Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Republicans in disarray!

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

T R E 4 5 O N

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Come on, man.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

This really is a full service blog.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Books are my comfort food!

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

We’re not going back!

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

The lights are all blinking red.

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Reader Interactions

91Comments

  1. 1.

    Yutsano

    The world is going to hell in a handbasket and I’m still sick as a dog. Otherwise looking forward to my forced vacation in a month or so. Rosie still passed out?

  2. 2.

    Left Coast Tom

    Wine is delicious.

    (The rotating tag says “shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity”)

    Edit: OK, I was hoping this would be first but Yutsano’s angst beat me.

  4. 4.

    eemom

    why John Cole…..you and I are of ONE mind. I just put a comment on the last thread to the effect that we need an open thread.

    To wit, for those of us who need a break from the shittitude that is No-Boner’s America, I offer this little morsel of schadelicious litigacious fun that couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of “professional left” assholes:
    http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/02/ariana-huffington-201102?currentPage=all

    ETA: with the caveat that I take strong exception to the Facebook comparison. That twat ain’t got a creative bone in her body.

  5. 5.

    change

    Bye-bye, Pelosi!

    BTW, looks like the filibuster remains safely in place in the Senate.

    Also, why are so many liberals upset about the Constitution being read aloud on the House floor tomorrow?

  6. 6.

    RareSanity

    Why does really good news,

    Michael Savage is longer on the air in Atlanta…

    always go, hand in hand, with really bad news?

    Erick son of Erick will soon be on the air in Atlanta…

    Please make it stop…link

  7. 7.

    Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)

    okay, new lefty paranoid conspiracy theory. Obama will privatize social security to get republicans to raise the debt ceiling.

    When I asked if there was any evidence I was told, “no, because he’s doing it in secret.” And she wasn’t joking.

    Where does the lefty paranoia come from? Serious question. Is it simply a side effect from ADHD medication and/or pot use?

    and yes, I know this does not represent liberal dems, but it does represent a big chunk of lefty blogs, and while lefty blogs are relatively small when compared to actual voters, that doesn’t stop us from mocking blogs all the time, like Sully and the atlantic.

  9. 9.

    General Stuck

    All in all, with the new pair-a-dime for governance in this country, I am upbeat, so long as we avoid global thermonuclear war, or worldwide mass starvation from economic collapse, then it’s all aces, politically.

  10. 10.

    Morbo

    I appear to have fallen into a lot more free beer than I did the last two Wednesday nights…

    +5 or so

    ETA: I sure hope burning that straw man keeps our friend here warm.

  11. 11.

    Left Coast Tom

    @change: Some of us think Republican House candidates should have read the constitution _before_ deciding to run (edit) for office. In addition, I’m not upset, I simply wonder what the ‘stop the anchor babies’ racist morans plan to do when the “reading” reaches the 14th Amendment.

    Please…be a better troll.

  13. 13.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Please…be a better troll.

    While we’re making wishes, I’d like Bush and Cheney to both be put on trial for war crimes.

  18. 18.

    The Dangerman

    @Yutsano:

    Can I just wish that Cheney’s hunt for new organs fails instead?

    Wouldn’t a transplant committee just laugh at him when he asks for a new heart…

    …or are transplant committee’s just for the little people?

    No, really, all organs go through a central clearinghouse.

  19. 19.

    change

    Seems like the debt limit vote will come sometime in March.

    Buckle up and get ready for a bumpy ride…

  20. 20.

    Yutsano

    @The Dangerman: Oh he’s a gubmint official, or at least evil enough to get placed to the front of the line for a new ticker. What’s really ironic is it may not help him much: he might be too old to live the rest of his life on immunosuppressants.

  21. 21.

    General Stuck

    @Southern Beale:

    It is beyond weird, and I will not proffer any reasons, because I nor anyone else has nary a clue. It is also becoming world wide for fishes and other critters. Nothing like it has ever happened before, to my knowledge, on this scale. Canary in a coal mine analogy is not out of line in the least as an idle navel gaze , imo.

  24. 24.

    jacy

    @change:

    Also, why are so many liberals upset about the Constitution being read aloud on the House floor tomorrow?

    The unwarranted expense for the vast amount of smelling salts it’s going to take to revive the Republicans from their dead faint when they find out what’s actually IN the Constitution.

  25. 25.

    Mark

    They had CNN on at the gym this morning and it almost made my head explode listening to the republican garbage.

    Also, reading Griftopia. Hard to like Democrats now too…

  26. 26.

    TR

    @change:

    Also, why are so many liberals upset about the Constitution being read aloud on the House floor tomorrow?

    Because we have actual problems to deal with, but the House Republicans have decided (1) to cut the work week back by a day or two, (2) to take a week off every month, and (3) spend the time they’re actually in Congress on nothing but bullshit political theater like this and Darrell Issa’s endless wankathons.

    Conservatives preen and pretend they’re loyal to the Constitution, but they have nothing but contempt for it. They claim to defend it while at the same time taking giant shits over large sections of it — much of the 1st, 14th, 16th, 17th Amendments for starters. They profess to have an “originalist” understanding of the Constitution, while wildly inventing new claims like their belief that multinational corporations are citizens with free speech rights and wholly ignoring things that the Founders were incredibly explicit about.

    Ask any teatard about the separation of church and state, for instance, and you’ll get a spiel that it’s all an invention of the liberal media, and that America is truly a Christian nation. Nevermind the personal writings of Washington dismissing that nonsense, or Madison’s “Remonstrance” to Virginia, or Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists or his comments in his second inaugural, or the fact that the Treaty of Tripoli — arranged by Washington, signed by Adams, and ratified by a Senate filled with half of the founding fathers — explicitly says “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,” etc etc. Nope, these idiots think they know what the founders believed, even when it’s 180-degrees from what they actually did.

    It’s not that they’ve made a fetish of the Constitution. It’s that they don’t have the slightest fucking clue what the Constitution actually says.

    I can’t wait to hear them mumble over the parts about providing for general welfare or enabling taxation or there being “no religious test for office.” But they’ll probably applaud at the part about nonwhites only counting as 3/5 of a good white person.

  27. 27.

    icecreammang

    @change:

    Also, why are so many liberals upset about the Constitution being read aloud on the House floor tomorrow?

    The Constitution-reading is bullshit b/c the Republicans are doing it with all the flourish of throwing down a fucking trump card. It doesn’t prove shit. It doesn’t mean shit. It doesn’t end shit.

    Great. They read the Constitution. Next they can re-read Article I, Section 8 and then readMarbury v. Madison.

  28. 28.

    Delia

    @Yutsano:
    I’m sick, too. I’ve been avoiding colds for the past couple of years with regular use of the neti pot. Then I flew to Korea and back for Christmas. Two days after I got home I came down with this killer cold that I just can’t shake. Blecch.

  29. 29.

    El Cid

    This is fucking awesome. Via the blog formerly known as the GOS, not to be confused with the new Speaker.

    During an interview with the New York Times’ David Leonhardt, [Indiana Governor Mitch] Daniels claimed that raising the retirement age makes sense because people will eventually live to be 100 years old by “replacing body parts like we do tires”:

    Clearly, means testing. Clearly, retirement age, over time. What you’re saying to these younger people is –- who, by the way, I think, barring disasters, are going to live to possibly old ages, as we have always thought of it…. They will live to be more than 100, because, again, barring accidents or something, or war, well over. They should. They’ll be replacing body parts like we do tires. If you ask a young person who’s paying any attention to this, “How old do you expect to be, and how long would you like to be a vital working person?” they’re not going to find this offensive. Thirty years from now, you might work at 68, 70, 72….

    Aside from the obvious folly of raising the retirement age now in anticipation of human body-part replacement technology that may or may not exist at some undetermined point in the future, Daniels is basing his policy preference on the same faulty understanding of American life expectancy espoused by loads of would-be Social Security reformers.
    __
    While average life expectancy has indeed been rising, it is largely as a result of increases among upper income earners working in white-collar jobs. Middle- and low-income workers have not seen the same increases and would be disproportionately affected if the retirement age were raised.

    By this keen social policy logic, no retirement benefits are needed by anyone because any day now our conscious selves will be uploaded into an everlasting computer life and we will live out millenia in the blink of an eye.

    In such a way we can finally take all that wasted SS & Medicare money and give it back in tax cuts to the Golden Geese.

    This guy should definitely be the President, who can pull us together in a bisymmetric fashion.

  30. 30.

    Yutsano

    @Delia: My theory is I got the really bad cold my boss had when she got back from Cincinnati two weeks ago. It knocked her out for a good week, which I can’t really afford to do. I’m gonna try and suck it up and go in tomorrow even for a half day. Fortunately there’s work I can do that doesn’t require me to talk.

  31. 31.

    PurpleGirl

    I was reading in bed (The Fellowship of the Ring) and for some reason I began to think about novels I had read many years ago, namely The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki and The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon. Weird. I read those back in high school/college. I should still have the copies, in storage, though.

    Maybe I’m being told to stand back from politics for a time and concentrate on other things. I dunno. The brain can pull some funny moves on you.

  32. 32.

    TR

    Also, I think the Constitution reading is bullshit because I remember when Republicans tried this same stuff with the Pledge of Allegiance in the late ’80s.

    That didn’t solve any of our problems either. But it fooled idiots like you into forgetting about the problems — problems Republicans caused themselves, of course — because it let you hate those dirty fucking hippies, right?

  33. 33.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    I’m all for reading the Constitution if they’re required to take a comprehension test afterwards with the results posted on house.gov.

  34. 34.

    PurpleGirl

    @The Dangerman: He is approaching an age at which he won’t be considered for a transplant, especially for a heart. (As if he ever had one to begin with.)

  42. 42.

    Jay

    Something folks will be talking and laughing about tomorrow: this terrific “Muppets”-style puppet of McCain that “The Daily Show” just ran.

  48. 48.

    burnspbesq

    @Yutsano:

    You’ll love this.

    I finally got somebody from the Philly campus on the phone today, and got a look at my crazy pro bono client’s transcript. Apparently she forgot that she had been given innocent spouse relief with respect to a $200K obligation. I asked her specifically about it in our first meeting.

    That’ll make it a lot easier to get the California Franchise Tax Board to do the right thing.

  50. 50.

    burnspbesq

    @trollhattan:

    Not manslaughter. You can’t prove intention. You could probably get criminally negligent homicide if that charge exists under the relevant law (Louisiana or Federal? Damned if I know).

  51. 51.

    trollhattan

    @burnspbesq:

    What if there’s an established pattern of negligance and failure to follow safety standards? BP killed 11 co-workers from my employer in ’05, operating in a similarly shoddy fashion to what they did in the Gulf.

    http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/7151576.html

    As with Don Blankenship at Massey, we accept industrial deaths as somehow the inevitable cost of doing bidnez. Most companies manage to not kill their employees, so what consequences for those who do?

    I know it’s as likely as hauling Rummy before the Hague, but I’d like to think it’s at least possible.

  53. 53.

    Yutsano

    @burnspbesq: Forgive me while I LOL. I don’t know how you forget something like that. Then again I’ve talked to people who have forgotten they were on installment agreements they set up two weeks ago. And calling in to set one up.

  55. 55.

    Steeplejack

    @Delia:
    [. . .] I came down with this killer cold that I just can’t shake.
    Me, too. I’ve got one that has been lingering since Christmas Eve. And I am a devotee of nasal irrigation who never gets sick. There’s something going on out there.

  56. 56.

    Yutsano

    @Steeplejack: My boss had it and I’m pretty sure gave it to me. It flattened her for a whole week. I’m hoping not to repeat the experience, although my voice is coming back in fits.

  59. 59.

    Steeplejack

    @Yutsano:

    I was out two days with mine–after a three-day holiday weekend–and I’m Mr. Reliable.

    I still don’t feel like I’m back to anything like full strength. I sleep and sleep, I feel okay, I go to work, and then I’m exhausted after being there an hour. No stamina at all. Fortunately I’m off tomorrow, which is why I’m in full night-owl mode.

  61. 61.

    Yutsano

    @Steeplejack: I might half day it tomorrow depending upon how things are and if I can do the work that doesn’t require me to talk to people. I couldn’t handle an eight hour shift on the phone blabbing the way my voice is now.

  64. 64.

    Steeplejack

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Entering a mini-weekend zone, as I don’t work tomorrow. I almost felt like volunteering to go in, because the universally reviled store manager started a week of vacation, and it seems like such a waste to be off myself when I could be enjoying the harpy-free vibe in the store.

    As I told Yutsy, I am recovering from my cold, but slowly. Fatigue is the main lingering symptom. I gots no stamina.

    How you doin’? And you’re still talking to us little people after going all front-page at ABL’s?

    ETA: I knew you when . . . (Wretchedly old song, but I thought of it when I thought of you at ABL’s.Sorry there are no go-go dancers.)

  65. 65.

    Yutsano

    @Steeplejack:

    Fatigue is the main lingering symptom. I gots no stamina.

    Agreed on that point. I feel like I could have slept all day for the last three days. Hopefully I manage tomorrow somehow.

  66. 66.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Steeplejack: I’m glad you’re getting better, and I hope your cold completely disappears soon. Snort on going in just to savor being there without the harpy-in-residence breathing down your neck.

    Thanks! Did you see I got front-paged here by Tom Levenson? How cool is that? Don’t worry. I’ll remember my friends who helped me make it to the middle! And, that song is delicious. I’ve never heard it before. It’s so good, it’s almost OK there are no go-go dancers.

  73. 73.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Yutsano: Well, I was actually thinking it meant you had to buy me a nice bauble. Sorry you’re feeling so cruddy. Please take tomorrow off as well if you still feel this way.

  75. 75.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: I’m trying to avoid doing the advanced sick leave thing if at all possible. If I half-day it I can use the option of taking that time from another leave bank and that’ll help. Plus if I can get away with not talking tomorrow I might just tough it out. We’ll see.

    @Steeplejack: I seriously saw that title as “Snooki Snooki” and was about ready to scream. Well at least try since all I can pretty much do right now is squeak.

  76. 76.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Steeplejack: Wow. That first song’s intro sounds like the beginning to Tom Petty’s Don’t Come Round Here No More. The song sounds very familiar for some reason. I like the second song better than the first, too.

    FYWP!

    @Steeplejack: I was going to say, you suggested this as a stripper song once. Oh, yeah, bay-bee.

  78. 78.

    Steeplejack

    @asiangrrlMN:

    I did see that you got front-paged here at B.J. by Levenson. Kudos. And your piece was very good. Let that righteous anger blaze.

  79. 79.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: No haz, so not an option. Though I could get one there maybe.

    And tonight’s moment of squee: baby red pandas. At first I thought they were animatronic cause of the eyes.

  80. 80.

    Steeplejack

    @asiangrrlMN:

    New (old) material: “Dirty Water,” the Standells. Weird video but pretty good sound.

    Yeah, down by the river
    down by the banks of the River Charles
    Ah, that’s what happenin’, baby
    That’s where you’ll find me
    along with lovers, fuckers muggers and thieves
    Ah, but they’re cool people

    For some reason this has become a staple at baseball games (and not just in Boston). Go figure. But I’m for it, of course.

  85. 85.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: I don’t think you can buy them unfortunately. They’re rare even in China. They like bamboo. Communists cut down bamboo. Panda go hungry. Per thangs. I do think there’s a wild population in Taiwan.

    EDIT: Pretty sure it’s the cold talking, but I’m fading out. I shall address you both on the morrow.

  86. 86.

    Steeplejack

    @asiangrrlMN:

    I think my love jones was for the brunette in this video. But, really, what go-go dancer can’t you love? I mean, c’mon, really.

    ETA: I still think Mitch Ryder is Jimmy Smits’s illegitimate father. Just sayin’.

  87. 87.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Yutsano: Aw, that’s so sad. Night. I hope you feel better in the morn.

    @Steeplejack: Yes. You are correct. It was that vid, and, yes, go-go dancers are awesome. As for Mitch Ryder–yep. You totally nailed it. Jimmy Smits all the way.

    ETA: That’s groovy and neat-o, Daddy O!

    ETA II: And, for a more somber mood.

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