I’m just glad that DougJ’s eyes have been opened, and now he too can share the burden of realizing just how stupid James Pethokoukis is. I’ve been bearing that burden solo for several years now.
Open Thread
by John Cole| 45 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Odie Hugh Manatee
The nuthouse is all yours John, I’ve had enough of it for now. Stupid is on the march and I sure as hell don’t want to be in the way of it.
Do have a nice day though. :)
Maude
OT
How’s the car? Fixed or gone?
Marmot
And here I was blissfully ignorant that yet another uber team player holds a high post in journalism. Who were the editors that these people worked under as they developed their careers? The dang Sleestaks?
gene108
Anybody doing anything interesting over the next couple of weeks?
Any vacations lined up?
I’m not doing much of anything.
I think I’m going to be an old fart, well before I’m 40.
geg6
I’m done with politics (she says) until and unless DADT repeal actually passes tomorrow. I simply can’t take it any more. As of today, the only politician I can trust is Bernie Sanders and he simply has no power. I’m considering going full Socialist Party at this point.
It all has me too, too depressed. There is a holiday luncheon here at work today and I am deliberately skipping it because I’m too depressed to even pretend to have any cheer.
I hate this country.
Martin
@Maude: He lives in West Virginia. There is no ‘gone’ for cars there. A faithful vehicle lost to the ravages of friction and metal fatigue receives a permanent memorial perched atop cinder blocks in the front lawn where passersby can offer their condolences.
maye
@gene108: i’m snorkeling with the sea turtles. you’re invited.
Starfish
@maye: I am jealous.
I go back to work on Monday morning. Hopefully the snow will melt, and I will not have to shovel the car out.
WyldPirate
Krugthulu calls out Rethug “up is down-ism”:
“Wall Street Whitewash”:
The bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was established by law to “examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States.” The hope was that it would be a modern version of the Pecora investigation of the 1930s, which documented Wall Street abuses and helped pave the way for financial reform.
Instead, however, the commission has broken down along partisan lines, unable to agree on even the most basic points.
snip
Last week, reports Shahien Nasiripour of The Huffington Post, all four Republicans on the commission voted to exclude the following terms from the report: “deregulation,” “shadow banking,” “interconnection,” and, yes, “Wall Street.”
When Democratic members refused to go along with this insistence that the story of Hamlet be told without the prince, the Republicans went ahead and issued their own report, which did, indeed, avoid using any of the banned terms.
That report is all of nine pages long, with few facts and hardly any numbers. Beyond that, it tells a story that has been widely and repeatedly debunked — without responding at all to the debunkers.
In the world according to the G.O.P. commissioners, it’s all the fault of government do-gooders, who used various levers — especially Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored loan-guarantee agencies — to promote loans to low-income borrowers. Wall Street — I mean, the private sector — erred only to the extent that it got suckered into going along with this government-created bubble.
snip
In the end, those of us who expected the crisis to provide a teachable moment were right, but not in the way we expected. Never mind relearning the case for bank regulation; what we learned, instead, is what happens when an ideology backed by vast wealth and immense power confronts inconvenient facts. And the answer is, the facts lose.
Stick a fork in us. We are deep into Potemkin-style government.
maye
@Starfish: may you know happiness and the root of happiness.
blahblahblah
Given the number of Democratic votes for tax cuts for the rich, how are you handling the fact that Galt runs the whole damn show now, John? Or are these just ‘bad apples’ in the Democratic pie?
Omnes Omnibus
@blahblahblah: Were they votes for tax cuts for the rich or were they votes for the other bits and pieces in the package?
Martin
@blahblahblah:
Fixed for the other half of the blogs. I think it’s quite dishonest to use a bill clearly hated by everyone who voted for it, present an incomplete view of it, and then use that to attack, well, the folks that you need to actually fix the problem.
It’s a great way to get that victimization going, and to get your best shot at real change to think you’re fucking retarded and ignore you. Can we change terms from the ‘Hamshers of the left’ to the ‘Hannitys of the left’? I think it’s far more accurate.
Cat Lady
@geg6:
I’ve had the stomach flu this week, and although squirting from both ends (eeeewwwww) hasn’t been fun, it seems like I’ve had more fun than you, since I only had the energy to listen to the sports chuckleheads, although it’s amazing how many commercials there are for disgusting looking food products, and chocolate. I may never eat a chocolate again. The only commercial that would have made me get up from my death couch to drive somewhere was for Ginger Ale. Also.
The Moar You Know
@Martin: I laughed to the point of tears. Thank you, that made my day.
WyldPirate
@Martin:
Perhaps you need to look in the mirror to see who is “retarded”.
It is becoming increasingly clear that there are very few of the sorry-assed elected SOBs in either party that are interested in changing a goddamned thing.
cleek
@WyldPirate:
all that says is that the crisis isn’t as dire as it could be.
the safety net is doing its job well enough that the people who have been hurt by recent events aren’t numerous enough nor hurting enough to cause the kind of national misery that led to FDR’s reforms. this is a good thing. the real problem is that the safety net is now big enough to hold up even the biggest of banks, too. and the banks know it. so they’ll keep doing risky stupid shit until the government can no longer keep them afloat. when they finally do cross that line, we’ll be in real trouble, and reform will follow. but banking reform will be cold comfort, if things get so bad that we can actually do it.
(which isn’t to say people aren’t hurting or that there aren’t a lot of them. just that we’re not at 30’s-style hurting.)
WyldPirate
@cleek:
I don’t disagree, cleek. But at some point, the smoke and mirrors is not going to be sufficient to fool enough people any more much less buy beans and taters.
Ask the ’99ers about the latter….
edited to correct spelling
blahblahblah
@Martin:
You keep that self-delusion going there, buddy. It’ll come in handy as you’re repeating “two plus two equals five” in your own little mental ‘room 101’.
Zandar
John, I’ll see your Pethokoukis hate and raise you my own.
Mary Jane
@geg6: Just a suggestion, but unless you work with a bunch of wingnuts, go to the party. Put political thoughts away for a while and have some fun. Don’t let it control your life.
Sincerely,
Pollyana
catclub
@cleek: Just remember, the Germans did not bring in the Nazis until unemployment was 47%. We had 25% during the depths of the depression. Now, we have – effectively – 16%, but that safety net makes a world of difference in the number of bonus armies marching on Washington.
People put up with a lot of shit – until you threaten their medicare.
Dennis SGMM
@cleek:
Seems to me that we’ve been eroding so slowly that like, the old frog-in-boiling-water bit, we don’t notice it as much as we might. For instance: had wage gains matched productivity gains over the past twenty years and then suddenly gone back to their old levels people would be screaming, union membership would probably be way higher, and pols would be scrambling (Or pretend to be scrambling) to find answers. As it stands, unions are the villains, brown people are keeping wages down and the pols are in thrall to anyone but the electorate.
Mnemosyne
@Cat Lady:
As someone quite prone to tummy troubles, I can wholeheartedly recommend Hansen’s ginger ale, if they sell it in your region. Very gingery and it has real sugar, so it doesn’t have that battery acid aftertaste of HFCS.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Soooo, just in case you’re not depressed enough, there’s this:
“In case you missed it, S. 987 (The International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act) failed to pass last night…. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who sponsored the bill, had a blunt response in a late-night press release:
The action on the House floor stopping the Child Marriage bill tonight will endanger the lives of millions of women and girls around the world. These young girls, enslaved in marriage, will be brutalized and many will die when their young bodies are torn apart while giving birth. Those who voted to continue this barbaric practice brought shame to Capitol Hill.”
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/12/child_marriage_bill_update.html#more
So, yeah. That happened.
(h/t @NickKristof on the Twitter).
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Cat Lady: Oh my. You poor thing.
Actual ginger tea is also very helpful (for me, anyway) — and warming, too, which, when you’re sick, is also sometimes a good thing!
chopper
@WyldPirate:
wow, snappy.
Cat Lady
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Thanks. Feeling better but raggedy today, and oh, that first long hot shower! Ginger and peppermint are the only things that don’t make me want to retch, but not together. Ewwww. I have to make Christmas cookies this weekend, and the thought of all that butter and sugar makes me want to … well, no.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Cat Lady: I would say it’s best you don’t think about it…!
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Oh wait, I should probably do this, too:
STILL FLOGGING OTHER PEOPLE’S HANDI-WORK
Don’t forget the holiday marketplace!
Are you a maker, creative type, knitter, photographer, painter, have an etsy shop, whatever? Have something you’d like to sell during this crazy holiday season? Come on over to my place, leave the details in the comments, and maybe your stuff will find itself in the hands of those you know and love online http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/holiday-marketplace/
And if you have nothing to sell, come on by to do some some shopping!
WyldPirate
@chopper:
Wow, stupid.
You never let me down, chopper. You’re BJ’s very own mongoloid.
Martin
@WyldPirate: You might note that I didn’t defend the bill. I merely attacked the simpleminded and self-serving assessment of it. If you hate the bill, fine – but don’t pretend that it doesn’t also do things that you support, and if you think the bill should be killed, make it clear that you’re fine that those things you support also die.
This selection of facts to advance your point of view is dishonest and absurd. If you think you have a solid argument then make it, but don’t bullshit us.
Corner Stone
@Martin:
Tying the tax cut issue to unemployment was a cynical ploy by the admin to get accomplished what must’ve been the goal all along.
Anyone who argues this was a good “trade off” is the one doing the bullshitting.
ETA, I acknowledge you cynically are not defending the bill itself, just bullshitting around the edges by calling others out on it.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
teehee, them tiny mind gears are always turning every scrap of information into the diabolically evil Obama Manchurian Republican meme. Carry on big brain.
geg6
@Mary Jane:
Late to reply, but in case you see it…
I’m not going because I don’t want to be the wet blanket for everyone else. Some of them are Christianists and piss me off on a good day. Others are pretty much just clueless and would not find my doom and gloom appropriate. And I’m just not the kind of person who can fake it.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: Listen Stuck. Even for a simp like yourself. At some point you have to conclude that the outcomes we see are the desired ones.
I mean, you can keep arguing otherwise if you like but it seems more than a little stupid.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
you concluded all outcomes for Obama 3 years ago, as fail, and only fail. I do conclude you are a moron of an obvious order. If conclude I must.
Buck
Loads of fun to come:
Lysana
Did I completely miss Angry Black Lady resigning from writing here, or what? I haven’t seen her byline in a few days, and I freely admit she’s a name I scan for first.
General Stuck
@Lysana:
From reading her blog, she said she was swamped, with work I guess, for a few days. But I don’t know what’s going on, per usual.
Gus
I have relieved myself of this burden by not knowing who this guy is and not caring that I don’t know.
Lysana
@General Stuck:
I should add her blog to my bookmarks, come to it. Thanks.
andy
I’ve written for money and finally gotten around to cashing the check.
No matter how bad things get, I’ll always have you, beer!
Mary Jane
@geg6: Completely understand. Better to pour yourself a beverage of choice and enjoy your own company. Cheers.
chopper
@WyldPirate:
wow, snappier. maybe you should look in the mirror, then you’d know who the real mongoloid is.
or, shorter wyldie:
Your… Your brain has the… shell on it.