Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

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

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

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

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

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

When we show up, we win.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

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

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

This fight is for everything.

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

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

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70Comments

  1. 1.

    Linda Featheringill

    Good morning all.

    On the home front, an elderly cat has been acting like he had a mild blockage somewhere but is better yesterday and today. I guess he’ll stick around to fuss at me some more.

    Most of the MSM is happily doing autopsies on the election that hasn’t happened yet. It’s all the Democrats’ fault, of course. And they seem to think that big donations from corporations and fatcats will be more significant than GOTV efforts.

    Also, the MSM doesn’t seem to want to consider how disruptive the mortgage foreclosure problem could be.

    I have tried to get to the site of the Senate campaign committee and have not succeeded this morning. I don’t know what the problem is. Maybe my fingers just aren’t agile enough.

    Looks like a normal day. :-) How are you?

  2. 2.

    Cat Lady

    @Linda Featheringill:

    I don’t know what’s going to happen and either do they, but if the Dems do OK, and by OK I mean hang on to both houses, the Sunday after the election will be the one and only time in a couple of years that I will tune in to enjoy the taste of schadenfreudelicious MSM tears. As if.

  4. 4.

    debit

    @Cat Lady: Yeah, I think about the primary season for 2010 and how the conventional wisdom was that it was going to go a certain way, and when it didn’t, some Wise Old Man of the Media (Brian Williams or the guy who sounds like he has marbles made of shit in his mouth) sternly admonished everyone on set that they’d (all of them) screwed up and reported the narrative instead of reality. Yes, I remember thinking maybe something would change, but no. It was a nice 45 seconds.

  7. 7.

    Cat Lady

    @debit:

    I think you meant 2008, but it was when Hillary won New Hampshire. Every single pundit was in gloat mode over Hillary’s impending loss, and although I wanted Obama to win (I know, right?) I enjoyed the squirming that ensued. The lesson was unlearned by the next day. The narrative is the narrative, dammit, and there is nothing but the narrative, the end.

  10. 10.

    JGabriel

    What is it about Japanese culture that causes such a prevalence and fascination with enveloping or piercing tentacles? I just find it to be a curious motif.

    Does it have to do with the large role of octopus and squid in their diet and culture?

    .

  18. 18.

    Uloborus

    @Cat Lady:
    I agree. You might be able to pick up some uncomfortable expressions on FOX, but the Democrats are going to be crushed Nov 2. Even if we pick up seats, somehow we will have been crushed by the popular uprising of the Tea Party. If we lose even one seat – which is certain to happen – it’ll be downright easy for them to spin that one.

    The narrative is the narrative.

    @JGabriel:
    Short answer: They’re part of a centuries-spanning tradition of Japanese erotic art. Long answer, google ‘shunga’ and ‘ukiyo-e’, but remember it’s very NSFW and there’ll be octopi.

  21. 21.

    JPL

    What’s happening on the morning talk shows? I saw Fox for three minutes which is three minutes longer than usual. Wallace kept probing Fiorina about paying for the Bush tax cuts which left her pretty much hemming and hawing .

    NIck, I just saw your comment.. I thought Liz Cheney was suppose to be on that show. I’m sure the moderator just wanted to know about her father.

  22. 22.

    Suck It Up!

    And the narrative lives:

    From An AP Article via TPM:

    President Barack Obama’s winning coalition from 2008 has crumbled and his core backers are dispirited. It’s now Republicans who stand to benefit from an electorate that’s again craving change.

    There’s a quote from someone in the article who says Obama is not listening to his base and might support Republicans in order to shake things up and return some balance.

    Read the TPM title, the article and then check the poll numbers in the article.

    http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2010/10/poll_many_obama_2008_supporters_defecting_to_gop.php?ref=fpa

  23. 23.

    El Cid

    @Suck It Up!: Next paragraph:

    Yet in a reflection of broad dissatisfaction with politics, just as many people who backed Republican presidential nominee John McCain are either supporting Democrats now or still considering how to vote.

  25. 25.

    JPL

    73 percent of Obama voters now approve of how he’s doing his job, 13 percent don’t approve and 13 percent have mixed feelings. Nearly half have a very favorable impression of the president, down from two years ago, when two-thirds felt that way.

    13 percent don’t approve. How does this compare to previous presidents? When you lump undecided or somewhat approve with negative numbers, it really skews the numbers.

  26. 26.

    El Cid

    @jwb: Jeebus fucking cripes.

    The more outspoken, like Mr. Marshall, are also running television commercials to drive the point home. Mr. Marshall’s latest opens with a gaggle of hippies mugging for the camera.

    Fucking asshole.

  27. 27.

    JPL

    @El Cid: He’s trying to appeal to the local college students, yeah right! The governor’s race is interesting. Nathan Deal will not release documentation for his tax returns. He left congress right before the ethics committee was suppose to release their finding about him. He’s virtually bankrupt and needs the job to help regain some capital. Barnes is a conservative democrat who doesn’t need the job. In fact he’ll earn more by practicing law.
    Deal will win.

  28. 28.

    WaterGirl

    @jeffreyw: Hi Homer! What a cutie.

    Edit: The rest of us pet owners here will have a tough time competing (for the Bj pet calendar) against the cute pets of all you photographers out there.

  29. 29.

    Onkel Bob

    @El Cid:

    Also, too, there is no such thing as global warming, if anything the Urf is getting cooler.

    And if there is, Wikipedia certainly isn’t going to tell you about it.

  30. 30.

    WereBear (itouch)

    @JGabriel: prevalence and fascination with enveloping or piercing tentacles

    Personally, as someone who has a hard time fitting in most places in an individualist culture, I can’t help but think more people, in such a conformist culture, would have more trouble.

    Deep psychic kinds of trouble.

  31. 31.

    Violet

    Have you guys seen this diary over at GOS? This guy sounds like the kind of candidate who could really make a difference in California. If nothing else, he’s bringing in a ton of new voters and they could be the difference in putting people like Brown and Boxer over the top. He got left in the lurch by a few people who promised money and then didn’t deliver. I’m going to donate a small amount. We need more people like this to keep things moving at the grassroots level.

    http://www.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/24273
    http://uballeforassembly.com/

  36. 36.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Suck It Up!: I am not irrationally optimistic about the mid-terms, but am I the only one who finds that TPM concern trolls for hits? They pimp Rasmussen polls like they own stock in the company, and AP…? Fournier may be gone, but I can’t imagine is his influence is dead.

  37. 37.

    Roger Moore

    @Uloborus:

    You might be able to pick up some uncomfortable expressions on FOX, but the Democrats are going to be crushed Nov 2. Even if we pick up seats, somehow we will have been crushed by the popular uprising of the Tea Party.

    Nah. If the Democrats aren’t completely crushed, it will be because they stole the election somehow. I’m not sure exactly who will get the blame, though it will probably show which groups are the current Republican hate targets. It could be voting by illegal immigrants, voter intimidation by thugs from SEIU and the New Black Panther Party, illegal funds provided by George Soros and the Tidewater Foundation, or something else. It absolutely will not be because the Republicans turned off voters by nominating the Insane Clown Teabagger Posse.

  38. 38.

    morzer

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I am more optimistic than the poll-watchers, partly because I don’t believe that the polls catch a significant number of Democratic voters (cell-phones), partly because demographics are on our side in the long-term, and partly because the GOP have tossed away some key races by selecting gibbering idiots, while preparing their own civil war. They are making themselves unelectable in the midst of a near-depression – what happens when things turn around, and they still have the same selection of kooks and freaks?

  39. 39.

    Uloborus

    @morzer:
    I’m optimistic partly for the reasons you listed, but also very largely because I’ve NEVER seen the media be right about an election. They’re deeply, deeply invested in pushing a massive Republican victory here. So not only are they ridiculously, ‘Bill Kristol’ unreliable and devoted to cheap memes, but they’re distorting what information gets to us so that they can push those memes.

  41. 41.

    jwb

    @Roger Moore: “It could be voting by illegal immigrants, voter intimidation by thugs from SEIU and the New Black Panther Party, illegal funds provided by George Soros and the Tidewater Foundation, or something else.”

    I’m going for all of the above.

  42. 42.

    Davis X. Machina

    Also, the MSM doesn’t seem to want to consider how disruptive the mortgage foreclosure problem could be.

    The next Congress will just hand the Obama and the Democrats in Congress the dust-pan, and they’ll sweep the mess up with the help of just enough chosen, token, GOP votes to ensure passage. Because having a functioning banking system is generally accorded a social good.

    In turn the GOP will run in 2012 on how clean the floor is, and how dirty the Democrats are, and never a mention of who the inevitable bailouts might actually have been for.

    I have seen this movie before — but the sequel usually doesn’t follow quite so hard on the heels of the original release.

  43. 43.

    Uloborus

    @Davis X. Machina:
    You have more faith than I do in the willingness of the GOP to clean things up right now. I hope you’re right. I haven’t got a clue what the clouded title mess is going to do to the economy, and that’s not a subject in which you want big mysteries.

  44. 44.

    Davis X. Machina

    There will be, assuming the House rolls over, six or seven selected GOP moderates who will be told off and sent over to vote with the D’s for whatever bailout/restructuring/clean-up on-Aisle-5 Congress has to pass.

    Because Congress has to do something. There’s no political upside to a repeat of January-March 1933. None. For neither party. And there’s a lot of ‘let it crash’ talk over on the stupid left.

    Whatever the intra-party wrath of the tea-partiers might be over another bailout, it’s nothing compared to the wrath that awaits both parties if Mr. and Mrs. America wake up some day, and nothing comes out of their ATM. For weeks.

    Between that, and the need to save their good friends in the FIRE industry from themselves, the GOP has to do something — and sending ten sacrificial victims across the aisle with dustpans is the least they can do. They’ll not do more than the least — the least is how they roll.

  45. 45.

    GregB

    I am also curious if some of the Democratic insider strategists are pushing the GOP landslide meme with the plan of declaring the landslide an absolute failure if they GOP does not win the Senate and House by wide margins?

  46. 46.

    morzer

    @Davis X. Machina:

    Never in the history of human politics has so much been stolen from so many by so few.

    The history of the GOP’s last thirty years, and the epitaph they deserve.

  47. 47.

    morzer

    @GregB:

    I am sure they are, and I am also sure they don’t remotely see the Dems losing the Senate. Losing a good number of recalcitrant Blue Dogs isn’t all bad news either.

  48. 48.

    Davis X. Machina

    @morzer: Sucks to have to be the grownups, doesn’t it?

    I’m resigned to it. I’ve got kids. I’ve changed diapers, and stepped on Legos in the dark, and gotten midnight calls to pick up someone from a date gone bad. I’ve gone into debt to send them off to college.

    I’ll do the same for my country.

    But someday I’d like to retire from both jobs, and stick to my chess and my flute.

  49. 49.

    Nick

    @morzer:

    Losing a good number of recalcitrant Blue Dogs isn’t all bad news either.

    Not if we only lose a few and need new ones to run to get the majority back.

  50. 50.

    Martin

    @Davis X. Machina:

    There’s no political upside to a repeat of January-March 1933.

    Oh, yes there is. It’s all about getting Obama out of office. Gingrich’s shut down of the government didn’t generate a bipartisan backlash until it was reported that Gingrich did it because Clinton wouldn’t let him sit where he wanted on AF1. If the GOP can avoid these kinds of mistakes, I think they can shut everything down, at least legislatively, and hang all the damage on Obama.

    That’s been their strategy the last 2 years and it appears to be working just fine. Why change a winning formula?

  51. 51.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Martin: They have no idea what that would look like. They don’t want to get rid of the n***ger that bad. They really don’t. They think they do, but they don’t.

  54. 54.

    ruemara

    @Violet:

    I’ll drop a few widow’s mites into the bucket on friday, tapped out right now, but I am dedicated to making sure we fight every battleground out there with a chance to win.

  55. 55.

    Martin

    @Davis X. Machina: No, I think a 2nd term for Obama will be devastating for the GOP. HCR will fully kick in – and the public is going to like it. The deficit reduction will be apparent. The wars will be effectively, if not fully shut down. Consumer protections will be fully in place. The economy will be back on the way up. It’s going to be a really difficult headwind the GOP will be flying into in 2016.

    I honestly don’t know what they’re going to campaign on. Maybe that kind of reinvention is appealing to them (I think it would be very good for the GOP), but that seems to run completely counter to the culture, other than Frum and a few others.

  56. 56.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Suck It Up!: Heh. TPM has changed the headline on their front page to reflect dissatisfaction with “both parties”. Some o’youse been e-mailing?

  58. 58.

    burnspbesq

    @Violet:

    Done. My first contribution of this cycle. Today is a bill-paying day, so I guess I have to decide how much (if at all) I am throwing in this cycle.

  59. 59.

    Lavocat

    Reminds me of that creepy movie, “Videodrome”.

    All you need is to paint James Woods’ face on the thing.

  60. 60.

    burnspbesq

    @morzer:

    Losing a good number of recalcitrant Blue Dogs isn’t all bad news either.

    Nonsense.

    Do you sincerely believe that anyone to the left of the Blue Dogs could win in any district that is represented by a Blue Dog? If yes, then you seriously misunderstand those districts. The choice is not between a Blue Dog and someone better. The choice is between a Blue Dog and someone much, much worse.

    Get a clue, willya?

  62. 62.

    WaterGirl

    @jeffreyw: Hey, I almost added that as a second edit, but I couldn’t remember which state they were from.

    I just saw the edit from JC on another thread where he says Tunch is missing. We are all freaked now.

  63. 63.

    Violet

    @burnspbesq:
    Cool! He sounds like a really great guy and it’s for a good cause.

    @ruemara:
    Whatever anyone can do or donate is great. I thought the diary was an interesting look at how things really get started at the grassroots level and help out other candidates and wanted to be sure as many people saw it as possible.

  65. 65.

    Suck It Up!

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    lol. I just learned about that. I didn’t e-mail them, but I’m glad if a lot of people did. I’d like to think someone in charge saw the headline and smacked a few people around.

  67. 67.

    John Bird

    @Suck It Up!:

    It’s something worth doing; I started in 2004 and you can often predict the slant of what you’re about to read in a wire story based on the byline alone.

    It’s especially crucial as most American news sources don’t have dedicated foreign bureaus anymore and rely completely on the wire. This leads to terribly biased and inaccurate stories about, say, Russia, where the wire services have spent years portraying the country’s robber barons as popular freedom fighters because of their sources.

  69. 69.

    JGabriel

    Uloborus: Thank you. Interesting stuff. I already knew some of it, but it’s always nice to look at something you partly know in a little more depth.

    .

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