Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

“Let’s not pretend [Trump] wants to engage in high-minded discourse.”

Fight them, without becoming them!

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

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

The revolution will be supervised.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

We won’t go back.

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

So many bastards, so little time.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

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

Every day Vance writes another chapter in the book called “Worst VP Pick Ever”.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Fortunate son

Reader Interactions

157Comments

  3. 3.

    Boudica

    All I read about was a bunch of people complaining that they’ve been shat on and so therefore should the state workers. It’s quite the pity party.
    What happened to pulling yourself up by your bootstraps? Sucky pay and benefits? Put in some work and organize a union for your profession. But that’s too much work for them. Lazy looters….

  4. 4.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    “Everyone else needs to pinch pennies and give more money to health insurance companies and pay for their own retirement,” said Cindy Kuehn as she left Jim and Judy’s Food Market in Palmyra. “It’s about time the buck stops.”

    God almighty. Maybe this woman is/was a barn-burning advocate for the public option, but I really, really doubt. I made it though the first page of the article, and every person quoted seems to be more concerned with pulling down people they perceive to have it somehow better than they do.

  9. 9.

    LT

    Just read this seconds ago. “I found four people in Wisconsin who hate unions. FRAYING OF UNION BONDS!” Wankeriffic.

  10. 10.

    Nicole

    But others suggested that unions had perhaps had outlived their usefulness. Carrie Fox, who works at a billboard advertising company, said she hoped that the battle would encourage other governors to rein in public- and private-sector unions. “I know there was a point for unions back in the day because people were being abused,” she said. “But now there’s workers’ rights; there’s laws that protect us.”

    Uh, no, lady; there are no workers’ rights; that’s what the damn union is for. Why don’t you take a look at federal laws for non-union workers and get back to me on how well protected you feel you are from abuse by your employer. Federal law doesn’t even guarantee you a lunch break.

  11. 11.

    LT

    I love the lady who says, paraphrasing, “I don’t make nearly as much money as people ii unions. I don’t get to bargain like people in unions.”

    Uh, yeah, that’s the point, you dumbfuck.

  12. 12.

    jwb

    One of the Times articles on Wisconsin this morning was also terribly off-key, enough so that it’s made me suspicious of the entire Times coverage. Despite his column this morning, Krugman has also been relatively quiet about Wisconsin, having put up a very odd little post on his blog on Saturday about the need to get all his facts together. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but it’s not at all how Krugman usually operates.

  13. 13.

    Suck It Up!

    I have no idea who that is and don’t care.

    Watching local news earlier and it reported that Chris Christie was on a weight loss program and has a personal trainer. Christie says he’s just trying to lose weight so that he can live longer not so he can run for the presidency.

    Really? how dumb does he think we are? How did that info happen to leak to the media if this wasn’t about his presidential run?

  14. 14.

    Emma

    Jim: I have barely been able to read anything about it. It reminds me too painfully of the first time I realized that there were people in the world who would cheerfully lose one eye as long as the next door neighbour went blind.

  15. 15.

    Brian S

    Why is it that when shit goes bad, the response isn’t “how can I get some good shit from those who have extra” instead of “how can I make everyone else as piss-miserable as me?”

  16. 16.

    Elia

    @Suck It Up!: I’d be pretty happy to see him run, assuming it meant he’d give up the Governorship.

    I really don’t see him doing it this early, though. It’d be kind of insane.

  18. 18.

    Martin

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Everyone else needs to pinch pennies and give more money to health insurance companies and pay for their own retirement

    Which is why the unions have agreed to do that.

    Fucking reporting, how does it work?

  19. 19.

    Comrade Mary

    Did I see a single word in that NY Times article saying that the unions had already agreed to some cuts? I thought I didn’t, but maybe I just didn’t read carefully enough. Way to forward the Republican narrative.

  20. 20.

    Martin

    @Suck It Up!:

    Really? how dumb does he think we are?

    Um, he’s a Republican. He joined the party where ‘How dumb can they possibly be?’ is constantly being redefined.

  21. 21.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Emma: You know the old joke about national ambitions: The Briton wants their country to produce the greatest statesman, the French dream of producing the greatest philosopher, the Italians want to be know as the worlds greatest artists, and the Russian peasants want their neighbors cow to die. That’s teh Fox Nation

  22. 22.

    Another Commenter at Balloon Juice (fka Bella Q)

    I mean really, Doug Hill, son of Doug Hill, what else did you expect from the liberal media? You’re just overexcited by all the protesting going on, and you got confused. Send a pizza to WI, and you’ll be fine.

  23. 23.

    WyldPirate

    I’m a Times apologist, but for Bieber’s sake, that is tone deaf.

    A rich dude’s son reporting the playing off of one group of worker proles vs.another along the lines that have been going on forever.

    Seem’s par for the course to me.

  24. 24.

    LosGatosCA

    Nothing suits the Galtian overlords better than getting traction with the ‘Let’s you and him have a fight.’

    No attribute fits the Teabagging Republican strategy so well as misdirection.

    ‘Hey look, your neighbor has a decent paying middle class job with some routine benefits. That godless commie bastard!’

    Then the mob gets their torches and pitchforks and runs into the night.

    Meanwhile back at the ranch the Galtian overlords discuss the real news:

    ‘How much do you need in campaign contributions and which of you relatives do I need to hire to buy that public asset for 75% under market value? And how much for that special interest tax cut? Any other assets you want me to take off your hands? No, were not interested in that, why not just out source it’s management to us. 15% annually, plus we’ll make your DMV look good by comparison. A real win-win.’

    ‘Hey look, the schmucks with the pitchforks are coming back. Can someone go out there and tell them union folks support the gay agenda and want to molest their children and make their legal defense tax deductible – even when they get off on a technicality.’

    ‘Good that should keep them busy for a few days.’

  25. 25.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @jwb:

    He wrote a column about it today, and he was very clear that he knew it wasn’t about the money, it was about bargaining rights. Good, solid column, but nothing really new.

  26. 26.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    That’s what kills me about these people. They think they are suffering so that means that everyone must suffer. Why not demand better pay? Why not organize a union and fight for better pay and benefits? Why not demand higher taxes on the rich, forcing them to ‘spread the wealth’ like they used to do (reinvesting it in businesses, paying better dividends to shareholders and such) to avoid giving it all to the government in taxes? Why do they think that the solution is to drag everyone down by giving up instead of fighting to get more for themselves?

    It’s mind-boggling that these people can even remember to keep breathing, they’re that stupid.

  29. 29.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Suck It Up!: As everybody and their brother have been pointing out, Christie trails Obama by twenty points in New Jersey. I distinctly recall from from 2000 that any pols homestate is the most important factor in a presidential campaign.

    Also, on Christie, I’ll re-link to this because David Gregory is the biggest douchebag in Douchebagtown

  32. 32.

    Doug Hill

    @Jim Newell:

    Even the weathermen are Villager there? Today’s cold temperatures show that this is a center-right nation or at least that Al Gore is fat.

  33. 33.

    El Cid

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: This is The American Way.

    If some group has some sort of better resources or benefits which aren’t somehow outrageously unjustified (i.e., an inherited billionaire or whatever), then the way to solve my frustrations over not having those advantages is to destroy theirs.

    If some of our prisoners have better health care than we do, the answer is not to improve our own, but to worsen theirs so that suffering of an enemy population increases.

  34. 34.

    Martin

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Polls mean nothing now. Even in head-to-head. Remember how in the summer of 2008 half of the Democratic party would never vote for Obama because of his vagina deficit? Yeah, once the hypotheticals are cleared from the board, things change.

    That said, trailing 20 in your home state at this stage is fucking pathetic.

  36. 36.

    WyldPirate

    @Martin:

    Which is why the unions have agreed to do that.

    Fucking reporting, how does it work?

    The self-evident fact after having read the article that isn’t being reported on is that there are a lot of dumb fucks in Wisconsin and America. These two reporters seem to find only idiots to interview as well.

    I’ll say it for the umpteenth time on here–We. Are. Fucking. Doomed. As. A. Nation. Between the greedheads running things and the seething masses of idiots who revel in their own stupidity we are doomed.

  38. 38.

    sven

    I’m excited that BJ will be posting ways to help protesters in Wisconsin (and beyond). I am very interested in any suggestions on supporting the left in this country.

    Can we also think up some ways to push Democrats to get out of the GDamn ‘closed door’ negotiations over Social Security? Both the politics and the policy of any such a deal are nauseating.

  45. 45.

    WyldPirate

    @SteveinSC:

    I gave $1000 to help elect that worthless Uncle Tom in the White House so I sure as hell can cough up a couple hundred for the protesters who are putting their ass on the line.

    This should bring out some Obots most rikitiki…

  46. 46.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @mr. whipple: A little less than 20 points, I stand corrected.

    Perhaps more telling though, is the recent poll that showed if Christie ran against Obama in 2012, the governor would lose his home state by nearly 20 points. That’s right, Christie would get trounced by Obama in N.J.

    @Another Commenter at Balloon Juice (fka Bella Q): me, I like it when the clowns put on a big red nose, let’s me know exactly how much consideration I should give their comments

  47. 47.

    Another Commenter at Balloon Juice (fka Bella Q)

    @mr. whipple:

    President Barack Obama would carry New Jersey in 2012, even if Gov. Chris Christie were the Republican nominee, according to a poll released by Public Policy Polling.
    __The polling firm decided to see what the outcome would be if they pitted Christie, a new darling of the national Republican Party against Obama, who would be seeking a second term.
    __The poll found Obama would win 55 percent of the New Jersey vote and Christie 38 percent.

    Link to New Jersey Newsroom.

  48. 48.

    gbear

    @Suck It Up!: I’m really not surprised that Stewart is clueless about this. When it comes down to it, he can be as much of a rich media dick as any villager.

  50. 50.

    freelancer

    Who the fuck is Doug Hill? Did you hookup with my wingnut aunt? How dare you abandon our surname, Mr. J. The Welsh are on line 2 and they’re pissed.

  51. 51.

    manual

    Yeah, Stewart is playing the both sides do it game, and normally I dont care because I suspect it. But this is the defining moment of our times: middle class or banana republic, and you have to take sides. Add he just told lisa ling she is doing the work of true journalist.

    Getting sick of his bullshit.

  53. 53.

    MikeBoyScout

    Libyans, Egyptians and Tunisian workers have never had the right for collective bargaining.

    The Unions in Wisconsin just need to understand that if they don’t follow the recommendations of their Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Tea Party Revolution, Scott Walker, disaster could strike.

  56. 56.

    dadanarchist

    “”It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” – Upton Sinclair

  58. 58.

    Corner Stone

    @gbear: Meh. Stewart needs to work both sides of the aisle to maintain a full program.
    He’s an entertainer. Not somebody to give a shit about.

  59. 59.

    mai naem

    What was the number? Something like the average annual pension of a Wisconsin state worker is $25K. I wouldn’t be shocked if David Gregory’s weekly expenses are $25k. You can bet his monthly expenses are more than $25K. He probably thinks the average person can afford to give up $25K since its nothing to him.

  60. 60.

    Doug Hill

    @Jim Newell:

    Hey, they know weather better than anyone. They’re not some eggheads looking at equations in the Ivory Tower, they’re on the front lines, facing cold and sleet. I’d like to see Al Gore stand under an umbrella and announce storm totals.

  63. 63.

    Petorado

    Maybe there’s something in Manhattan’s water. Steinbrenner the second plays the socialism card. From ESPN:

    “At some point, if you don’t want to worry about teams in minor markets, don’t put teams in minor markets, or don’t leave teams in minor markets if they’re truly minor,” Steinbrenner said. “Socialism, communism, whatever you want to call it, is never the answer.”

    Baseball goes Galt! As if we need another reason to hate the Yankees …

  64. 64.

    MikeBoyScout

    Johnny’s in the basement
    Mixing up the medicine
    I’m on the pavement
    Thinking about the government
    The man in the trench coat
    Badge out, laid off
    Says he’s got a bad cough
    Wants to get it paid off
    Look out kid
    It’s somethin’ you did
    God knows when
    But you’re doin’ it again
    You better duck down the alley way
    Lookin’ for a new friend
    The man in the coon-skin cap
    By the big pen
    Wants eleven dollar bills
    You only got ten

    The song remains the same.

  67. 67.

    Yutsano

    @Martin: Cranky John Cole is cranky. Though I have a decent understanding for the few weeks in the sin bin. That line was over the top.

  73. 73.

    Anya

    @Suck It Up!: I am really getting tired of Jon Stewart’s bullshit stand that both sides are equally wrong and why can’t we all get along crap. I don’t know who he’s trying to impress, Brian Williams?

  76. 76.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Anya: it’s very weird, he’s a hipster David Broder on virtually every subject, and he’s Jane Hamsher in a suit when the subject is Obama.

  77. 77.

    slag

    Wait a second. Comment evaporated? Am I banned too? I was wondering what it would finally take. Although honestly, I’m surprised at how easy it was.

    ETA: No…I guess not. Maybe next time, then.

  78. 78.

    gbear

    @Corner Stone: I’m sure that The Daily Show thought it was really funny when they hired a freakin’ CAMEL to show how Madison was just like Egypt.

    I didn’t watch Stewart but the Madison newspaper has some video of John Oliver’s crew dealing with an angry camel. Now that’s funny. (OK, it’s not funny. I feel sorry for the camel)

  80. 80.

    GregB

    I really think America is having a self esteem breakdown and instead of telling the people to do something positive to pick themselves up they are being told to find a new villain every other fucking week.

    I mean what gives with people who get whipsawed from screaming about illegal immigrants and believing that was a crisis and the cause of impending collapse then getting fanned into a frenzy about the gays and then the Muslims and their mosque in New York and now internalizing the rants about teachers being parasites?

    It is a bunch of sick wealthy pricks fanning and stoking irrational hatred as a great diversionary tactic.

    People fall for it over and over and over.

  81. 81.

    Suffern ACE

    @arguingwithsignposts: I think Cole once explained that it was because he wasn’t certain what m-c was writing most of the time.

    (Also, it is kind of difficult to ban someone who is mostly taking umbrage at the same classes of people we get angry with all the time.)

    Cole’s blog, his rules, he barely bans anyone…although forming a readers union to negotiate these rules and ensure their fair and consistent application through a mediator might…well, might make a mockery of what collective bargaining is about.

  83. 83.

    slag

    @gbear: Camels really are used to dealing with harsh climates. That said, TDS f’d up there and need to get more professional when they work with large animals.

  84. 84.

    Dee Loralei

    How come no one on the pro-Union side has mentioned that the reason we don’t have a “baksheesh”(sp?) problem in this country, is because we tend to grant our government workers a mostly decent wage? With health care and retirement also Isn’t graft and corruption of government workers one of the most annoying and telling signs of a third world nation? I mean, isn’t it one of the biggest bugaboos for any citizen in those countries how much extra cash it costs to just get some basic government service? Why do the Republicans want to bring baksheesh to this country?

    I mean we often hear about the greasy palms of some public sector workers, with their hands out here, but it’s usually in the same article announcing the arrest of the same individual or group who was demanding it. So if we strip all public workers of all rights to organize, of their retirement funds, etc, why wouldn’t the humans here not start demanding under the table cash for services?

  85. 85.

    Anya

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Tonight, I watched his show because I thought this issue was so clear cut that, for once, he will suspend his bulshit schtick that both sides do it. To my utter dissapointment, he failed to see the real issue. After the way he disrespected the President, I hope Prez Obama never goes on his show again. I like Colbert, he’s smart and he does not try to impress the Villagers.

  86. 86.

    Doug Hill

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I like “hipster David Broder”, that’s good.

    The only time the commenters have ever really turned on me here was when I criticized Stewart. Interestingly, the only other times they came close was when people thought I was making fun of hipsters.

  87. 87.

    Corner Stone

    @gbear: I just don’t have time for that guy. I get what you’re saying but I think he’s just another useless ice cold douche.

  88. 88.

    Martin

    @Suffern ACE: Ooooh. I hadn’t considered that we should unionize the commentators. We could bankrupt BJ on the way to negotiating for 5:20 of edit time and the ability to say peñis without spending a day in moderation.

  89. 89.

    Jim Newell

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Insofar as MSM consensus opinion still matters, though, Chris Christie is very dangerous.

    When David Gregory sees Chris Christie at a town hall with teachers taking off his jacket, rolling up his sleeves, pointing his finger at an angry teacher’s union member halfway through that person’s legitimate question and cutting it off before launching into a prepared tirade — “Listen lady, we don’t have any damn money, deal with it,” etc. — that gets 60,000 views on YouTube, it’s the answer to every question he’s ever wanted to ask. It is, to David Gregory and his ilk, messianic. Chris Christie is the solution. After so many years of waiting, he is the one who will see that young buck buying a t-bone steak with food stamps, pull him out of line, and force him to Get a Job.

  91. 91.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Doug Hill: I am in favor of making fun of hipsters, and I say this as person with a past in which I was heard to say things like “They are a great band; you probably haven’t heard of them.” In my day, they weren’t called hipsters, ’cause the Kaiser had stolen our hips…

  92. 92.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    in which I was heard to say things like “They are a great band; you probably haven’t heard of them.”

    But when your friend did hear of that band, did you smile condescendingly and say, “Yeah, their first couple albums were great…. before they went mainstream”

  95. 95.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Suffern ACE: I’m sorry, but I must comment on this again. I don’t even know what the hell SinSC said, but it can’t match *at all* to the relentless, constant haranguing and stalkerish behavior that m_c has displayed over the time EDK has been on this blog, especially since he’s “converted.”

    She pollutes threads constantly and displays behavior that would have a better home at a local newspaper blog. And yet she hasn’t been banned.

    I realize it’s Cole’s blog, his rules, but goddamn, that is some serious double standard, there JC.

  96. 96.

    Another Commenter at Balloon Juice (fka Bella Q)

    I’m annoyed at TDS over the camel. if you’re gonna put animals to work – and camels are working animals – you’ve got to hire a competent wrangler to keep things going well. That’s just embarrassing, and not the least bit fair to the camel, while an actual camel wrangler would have made everybody’s day much easier. It’s like “interviewing” someone who only speaks Ghomara (Afro-Asiatic Berber group), when you don’t speak it and don’t have a translator. It’s wrong. Dipweeds.

  97. 97.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Of course. On the other hand, I never went in for hipster fashion.

    On Topic: What kind of news about Madison are people seeing elsewhere? I live six blocks from the Capitol so I am rather immersed.

  98. 98.

    Yutsano

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’ve seen sporadic reports on CNN that on the whole aren’t too bad. Pretty much in line with what I’ve seen here though they’re trying to sell the teabagger narrative bad.

  99. 99.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @WyldPirate:

    Naah. He’s in SC, it’s to be expected that he would talk like this.

    @John Cole:

    You keep a pretty clean house for as filthy as it gets…lol!

    Hey Wyld, damn them Obots! :)

  100. 100.

    Doug Hill

    @slag:

    Conor Friedersdorf takes on Mark Levin sometimes. Should I read him too?

    Stewart lost me when he fell for that ACORN shit. If I ever start heh-indeeding some tape with white people dressed as pimps and hos to make fun of black community counselors, you can put me in two wetsuits.

  101. 101.

    gbear

    @Corner Stone: In this particular instance, I view the camel not having a broken leg as a happy ending. Can I give you my assurances that the happiness was fleeting?

  102. 102.

    WyldPirate

    Well, a case could be made that Obama is serving his Masters..

    From Taibbi’s article Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?

    As for President Obama, what is there to be said? Goldman Sachs was his number-one private campaign contributor. He put a Citigroup executive in charge of his economic transition team, and he just named an executive of JP Morgan Chase, the proud owner of $7.7 million in Chase stock, his new chief of staff. “The betrayal that this represents by Obama to everybody is just — we’re not ready to believe it,” says Budde, a classmate of the president from their Columbia days. “He’s really fucking us over like that? Really? That’s really a JP Morgan guy, really?”
    __
    Which is not to say that the Obama era has meant an end to law enforcement. On the contrary: In the past few years, the administration has allocated massive amounts of federal resources to catching wrongdoers — of a certain type. Last year, the government deported 393,000 people, at a cost of $5 billion. Since 2007, felony immigration prosecutions along the Mexican border have surged 77 percent; nonfelony prosecutions by 259 percent. In Ohio last month, a single mother was caught lying about where she lived to put her kids into a better school district; the judge in the case tried to sentence her to 10 days in jail for fraud, declaring that letting her go free would “demean the seriousness” of the offenses.
    __
    So there you have it. Illegal immigrants: 393,000. Lying moms: one. Bankers: zero. The math makes sense only because the politics are so obvious. You want to win elections, you bang on the jailable class. You build prisons and fill them with people for selling dime bags and stealing CD players. But for stealing a billion dollars? For fraud that puts a million people into foreclosure? Pass. It’s not a crime. Prison is too harsh. Get them to say they’re sorry, and move on. Oh, wait — let’s not even make them say they’re sorry. That’s too mean; let’s just give them a piece of paper with a government stamp on it, officially clearing them of the need to apologize, and make them pay a fine instead. But don’t make them pay it out of their own pockets, and don’t ask them to give back the money they stole. In fact, let them profit from their collective crimes, to the tune of a record $135 billion in pay and benefits last year. What’s next? Taxpayer-funded massages for every Wall Street executive guilty of fraud?

    emphasis added.

    The Obama administration isn’t exactly tripping over itself trying to right the inequities of the drug war—or the inequities of sentencing for crimes period–visited upon his own race. And his administration sure seems to have turned a blind eye to the crimes committed by the very wealthy in ripping off the country and plunging it into near depression.

    Obama is serving a Master alright–his master’s name is Mammon–and Obama’s administration has turned a blind eye to the crimes of his Master, otherwise he stands no chance of getting re-elected. Obama can’t be fucking with the concerns of the master’s of the universe if he wants to be re-elected.

  103. 103.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    speaking of tone deaf, and due credit to Joey The Scar:

    Joe Scarborough criticized Rick Santelli, his NBC colleague, for comparing the Wisconsin protests to the 9/11 attacks.[…]
    “If the country is ever attacked like it was on 9/11, we all respond with a sense of urgency,” Santelli said. “What’s going on on balance sheets throughout the country is the same type of attack.”

  104. 104.

    El Cid

    David Brooks stands up to the anti-democratic union thugs in Wisconsin.

    Walker’s critics are amusingly Orwellian. They liken the crowd in Madison to the ones in Tunisia and claim to be fighting for democracy. Whatever you might say about Walker, he and the Republican majorities in Wisconsin were elected, and they are doing exactly what they told voters they would do. It’s the Democratic minority that is thwarting the majority will by fleeing to Illinois. It’s the left that has suddenly embraced extralegal obstructionism.

    Ha ha!

    They’re so amusing! I love laughing at these stupid angry teachers and whatnot.

    Everyone knows, for example, that David Brooks constantly argued that Obama and the Democrats were elected in the majority and therefore protesters like TeaTards against health insurance reform were the anti-democratic minority?

    This guy’s such a fucking turd.

    I hate all these ‘liberal’ fuckers who love to have him on because he’s nice and talks softly.

    Oh, Mr. Fucking World-Building Philosopher Anecdotalist isn’t done.

    I’d invite Governor Walker and the debt fighters everywhere to think of themselves as founding fathers of austerity. They are not only balancing budgets, they are setting precedent for a process that will last decades. By their example, they have to create habits that diverse majorities can respect and embrace. The process has to be balanced. It has to make everybody hurt.

  105. 105.

    hilts

    @Anya:

    I am really getting tired of Jon Stewart’s bullshit

    I’m so glad to hear someone else say the same thing I’ve been thinking for a long time. I find it nauseating that so many liberals have put Stewart on a pedestal. In addition to the false equivalence nonsense, I don’t appreciate his use of gross-out humor to make a point. Last week, he had some segment that included video of an ape urinating. I’ve had it with his camera mugging and tired reliance on an exaggerated New Jersey accent. Jon Stewart can go fuck himself and fuck the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for continuing to give this asshole an Emmy Award year after year.

  106. 106.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @El Cid:

    The process has to be balanced. It has to make everybody hurt.

    Let me see Walker’s pay and benefit cuts. What was Bobo’s sacrifice for the cause? Fuck them.

  107. 107.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @GregB:

    Divide and conquer, it works. Especially if you have the money to make it happen.

    We hate ourselves. It’s an American thing. Other nations usually have one predominant group fighting over the pie and leaving the smaller groups out because they are small. Here we have many more groups fighting over an increasingly smaller piece of pie.

    Problem is that the people who are fighting (unknowingly) to make the cut of pie even smaller don’t realize that their fears are being used to take everything away from them. They have been ‘cornered’ by their party into fearing everyone and everything except for the party. While their party is creating demons and fanning the flames of hate as a diversion, they are busy selling out their constituents to the highest bidders.

    It’s easy to divide and conquer people who hate the ‘others’. It’s pretty much like herding cattle around.

    Cudlips! ;)

  108. 108.

    Yutsano

    @El Cid:

    It has to make everybody hurt.

    Awesome! 90% marginal tax rate for incomes over $1 million, investment and dividend income included! It’s David Brooks endorsed!

  110. 110.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Yutsano: Fuck it. We’ll do it live. Let’s see if this goes through. You ready to buy me my ring?

    ETA: The hell? I don’t get you, FYWP, I really don’t.

    ETA II: New rule. Any time someone says it has to hurt everyone, that person gets to be hurt first.

  112. 112.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: Heh. Will most likely be jobless in two weeks remember? And it may be quite the long haul thanks to the direct deposit holding back the pain for most of the old folks.

  113. 113.

    Jim Newell

    @El Cid: That last paragraph is more nauseating than just about anything. Wow. You can retire now, David Brooks.

    And remember! This is what budget hawk David Brooks whined about in 1997, when an actual balanced budget was in the works:

    America is a more dominant power in the world than Americans a century ago could ever have imagined. Yet we have almost none of the sense of global purpose that Americans had when they only dreamed of enjoying the stature we possess today. Domestically, we have a president and a Congress whose major common purpose is . . . balancing the budget.

  114. 114.

    El Cid

    @Omnes Omnibus: Goodness gracious! What type of cad are you to suggest that the hurt of “everybody” would include such nobles as your Republican politician and conservative opinionist betters?

    Do you not know how much time David Brooks has willingly sacrificed to write about the protests in Wisconsin with reference to actual names, rather than Aesopian fables about mythical people inhabiting his dream world of when America was great and was exactly like he imagined?

  116. 116.

    El Cid

    @Jim Newell: Your comments are amusingly Orwellian.

    I think you need to practice more on how you can appear suave and cool at the Applebee’s salad bar, so Real Americans can accept you.

  117. 117.

    J. Michael Neal

    @WyldPirate: I notice that Taibbi omits the unimportant part about what charges he wants Goldman execs brought up on. He uses the word “fraud,” but doesn’t seem to have an understanding of what it means in a legal setting rather than a colloquial one.

    What do you want them convicted of, and what evidence is there that they could be convicted of an actual crime?

  121. 121.

    Suffern ACE

    @Jim Newell: That was the articles of confederation of budget balancing. And a lot of people might have been hurt by it. But those were the writers of the anti-federalist papers who passed that budget. The side of the debate that was lost with our sense of purpose. In our new founding…

  122. 122.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: Umm…you do realize I still have a princess I need to keep in the lifestyle she has become accustomed. And trust me that will take a ton of salmon treats after this weekend. I’ll be lucky if she forgives me in the next millenium.

    I was trying to get back on topic but I’m saving that for the pizza order tomorrow.

    @Omnes Omnibus: THE GENTLEMAN FROM WISCONSIN WILL KINDLY YIELD THE FLOOR!!

    (I’m not getting tired of that any time soon.)

  125. 125.

    El Cid

    We all need to hurt.

    Like, for example, those Americans living near dams who would be in imminent danger if there were any sort of a failure.

    Of the nation’s 85,000 dams, more than 4,400 are considered susceptible to failure, according to the Association of State Dam Safety Officials.
    __
    But repairing all those dams would cost billions of dollars, and it is far from clear who would provide all the money in a recessionary era…
    __
    …The stakes are particularly high not just for [the] 4,000 residents of [the town of] Lake Isabella [under the dam of the same name], but for the 340,000 people who live in Bakersfield, 40 miles down the Kern River Canyon on the edge of California’s vast agricultural heartland.
    __
    The Army Corps of Engineers, which built and operates the 57-year-old dam, learned several years ago that it had three serious problems: it was in danger of eroding internally; water could flow over its top in the most extreme flood season; and a fault underneath it was not inactive after all but could produce a strong earthquake.
    __
    In a worst case, a catastrophic failure could send as much as 180 billion gallons of water — along with mud, boulders, trees and other debris…churning down the canyon and into Bakersfield. The floodwaters would turn the downtown and residential neighborhoods into a lake up to 30 feet deep and spread to industrial and agricultural areas…
    __
    …Nationwide, the potential repair costs are staggering. A 2009 report by the state dam safety officials’ group put the cost of fixing the most critical dams — where failure could cause loss of life — at $16 billion over 12 years, with the total cost of rehabilitating all dams at $51 billion.
    __
    But those figures do not include Lake Isabella and other dams among the approximately 3,000 that are owned by the federal government. The corps, for example, says that more than 300 of the roughly 700 dams it is responsible for need safety-related repairs, and estimates the total fix-up bill at about $20 billion.

    We are in a truly catastrophic tight spot with this deficit and all the debt.

    Yet here are all these people who have gotten by for decades with all the benefits of living near a dammed up waterway, but when suddenly it seems like the chronically undermaintained dam structures risk giving way and threatening their towns, then it’s “Oh, taxpayers, you have to pay Big Government to stop a bunch of water falling on us!”

    We all need to hurt. Sometimes dams burst, and take a lot of people with them. Well, maybe not often.

    But if we’re going to go through this all together, and save our country from fiddling around with increasing revenues from taxes and a growing economy, we’re just going to have to go back to sacrificing luxuries like non-flooding water resources.

    Like Grandpa Brooks would have done, with lots of colorful epithet-based speech patterns and amusingly plodding view of life, and he’d have to if he’s to compete with Tom Friedman’s next new 3rd world source on America’s gumption losses.

  126. 126.

    WyldPirate

    @Cacti:

    Go fuck yourself you, asshole.

    I have no desire for an NBF license plate and if I were in your physical vicinity, I would cold cock your dumbass for suggesting that;

  128. 128.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Cacti:

    Wow, that’s some “Uncle Tom” there! SSC must think that this proves his point.

    You know, he’s in SC and all… ;)

  129. 129.

    asiangrrlMN

    @El Cid: Three way more better more blues!

    @Yutsano: SHE WILL NOT SIT DOWN! The Gentlewoman from Minnesota has the goddamn right to stand up if she so chooses! The Gentleman from Washington will STFU if he won’t put a ring on it!

  130. 130.

    Yutsano

    @El Cid: A less than three is definitely way better. Trust me, I never get them. (I keed, I keed!)

    @asiangrrlMN: The Gentlewoman from Minnesota will KINDLY SIT DOWN! SIT DOWN I SAY!!

  131. 131.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @WyldPirate:

    Awww… you’re cute when you’re stamping your feet!

    I wish I could see your face. I bet you just look even cuter when you pout.

  133. 133.

    pattonbt

    This story is exactly why I do not think the Wisconsin stand-off is a “winner” for Democrats (short or long run). Times are tough and “well paid” “lazy” “gubmint” targets are good to salve bruised ego’s. People would rather drag everyone down to their level than fight to raise all their levels. Fighting is hard and means you could lose the meager amoung you have left.

    Only when there is nothing left to lose will the tables turn. And the US is far, far, far away from having “nothing left to lose”.

  134. 134.

    jl

    @Jim Newell: thanks for that excerpt from Brooks. I was looking for something like that, wrt to healthcare, but only found weak tea.

    Let sing the Brooksie ineptic!

    This is fun, from a fisking of an old Brooks column:

    ‘ Brooks next cites “a vast array of technologies: the compass, the clock, the round-bottom boat, wagons with brakes and front axles, water wheels, eyeglasses, and so on …” as the inventions of Catholic monasteries in the Dark or Middle Ages. ‘

    If that list seems odd to you, it should. For the fun facts, the link is:

    Deconstructing David Brooks
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-beinhart/deconstructing-david-broo_b_12569.html

    At least Brooks didn’t mention gunpowder.

  136. 136.

    James E Powell

    @pattonbt:

    I am inclined to agree with you. I don’t have the time or the stomach to review all the news stories, but the corporate press/media are all pounding the same story: brave Governor Walker is trying to save his state from bankruptcy and greedy unions and incompetent teachers don’t like it. The editorials are more or less in line with Brooks.

    It is naive to think that a public protest, not matter how large, can overcome thirty years of anti-union propaganda, with ten or more years of anti-teacher propaganda thrown into the mix.

    I will be shocked if this turns out to be anything but a disastrous defeat for unions, teacher, and people generally.

  137. 137.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    @DougJ: Jon Stewart has always smelled like a crypto-libertarian to me.

    Hipsters could not be more repulsive generally. But I do want to start a twee-pop band called Peter Panic. We will have songs about how ironically detached I am from my mustache as I glide through the city streets drinking pbr on my fixie. Sort of musical trollery. Who’s in?

  139. 139.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    @asiangrrlMN: Hipster band=chick vocals. Looks like I’ll be carrying your gear in this band.

    I have a theory that Dan Savage only reads BJ because he’s trying to meet Yutsano. What do you think, grrl?

  140. 140.

    pattonbt

    @James E Powell:

    And “lefty” protests just aren’t news no matter how valid the cause “because that’s all lefty’s do is protest!”. But when TeaTards protest, now Thats!! a story.

    It’s not the media that deepens my cynicism (although they surely do not help), it’s my friends and colleagues who should know better that really hurt. I expect crap from the media, but the gullibility of the masses to just accept these talking points as casual facts reinforces my belief we are currently beyond repair. I’ve pretty much lost my will to fight with them any more.

    I live in Australia and get US work colleagues visiting over here all the time and its shocking to hear how they parrot the right wing meme of the day without blinking an eye. I had two here last week, both pretty rational and center and they just accepted as fact that government employees and their pensions were now the root cause of the economic problems and “had to be addressed”. That was the central problem to them right now – government employees and their pensions. And once they were “taken care of” things will be better. My mind reeled.

    I am so glad I live in Australia (permanently) but it makes me sad and angry to see how far the US is falling.

  141. 141.

    Anne Laurie

    @Dee Loralei:

    How come no one on the pro-Union side has mentioned that the reason we don’t have a “baksheesh”(sp?) problem in this country, is because we tend to grant our government workers a mostly decent wage?

    I suspect the Koch brothers consider it “baksheesh” when they have to invite that jumped-up little not-washed-in-the-blud-of-tha-LARD kid of “Pinch” to share their opera box. Not to mention the social indignity of having wanna-bes like the Davids Gregory & Brooks slobber all over your hand-built-on-a-personal-custom-last shoes, urgh!

  143. 143.

    J. Michael Neal

    @WyldPirate: I did read the whole article. It’s useless.

    Let’s go through it.

    Page 1 lists a bunch of companies that Taibbi claims engaged in criminal actions. He doesn’t do anything to support those claims on the page.

    Page 2 describes the relationship between the SEC and DOJ. At the bottom, it mentions Rite Aid, a case from more than a decade ago. So, at a minimum, it says nothing about the views of the Obama administration. It’s also very interesting that he omits the fact that, in 2002, the DOJ secured convictions and eight or ten years sentences in prison against four executives of the company. That’s kind of a blow to his thesis, don’t you think? Not telling his readers that part is misleading, at best.

    On Page 3, he discusses the Pequot insider trading case. Note that the time period he’s discussing is 2005. You might remember who was president at the time. You won’t get an argument from me that the Bushies were too loose on policing things. However, once again, Taibbi fails to tell the whole story. Once the administration changed, the SEC went back and investigated Samberg some more. Last May, they settled and Samberg paid a $28 million fine. Once again, don’t you think Taibbi might have mentioned this part?

    He admitted no wrongdoing, though. This is a very serious problem, but it doesn’t stem from lax enforcement. It stems from the fact that insider trading is excruciatingly difficult to prove in court. You have to be able to show that the defendants not only talked to each other, as Taibbi shows, but you need to PROVE that they discussed the insider information. Suspicious timing doesn’t cut it. Seeing the quo doesn’t get you to the quid. You need to be able to document the actual conversation, and show what was said. In almost all cases, that can’t be proven.

    On Page 4, he talks about AIG and Joseph Cassano. He goes through the decision not to charge Cassano with anything, but he never actually mentions why that decision was made. The problem with trying to prosecute disclosure cases is that you need to able to prove not only that what the defendant said was false, but that he knowingly lied. There’s no way to prove that, because Cassano pretty clearly believed what he was doing was safe long after he should have known better. (It’s also pretty clear that Cassano didn’t understand the products he was trading, and so it would be extremely easy for him to make a case that he didn’t realize they were false statements.)

    Further, once again, the timing is important. Taibbi’s story starts in the summer of 2007. By that time, AIGFP had stopped writing CDS for about a year. They were trying to hedge away a lot of their exposure. (Again, this doesn’t prove that Cassano knowingly lied; what scared them wasn’t the likelihood of the deals going bad, but rather their magnitude. They may well have known the probability, too, but that’s not documented. So, no proof.) At that point, AIG was already doomed and there was no way to save it. If Joseph Cassano did violate disclosure rules in the fall of 2007, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference in aggregate. Specific investors who bought AIG shares after that point might have a case for having suffered losses, but the only difference would have been which investors took a bath. If it’s provable, it’s still worth going after, but it falls well short of Taibbi’s implication that it led to the crisis.

    Then he goes after Dick Fuld. The first part is on the RSUs that may have concealed the amount of compensation Fuld was receiving. Here, Taibbi even tells you why there was no prosecution, and then ignores what he just said. The Lehman lawyers crafted their 10-K very carefully so that it was misleading, but also within the law. They gave the figure for Fuld’s compensation. They just buried it. That sort of technicality is pretty important in establishing a criminal case.

    Then he discusses the Repo 105s. The problem here is that Lehman did, technically, follow the accounting rules. (Something else Taibbi might have mentioned.) If you post more than 102% of the value of a repo loan as collateral, the guidelines TELL you to treat it as a sale. Lehman was posting 105%, hence the name of vehicles. If you want to prosecute anyone, you need to do it on the grounds that, while they technically followed the accounting rules, they misled investors by using so many of the repos that it was misleading. Again, that’s a ridiculously hard case to make in court. The defendants have the technicality of the law on their side. About the only people I think are prosecutable here are the folks at Ernst & Young, who grossly failed in their job of keeping track of how much money was being shuffled around.

    On Page 5, he discusses a few more cases without mentioning the problems with prosecution. Then, he says something very revealing. He points out that DOJ did prosecute people from Bear Stearns for its collapse. In Taibbi’s words, “Yet the case still somehow ended in acquittal — and the Justice Department hasn’t taken any of the big banks to court since.” The evidence against the people at Bear Stearns was significantly stronger than anything investigators had on the other parties Taibbi talks about. Taibbi doesn’t seem to recognize, or at least he’s pretending not to recognize, the very good reason no more prosecutions were brought. You can add to this the failure of the prosecution of Henry Samueli for backdating options. It’s not because they don’t want to prosecute. It’s because they don’t want to waste taxpayer money on prosecutions they believe will fail. Taibbi’s amazement that the case ended in acquittal, if it’s real and not feigned, stems from the fact the he doesn’t understand what he’s talking about, and doesn’t realize how hard it is to prove guilt to the level needed for a conviction.

    There are some very real problems at the SEC. It’s badly underfunded, but good luck changing that in this environment. The revolving door Taibbi rails about is pernicious, though I think it says more about the lack of funding and how underpaid SEC lawyers and accountants are rather than the direct corruption Taibbi alleges.

    In the end, as is usually the case when Matt Taibbi writes about matters financial, he does not know what he is talking about. He is interested in an entertaining rant, but he seems to have zero interest in helping his readers understand what is going on. He omits key details in order to provide misleading accusations. He really doesn’t understand the law involved. It bothers me intensely that so many people around here think that he is someone to turn to for reporting on this issue. He’s fucking wrong. My ire isn’t, as is usually asserted, that he says, “Fuck,” a lot. It’s that he’s a poseur who is lying to you.

  144. 144.

    MikeJ

    @J. Michael Neal: I’m going to file this away for next month’s eruption of Taibbi inspired erections here.

    He’s oh so very angry! He must be good!

    Bleh. Taibbi is one of the few I dislike more than Jon Stewart.

  145. 145.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Nicole:

    Cause and effect. The woman in question does not have the slightest clue as to how that works. Unions CREATED all these “worker rights” that the parasite overclass wants to eliminate. That’s why they’re gunning for unions.

    These people are simply stupid.

  146. 146.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    @J. Michael Neal: If, by sheer dint of patient explanation and dogged argument, Wyldpirate ceases to be a witless prat, your name shall be read out in triumph.

  147. 147.

    jl

    @Brian H:

    From your link to the unhinged and very bitter Will diatribe:

    “This capital has been convulsed by government employees sowing disorder in order to repeal an election. A minority of the minority of Wisconsin residents who work for government (300,000 of them) are resisting changes to benefits that most of Wisconsin’s 5.6 million residents resent financing.”

    [my emphasis]

    Will offers up the last bit with no reference.

    From We Ask America automated poll Feb 17 2011 of 2397 Wisconsin residents

    Question: “As you may know, Gov. Scott Walker has proposed a plan to limit the pay of government workers and teachers, increase their share of the cost of benefits, and strip some public-employ unions of much of their power. We’d like to know if APPROVE or DISAPPROVE of Gov. Walker’s plan.”

    APPROVE: 43.05 percent
    DISAPPROVE: 51.90 percent
    UNCERTAIN: 5.05 percent

    Wisconsin residents also want the fleeing Democratic Senators to come back and duke it out, by 56 to 37 percent.

    Weirdness in Wisconsin
    admin | Feb 18, 2011
    http://weaskamerica.com/2011/02/18/weirdness-in-wisconsin/

    Edit: I guess somebody could call up the WaPo and make a fuss about Will fabricating (once again). But the self righteous and vicious dingbat Will would have a tantrum and nothing would come of it.

  149. 149.

    J. Michael Neal

    @jl: I like the idea of locking Taibbi and Will in a small room, and Taibbi can’t come out until he’s beaten the shit out of that bow tie wearing liar.

    Then Taibbi gets arrested for battery. It’s a win all aorund.

  152. 152.

    Pat

    That coincides nicely with this morning’s NYT article of how the unions are becoming “frayed” out there.

    It looks like the New York Times is on the Koch payroll as well.

  153. 153.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    @asiangrrlMN: No low growling in Peter Panic. Anything tougher sounding than Belle and Sebastian will make your skinny-jeaned fanboys cry.

    If you dress like that second hipster chick you’re going to need a security detail. Not to worry, we all look like brutes. (But not Yutsano’s type of brute. Think bear.)

  154. 154.

    sherparick

    Well, I guess Pat Wellnitz, I guess the woman quoted at the end of the article, will find out how long those laws last once Unions have gone and basically it will be Chamber of Commerce repealing all those laws to bring back the idyllic days of the late 19th century, things like no overtime, the 12 hour day, and the six day week (I doubt the theocrats will allow them to go to the seven day week).

  156. 156.

    4jkb4ia

    It appears that he did talk to some people who didn’t approve of taking collective bargaining rights away. Another good point, which he might not have put in, was that private unions have made concessions in the state.

    In general, though, you have to hope that Heir to Sulzberger has a better ear now than when he reported on Ike Skelton-Vicky Hartzler and the only people he interviewed were crusty old guys who “don’t know that Hartzler girl”.

  157. 157.

    4jkb4ia

    @J. Michael Neal:

    Cheers loudly in general.
    Appears to recall that Khuzami made an appearance in that Taibbi article asking bankers to cooperate in turning people in. But general ineptitude of the SEC was what you could learn from that article. Obama would only be to blame for appointing Shapiro, and that would be second order because of the funding issues.

    (Amazon is trying to interest me in “Griftopia”. Even from the book’s own publicity, Taibbi is the reason to read it more than anything he has reported on)

Comments are closed.