .

  49. 49.

    licensed to kill time

    @phoebes-in-santa fe:

    I kept on looking for the picture of the “SkyRider seat” because the one they showed just looks like a regular old crammed up seat to me.

    Soon we’ll be drugged up, slid into stackable pods for the flight, and then (hopefully) revived at our destination. It might actually be an improvement.

  52. 52.

    Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther

    I can’t stay within the confines of the game because I’ve been awaiting an Open Thread to say:

    Look who was asked to be all guest-posty and your whatnot! (Me! In case my self-serving shilling wasn’t clear enough!).

    Me on the Psychology Today blogs: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-friendship-doctor/201009/guest-post-lost-friendship-emily-l-hauser

    Same thing on The Friendship Blog: http://www.thefriendshipblog.com/blog/guest-post-friendship-lost

    And that is most definitely NOT dumb.

    (Also, PS: interestingly, the bump in blog traffic that I got from Nicholas Kristof, Stephen Walt/Foreign Policy, and the two psychology blogs combined doesn’t equal the bump I got when a little blog called Balloon Juice front-paged me during the Gaza flotilla crisis. Behold the power of the Cole!)

  58. 58.

    Jim Pharo

    How about Susan Collins claiming moral equivalency between the right of Senators to introduce amendments on the floor (as opposed to just in committee), and the right of men and women serving in combat to live their lives openly.

    That’s pretty dumb, even for Sen. Snowe.

  59. 59.

    Jager

    @Dave:

    Jesus, VDH should know we have always used military service as a way to get out of going to fucking jail!

    The anti-Dream asses might want to think about my retired Boston cop pal who qualified for citizenship in short order after he served in the Korea War…he came to the US from Ireland on a visitors visa with no intention of ever going back, he was working on a loading dock 3 days after his arrival! He joined the Army after he was laid off.

  64. 64.

    LanceThruster

    @meh:

    That’s the one I was going to post. Here’s what I commented at the World O’ Crap site (http://world-o-crap.com/blog/?p=3924)

    —

    “Wow, all my cars die and then a scorpion crawls out from under my minivan, what does this mean?”

    What it means is that even scorpions like a little shade when they can get it. Walking towards you was the scorpion’s way of determining if you would be a suitable source of shade or cover.

    What does it mean when you can see signs and portents in every mundane thing?

  65. 65.

    arguingwithsignposts

    As is usually the case, the Sadlynauts unearth the weapons-grade stupid: the scorpiopocalypse.

    The business and economics editor of the Atlantic couldn’t be reached for comment because she’s too busy whinging about how unfair life is because she can’t move into her new house.

    ETA: Dammit, meh went to the actual site of said stupid. You should probably get some testing done, because there is no telling what contamination that might cause.

  66. 66.

    JGabriel

    @Martin:

    Whoa! Summers stepping down.

    Thank FSM. I was afraid Obama would wait till after the elections to announce Summer’s ass was canned, thereby pulling the same trick Bush pulled in waiting to fire Rumsfeld till AFTER the elections were lost.

    Any word on who will replace Summers? For the best electoral impact, they really should replace him before November, or at least name his replacement, rather than waiting till the end of the year.

    .

  70. 70.

    Winston Smith

    A Missouri State University professor has filed a complaint with the Republic (MO) school district about books used by students in schools that his kids don’t even go to (they are homeschooled).

    Springfield News-Leader article. Links to some docs are embedded. Check out the response from Dr. Windsor of the school board. It’s awesome. Also check out the comments!

    This link was not provided: Scroggins’ extended support for his complaint.

    It’s comedy gold.

  71. 71.

    Davis X. Machina

    @DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: He’s done some decent work…The Other Greeks was a helpful corrective to the usual city-centric, Athens-centric view of 5th-4th C. Greece. His actual writing is like marching through oatmeal, though — it’s work, not a good read. Not an important scholar, but one who on Greek stuff is usually worth reading — provided you can lift a colleague’s copy. His stuff with Heath (Who Killed Homer, The Bonfire of the Humanities) is ghastly polemical crap, though.

    His gentleman-farmer-gains-timeless-insight-from-the-land schtick gets old fast — he’s a subsidy farmer, mostly.

  72. 72.

    Sentient Puddle

    On who might replace Summers, Ezra:

    So not to start any rumors, but it’s worth noting that the Obama administration named Ann Fudge, former CEO of Young and Rubicam Brands, and current director for GE, Unilever, and Novartis, to the Fiscal Commission. It seems possible that she’d have an inside track at NEC, given what the administration is looking for.

    I know next to nothing about her (and the profile of her he links is pretty useless), but if nothing else, “Fudge” is an awesome name.

  74. 74.

    Bender

    NO QUESTION:

    BOSTON (WBZ) — “If I come as an immigrant, you have the obligation to make me a citizen.” Those are the words from 58-year-old Zeituni Onyango of Kenya in a recent exclusive interview with WBZ-TV.

    Onyango is the aunt of President Barack Obama. She lived in the United States illegally for years, receiving public assistance in Boston.

  75. 75.

    JMY

    So Larry Summers is leaving after the mid-terms, so I’ve read. I guess the firebaggers will be happy. Up next: Rahm, lol.

    Edit: Sentient Puddle beat me to it, sorry.

  76. 76.

    RSR

    “ease the tension”=yet another figurative handjob

    @Johngcole: Just fucking shoot me. RT @davidgregory: After Summers does Obama tap someone from business community? Opportunity to ease the tension.

  77. 77.

    MikeJ

    @JMY:

    I guess the firebaggers will be happy.

    This could be the dumbest thing said today. They will never, ever, ever be happy.

  79. 79.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    Hillputz, the pro-H. Clinton turned pro-S. Palin website (because they all look alike).

    All day. Any day.

    Today, my first column has been posted over at Conservatives4Palin, because I feel called to speak directly to Governor Palin’s supporters, from the heart, and do all that I can to make sure the Cocktail Party Republicans don’t prevent the Governor from becoming the Republicans’ nominee in 2012…before becoming our 45th President after that.

    I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but two things made me reluctant:

    (1) I didn’t want the C4P site to degenerate, with my every post, into another tirade either against Hillary Clinton or against me for being gay. So, I’ve been supplying the C4P writers with ideas, and the occasional HillBuzz piece, to try to mitigate the troll droppings that result from anything Hillary or gay-related on a conservative site. After attending the Restoring Honor rally, hearing Governor Palin speak, and then reading in various gay publications all the vile lies being told about the Governor by the Left, I knew I had to start writing in her support under my own name, as a gay man in Boystown who is among her most ardent and dedicated supporters. Come what may. Glenn Beck’s rally in Washington taught me that no matter how difficult the challenge you’re called to, you must rise to it if you know it’s the right thing to do. So, hence, this adventure begins.

    (2) Selfishly, I’ve been concerned about what new fronts of attack the Left is going to wage against me, by directly writing under my name, instead of the umbrella that HillBuzz has always afforded me. By doing this for C4P, and by extension the Governor, I’m Belinda Carlisle going solo from the Go-Gos, on my own, without the other Boyz here backing me up.

    That’s scary for me because of the vile attacks I receive from gay bloggers, especially, whenever I write personal stories from here in Boystown about the viciousness and irrationality of the Left when it comes to Governor Palin. There’s one site in New York, written by a middle-aged man named Joe, who enjoys calling me a “quisling” and running awful photos of me taken by French TIME magazine when they did a profile on me during the last days of the 2008 campaign (the French photographer, of course, being an Obama supporter and insisting on shooting her subject from below, while speaking, so that they are the worst photos possible of someone she had contempt for because he did not support Obama). I’m, frankly, not surprised by the pettiness of this blogger, but I’m stunned he knows the word “quisling”…since looking at him makes me believe he’s much more familiar with Quiznos than anything else. What wonders those word-a-day-calendars evidently work.

    I’ve always had the choice, since the Left’s direct attacks on me personally via Daily Kos, DemocraticUnderground, and those petty gay sites, to either fold up our HB tent and shut up and go home or to keep writing, keep calling others to action, and to maintain this little beacon of sanity in a world gone mad under Leftist control. I always figured that if I held out long enough that I could ultimately find a vast network of fellow Americans who’d stand with me against the Left and together we’d lay the groundwork for a champion to rise in 2012 and take back the White House and our government from the radicals who control them now.

    As I said in an essay earlier today here on HB, and in my introductory column over at C4P, I will always be haunted by the fact that I didn’t dream up a way for Hillary Clinton to win the 2008 nomination and become president. If I had only had something like HB back then, or the guts to speak out more and be as vocal as I am now, maybe I could have done something to stop all this. There are millions of us Hillary supporters coast to coast who feel this way — because the world would be a very different place today if Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton was our 44th president.

    So, thinking back to the Restoring Honor rally, and the Americans who were honored and presented on stage there, I’ve decided to take that next bold step and stop paying the slightest attention to the attacks of the Left. Let them do their worst. Let them seek to destroy me for speaking my mind, voicing my opinion, and doing everything I can to give Governor Palin and her supporters the tools they need to defeat them. Let the Cocktail Party of the GOP establishment hit back at me too, because I want to see these Romney Guys brought down as much as I want the Left out of power.

    I’m going to start contributing daily columns to a few other sites as well, wherever I think my perspective from here in Boystown can do some good. This, no doubt, will make life even more difficult for me on the ground here in Chicago…and on the Internet where the more personal and from the heart I get, the more I’m attacked and maligned.

    So, I’m going to ask you all to say some prayers for me: for courage, wisdom, clarity, and guidance. I’m going to need you all to be big sisters, brothers, aunties, and uncles to me, and to become busy little bees for us at HillBuzz to go out into the world and bring us back as much information as you can about what’s going on in your parts of the country and what weaknesses the Left has that you can see. Just imagine if all of you lurkers turned into commenters…and instead of just reading content here every day you took the next step and became active researchers and activists in your own right….and instead of little bees bringing pollen back to a hive you brought sound ideas for defeating both the Left and the Cocktail Party GOP establishment here to HillBuzz.

    Just imagine all the honey-sweet strategy and compelling essays we could craft with all that invaluable information and data.

    I’m willing to put myself out there to a greater extent than ever before, starting today, and it scares the heck out of me, because I know just how vile the Left can be. I don’t want to, and really can’t, do this alone. I need that swarm of bees behind me all the way…with all your buzzes of information…and most importantly, your encouragement and emboldening prayers.

    I’m one little guy from Cleveland with a very big mouth up against monstrous bullies all the way…but this needs to be done, and others need to follow me into the fray, so that the Left and Cocktail Party are defeated and we can, in 2013, return some sense of normalcy and sanity to this nation.

    I hope you stand by me, friends, and send me those prayers. I sure need them.

  80. 80.

    cleek

    The White House just announced that Summers will return to Harvard University. Said Obama in a statement: “I will always be grateful that at a time of great peril for our country, a man of Larry’s brilliance, experience and judgment was willing to answer the call and lead our economic team.”

    said MSNBC.

  82. 82.

    Shade Tail

    http://www.slate.com/BLOGS/blogs/weigel/archive/2010/09/21/don-t-ask-don-t-tell-in-the-lame-duck.aspx

    GOProud, not too surprisingly (since they’re republicans) don’t understand that Harry Reid voted against the defense budget (and, therefore, the repeal of DADT) for procedural reasons. By doing this, he can bring the bill back up for a vote much sooner.

    Apparently, bashing democrats is easier than understanding how they’re actually fighting for us.

  83. 83.

    Redshift

    I seem to have been remarkably successful in avoiding Teh Stupid on the Internet today. The worst I’ve seen was Ben Nelson trying to justify his idiotic idea to pay for tax cuts for the rich with “stimulus money” (which magically becomes as much as necessary so that opponents of the stimulus can pretend they’re paying for their proposals.)

    But that wasn’t the best part. Some staffer probably explained to him that suggesting paying for ongoing tax cuts with one-time stimulus money might make even idiot pundits scratch their heads, so he declared “I don’t think permanent can pass.”

  85. 85.

    JGabriel

    @Jager:

    Jesus, VDH should know we have always used military service as a way to get out of going to fucking jail!

    VDH is complaining about letting military service substitute for jail? I wonder what Sarah Palin has to say about that…

    .

  86. 86.

    cat48

    Breaking: Lady who is “tired of defending you and your policies” at townhall yesterday was on Hardball today. She “supports the prez 100%!” Who knew?? An obot!

  88. 88.

    mr. whipple

    Obama appointed Warren to the consumer thingy so he couldn’t appoint her to Summer’s position. Bastard!

  89. 89.

    jl

    Some one claimed to have a picture demonstrating that JRT puppies sleep, which implies there are periods during which they are not moving and causing trouble.

    Really. I am not kidding.

    I will spare this person the humiliation of a link.

  91. 91.

    cat48

    @Redshift:

    Uh, that’s our taxcuts, the middle class! That’s part of the $$ left! He wants to rob funding for that for the rich. Really, really dumb! Also, remainder is authorized infrastructure.

  94. 94.

    MikeJ

    @JMY: As was mine. Sorry. I realised after I posted it sounded harsh, but the thread was a quest for the dumbest thing said today. It was a lame attempt at humor that wasn’t really aimed at you. I’m sorry.

  96. 96.

    LT

    Did BJ lose a post? could have sworn I made a comment or three in a Cole post this morning – and it’s gone. Anyone?

  98. 98.

    zattarra

    Every single quote from an LGBT advocacy group that blames the Democrats FOR EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN voting against the Defense Appropriations Bill.

    Also, too every headline that says DADT repeal wasn’t passed and ignores the fact that the Defense Appropriations Bill was fillibustered.

    You know, if I was Obama at this point I’d order the withdrawal of all troops from the mideast and the closing of all military bases in the states of Senators who filibustered this bill since their is no money too pay for it come January 1st.

    And oh goody, Ed Shultz can start blaming the President in a minute – time to go turn on NetFlix download.

  103. 103.

    Allison W.

    @thingsbreak:

    Because this administration hasn’t done enough bending over for the Masters of the Universe.

    How about Obama says “f*ck all ya’ll” and pick who he wants?

  104. 104.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    @DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: Doesn’t distinguished just mean that he has gray hair?

    I wonder if DougJ had to do the same things to get his position at Balloon Juice that McMegan did to get hers at the Atlantic? On second thought I don’t want to know.

  107. 107.

    demkat620

    @Violet: Me too. Except I was out of the country and missed all the crying about how mean the Media and Democrats were to Christine O’Donnell.

  108. 108.

    gbear

    Ummm, this thread is the first thing I’ve looked at on the internets today. Now I’ve watched that OK GO video four times. Thanks J.

  109. 109.

    Cacti

    @jfxgillis:

    I loved comment #5

    It seems to me, that when you wrote lines like that in the small bubble of your blog’s readership, you received nods of agreement. But when your ideas were exposed to a larger marketplace of ideas, some found your argument wanting and some found it repellent. Some found the above line a distortion of the world we currently live in. And they told you so.

    Welcome to the world of adults.

  110. 110.

    Allison W.

    @JGabriel:

    hank FSM. I was afraid Obama would wait till after the elections to announce Summer’s ass was canned, thereby pulling the same trick Bush pulled in waiting to fire Rumsfeld till AFTER the elections were lost.

    Any word on who will replace Summers? For the best electoral impact, they really should replace him before November, or at least name his replacement, rather than waiting till the end of the year.

    What electoral impact? voters don’t even know they got a tax cut from the stimulus and you think that they will care about this?

    So I guess the ground work is being laid for another disappointment?

  114. 114.

    Bubblegum Tate

    @cleek:

    One of the best (read: most hilarious) wingnut spins on this fact is that when W went on vacation he was working–just getting away from all the evil in Washington so he could get some real work done–whereas when Obama goes on vacation, he’s just a lazy asshole who’s too cowardly to stay in Washington where he belongs and face up to the wrath of the teabaggers (and, of course, is a disgusting elitist, all going to Martha’s Vineyard and shit).

  115. 115.

    JMY

    I would love to go just one week, just one week w/o reading an article or blog post, or listening to some pundit, commentator, news host, trying to dissect Obama’s relationship with the liberal wing of the party. It’s getting tiresome. I get it: Obama hates you. Even though he tries to get some of the things you want, the fact that he doesn’t do everything you want means he doesn’t care about you. The fact that you got HCR even though sadly there is no public option right now, means he really does hates you.

    Someone told me today, concerning that African American lady from the town hall, that “even African Americans are starting to turn on the President.” I truly believe that when he got elected, for some insane reason, people thought the recession would end with the snap of the finger. Also, it proves that people don’t understand how government works. It’s time for some to take a civics class or something.

  116. 116.

    wobbly

    How about eating and drinking (Dinner in the Ditch!) in the Broad Street Aqueduct in Rochester, New York?

    Seriously, a major convention of canal freaks is in town and somehow they got to party in the former aqueduct, which usually houses the homeless, pigeons, and a hardy population of rats. Also some interesting graffiti…

    They evicted the homeless, the pigeons, the rats, and kept the graffiti!

    Who cleaned this mess up so these conventioneers could party? Mexicans? African Americans? City workers?
    Probably a mixed lot, but surely none of them think reflooding the Erie Canal and turning Broad Street into Venice will turn the local economy around.

    I’d post the link to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle’s story about this insanity, but I actually don’t know how to embed links.

    I’m actually not that interested in learning how to do that.

    As a fifty-nine year old worker who quit her last
    manufacturing job in March and got hired three weeks later???

    And quit that job (two weeks later!) when I found out that I’m really not as strong as I used to be.

    Now I got hired again, and I am struggling with the work.

    Just sayin’.

  117. 117.

    Martin

    For the record, now that Summers is leaving, I won’t vote for any Dem unless Obama appoints and the Senate confirms for the seat Krugman’s head sewn on Volkers body. Anything short of that proves that Obama is just interested in more wall street giveaways.

  118. 118.

    Larkspur

    @MikeJ: Well, I got your joke that was in response to the previous joke. I was amused. Humor is hard these days. If I buy you both a drink, will that cancel out the misunderstanding?

  124. 124.

    Larkspur

    @JMY:

    …I truly believe that when he got elected, for some insane reason, people thought the recession would end with the snap of the finger….

    No shit. Even if it were only the mess from the previous eight years that needed cleaning up, it would still be huge. But this thing goes back to Reagan. You know, Limbaugh was the only one to come right out and say it: “I hope he [Obama] fails”. His directness earns him no points whatsoever, but at least it’s out there. This other shit is just insidious. I surely would like a week off from it, too.

    Also? No one should bother calling me an Obamabot.

  125. 125.

    jfxgillis

    @Cacti:

    I had a couple of similarly stern but civil replies myself on the now deleted threads (of which Brad DeLong kept an archive, I think).

    The funniest (and nastiest, in a way) part is thinking about his poor (metaphorically “poor”, not monetarily) wife who seems to have been both justifiably concerned about the personal revelations and righteously outraged at his political-economic position.

    That’s the implication, at least, since he himself made a distinction between her “disagreeing” with his argument and her objecting to his post on personal grounds.

  126. 126.

    JMY

    @Larkspur: LOL, I didn’t realize the joke that was going around so it’s kind of my fault too, but I’ll take you on the offer.

    As to your other post: I understand some of the people’s disappointments w/ the president. Constantly complaining about it on MSNBC or Kos, FDL, everyday, every minute does nothing. You know what does? Going out there and trying to get the right people elected so that we have more of an opportunity to accomplish progressive objectives. But these people who are so disappointed are hell bent on staying home in Nov. (I’m looking @ you Ed Schultz), to the point where a sick, sick part of me hopes Repubs. take control of Congress and absolutely fuck up everything that has been accomplished the last 18 months, just so I can hear these people cry about it.

    In reality I don’t want that to happen & I pray that it doesn’t. But I’m gonna do my part out here in IL in Nov.

  127. 127.

    Texas Dem

    Every single quote from an LGBT advocacy group that blames the Democrats FOR EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN voting against the Defense Appropriations Bill.

    Two Dems also voted against repeal. Also, it should be obvious to all of you that this repeal effort was a sham and a fraud. Obama didn’t lift a finger to help the gay and lesbian advocacy groups. He just tried to jump on the train as it was leaving the station. In other words, a rerun of the health care fight. I hope gays and lesbians remember this day when (or rather if) Obama runs for reelection, and he’s looking for campaign cash.

    By the way, the easiest way to get rid of DADT would be to simply not appeal the federal district judge’s decision ruling it unconstitutional, but does anyone here think Obama, who seems to go out of his way to avoid conflict, would actually do that? I think the question answers itself. This administration doesn’t give a rat’s ass about DADT or any other gay rights issues. If they did, the President might have picked up the telephone and lobbied a few senators, or at least given a speech about it. Lady Gaga did more in a couple of days than Obama did in two years.

  128. 128.

    Beauzeaux

    Dumbest thing I’ve seen on the Internet today? Here’s a quote from a virulent wingnut defending Sarah Palin after someone pointed out that she can’t form coherent sentences (and yes, he’s completely serious in this reply): “Anyone with any sense knows that one of the woman’s DEFINING characteristics is her articulacy.”

  130. 130.

    goblue72

    @jfxgillis: That is just a pile of awesome sauce. And just proves the truth that rich WATB are, as a group, a bunch of hyper-sensitive, glass-jawed p**sies who can’t take a punch.

  132. 132.

    Mac G

    @zattarra:

    I concur the commenters over at America Blog could not grasp the whole cloture/filibuster concept. It was all Obama’s fault for not changing the minds of Republican aholes with a cynical political agenda. It is like they have not seen the party of NO operate for the past 2 years. 41 Senators can tank it all.

  133. 133.

    David

    Sullivan, after acknowledging the GOP unanimously filibustering the DADT repeal: “I think this could be a huge deal for the relationship between gay voters and the Democratic party. Over 75 percent of the public wants the ban ended, and yet even when the Democrats control both Houses and have a president opposed to the policy, they failed to end it”

    Honorable mention has to go to @Texas Dem for pretending to be naive enough to believe that a couple phone calls from Obama would have convinced some GOP Senators to break the filibuster. Have you not paid attention for the last 2 years? Were you in a coma?

  134. 134.

    Chat Noir

    @WereBear: There is some serious deliciousness in that there kitten, WereBear. Our little Hobbes found us at just about that age (the vet guessed that he was about 3 or 4 weeks old). Please keep posting pix so we can watch him grow.

  135. 135.

    quaint irene

    I’m sure this has been mentioned but, anyway…

    From DU’s Top 10 Conservative Idiots. (Yes, It’s back!)

    Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck’s confab up in Alaska. Palin displays her usual grasp of history in discussing the story of the Statue of Liberty.

    “This Statue of Liberty was gifted to us by foreign leaders, really as a warning to us, it was a warning to us to stay unique and to stay exceptional from other countries. Certainly not to go down the path of other countries that adopted socialist policies,”

    Yup, all them anonymous ‘foreign leaders.’ It was a gift from France, you dingbat. And of course, socialism has never reared it’s ugly head in la Belle France.

    And geez, why didn’t Palin mention what’s inscribed on Lady Liberty’s tablet. You know, stuff like ‘Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free……Send these, the homeless.’

  137. 137.

    Texas Dem

    Honorable mention has to go to @Texas Dem for pretending to be naive enough to believe that a couple phone calls from Obama would have convinced some GOP Senators to break the filibuster. Have you not paid attention for the last 2 years? Were you in a coma?

    I doubt if the phone calls would have made any difference at this point. But that’s hardly the issue. It’s important that your supporters, i.e., the people who worked their asses off for you, see that you really care about their issues and are willing to shed some blood, so to speak, on their behalf. The lack of effort is what will piss off activists. I think they can tell when someone is phoning it in, and this was a decidedly half-assed effort by our president. And the political incompetence of not being able to successfully move an issue where you have overwhelming public support, really speaks for itself.

  141. 141.

    Oscar Leroy

    Honorable mention has to go to @Texas Dem for pretending to be naive enough to believe that a couple phone calls from Obama would have convinced some GOP Senators to break the filibuster.

    You’re right, he shouldn’t do anything at all if he isn’t 100% positive he can win. Voters like to see their advocates doing nothing.

  143. 143.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Texas Dem:

    And the political incompetence of not being able to successfully move an issue where you have overwhelming public support, really speaks for itself.

    Yes, it does. And what it says is that Republicans, even the supposedly constructive ones like Collins, Snowe, and Browne, don’t fucking care what you think, or what the public thinks, and they’re more scared of Mitch McConnell than they are of angry phone calls from constituents. So… how do you move someone who doesn’t care?

  144. 144.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Texas Dem: Also, how sure are you that there’s a straightforward equation between “activists,” “people who worked their asses off for you,” liberals, and “the base”? I don’t think it works that way. Remember how Proposition 8 passed even as Obama won CA overwhelmingly? I’m not sure the same people who put Obama over the top are also particularly committed to gay equality. They should be. But I don’t think they are. Thus standing up for gay equality isn’t necessarily standing up for “the base.”

  148. 148.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Oscar Leroy: So, “try harder.” OK, I’ll accept that. Is there anything that leads you to believe trying harder would have shifted anyone’s vote?

    ETA: Or is it possible that Obama et al are looking to put Republicans on the hook for obstructions and thus it might be to their tactical advantage to dare them to filibuster more and more things? Adding defense spending to 9/11 first responders and small business loans? I know this gets into the chess-master argument, but it’s a possibility.

  150. 150.

    David

    Please! The GOP just filibustered the defense spending authorization for the year, and the GOP loves the war/defense spending. The public already supports the end of the ban and speeches aren’t going to do anything but attract the teabaggers attention and make the possible GOP votes even more scared of a primary.

    If everyone could just pull their heads out and agree to put the blame on the people who actually voted against the bill, now that would be progress.

  151. 151.

    Mnemosyne

    @Allison W.:

    It proves that they would so totally support Obama if he failed to get what they wanted passed as long as they felt like he tried hard enough.

    Of course, every time he does fail, they have a bajillion excuses for why he didn’t really try hard enough so they’re still justified in being whiny that he lost even though he lost doing what they wanted him to do and then they continue to swear up and down that they would totally support him next time if he failed. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

    Funny, that.

  154. 154.

    Oscar Leroy

    Of course, every time he does fail, they have a bajillion excuses for why he didn’t really try hard enough

    There’s no need for an excuse about why he didn’t really try hard enough here. . . because he, factually, did not try hard enough.

  155. 155.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Oscar Leroy: Well, I sort of thought that was part of the point. Dare them to filibuster, then spotlight their intransigence. That way it’s win-win, right? Either they let it go through, which is a win; or they try to block it, which is a win because it makes them look like dicks. This is also what everyone has been saying about the tax cuts: dare them to filibuster middle-class tax cuts! So when _that_ happens, will we still get barraged by people yelling about how the stupid Democrats don’t have their act together?

  157. 157.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Oscar Leroy: But that’s the thing: until and unless it passes, it will by definition be “not trying hard enough.” Then when it does pass, it will by definition be “not soon enough” or “in spite of not trying very hard.”

  158. 158.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Cacti: I actually think it’s reasonable to say “Regardless of the vote count, I would have liked Obama to say more and even yell more.” I don’t think it’s reasonable to say, “Because Obama didn’t say more or yell more, that’s why the vote count wasn’t in our favor.”

  160. 160.

    platonicspoof

    Stupid, confused and confusing (photos from the teapartyorg – Dale Robertson – website).

    I don’t think anyone competent is minding their website.

    And the content of that particle page has already gone downhill in five minutes. Apparently anyone can post anything, so NSFW.

  161. 161.

    Mnemosyne

    @Oscar Leroy:

    There’s no need for an excuse about why he didn’t really try hard enough here. . . because he, factually, did not try hard enough.

    I’m not sure what you think “factually” means, but having a few anonymous activists say he didn’t try hard enough doesn’t quite reach the threshold of fact. Especially since I doubt that said activists would think any action of Obama’s short of physically holding a gun to Susan Collins’ head on the floor of the Senate to force her vote would count as “trying hard enough.”

    ETA: To be clear, the activists are never going to think that anyone tried hard enough if the vote fails. That’s what makes them activists.

  162. 162.

    Shade Tail

    Anyone (such as Texas Dem and Oscar Leroy) who says that Obama didn’t work hard enough on DADT has not been paying attention. He has been beating the drum for years now, and has been pushing it very hard.

    And this is in addition to his other work, such as pushing through the removal of the travel restriction on foreigners with AIDS, changing the guidelines on benefits for federal employees with same-sex spouses, and many other things, all the way down to small things like inviting families with same-sex parents to the White House easter egg party.

    Anyone who claims that Obama isn’t fighting for the LGBT community is either willingly ignorant or a flat-out liar. The blame for this failure rests entirely on the Reich Wingers (both GOP and dems) who killed the bill.

    Oh, BTW. Whoever mentioned that two dems voted against it: one of those was Harry Reid, and he voted against it entirely for procedural reasons. Once the vote had failed, he changed his vote from yes to no because doing so allows him to bring the bill back up for another vote much sooner.

  163. 163.

    Anne Laurie

    @Davis X. Machina:
    __

    His gentleman-farmer-gains-timeless-insight-from-the-land schtick gets old fast—he’s a subsidy farmer, mostly.

    I really enjoyed John Dolan’s Exile attacks on VDH, although I’m not sure Hanson actually believes he could make a better living farming with actual slaves than he does IRL taking the nanny-state’s anti-free-market no-buying-people filthy subsidies.

  164. 164.

    morzer

    Moron of the week probably ought to go to Ben Nelson for this doozy:

    http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/nelson-pay-for-high-income-tax-cuts-with-stimulus-money.php#more

    Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) now tells TPM he’s “not inclined” to filibuster an extension of the Bush middle-income tax cuts, even if they’re not paired with a tax cut for the wealthy. He does, however, want a temporary extension of the high-income tax cuts at a minimum — and he wants it to be paid for with unspent stimulus funds.

  165. 165.

    Bender

    Clubhouse leader for “dumbest thing said today”:

    “Long before America was even an idea, this land of plenty was home to many peoples. The British and French, the Dutch and Spanish, to Mexicans, to countless Indian tribes. We all shared the same land,” President Obama told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

    Pandering is nice and all, but Mexico declared its independence on September 16, 1810. It was recognized on September 27, 1821, just a few decades after 1776.

  168. 168.

    morzer

    @Bender:

    Actually, the Mexica predate 1776. We call them the Aztecs in history books, but they were, in fact, the Mēxihcah in their own language (Nahuatl).

  169. 169.

    Gary K

    Well, I thought I didn’t have an entry, but just now I checked my in-box, and there’s my dumb-as-a-rock Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio’s 4th District claiming that “potentially” $192 million has been spent on signs advertising stimulus projects. If you try to verify this ridiculous claim, you’ll can take a ride through the right-wing echo chamber (wnd.com and all); apparently it all traces back to an unsubstantiated claim from the GOP House Oversight Committee.

    Somebody’s estimating the signs cost $10,000 apiece; surely there’s a McArdle decimal-slip in there, and undoubtedly another in getting to the $192 million figure. I’d believe $1.92 million, but of course that would hardly be a scandal.

  170. 170.

    Bob In Pacifica

    @Jager: I was in the “technically” first “all volunteer” basic training unit under Nixon.

    I was there because I was #1 in Nixon’s lottery and I signed up right before they ended the draft, but there were guys in the unit because the judge gave them a choice of prison or the military. A few guys thought basic training would be a good place to kick their heroin habits. There was a guy from Canada in the army to get U.S. citizenship. And there was a farmboy from rural Pennsylvania who was so clueless he almost shot me on the firing range. Needless to say, the farmboy only got to watch when we went to the hand grenade range. That was in 1972.

  171. 171.

    Mnemosyne

    @Bender:

    Pandering is nice and all, but Mexico declared its independence on September 16, 1810. It was recognized on September 27, 1821, just a few decades after 1776.

    Good to know that the entire region now known as the country of Mexico was completely unpopulated until 1810. Where did all of those people who declared independence come from, Bender? Did they all move there on September 15, 1810?

  173. 173.

    Lee

    This is a no-brainer. There’s only one place to go for the dumbest stuff on the internet: Federal Way Conservative:

    http://fwcon.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/a-parable/

    The Tea Party message isn’t a message of fear or greed. It is not greedy to want to keep the fruits of your labor. The Tea Party is not afraid of their leaders and themselves.

    Their lances are pointed at the progressives, the Chicago-type political machines that has taken control of everything in our country. We don’t fear them because we already understand them. See, light comprehends the darkness, and shines anyway. Darkness cannot understand light and flees away.

    And that’s just one of several posts from yesterday.

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