Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Let me file that under fuck it.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Giving up is unforgivable.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread

Reader Interactions

56Comments

  1. 1.

    superking

    So, Sully is moving over to the daily beast. Hopefully Tina Brown will take him down with her when Newsweek finally shuts down. In any case, do you all think his contract calls for them to pay all his homunculi that do the tough daily work of posting reader photos and music videos from the 1980s? I’d hate to think the Conor Friedersdorf will go unpaid for all the cover he runs for the right.

  2. 2.

    joe from Lowell

    The morning hosts on a Boston radio station ran a contest this morning, “Charlie Sheen or Charles Manson,” in which they read quotes and the caller had to guess which Charlie it was from.

    Nobody could get it right.

  6. 6.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Is it just me (probably not) or has Charlie Sheen seriously lost it?

    How could Senator Stilson’s son go so wrong?

  8. 8.

    geg6

    While I agree with the NYT article, I really don’t know how else CBS could have dealt with Sheen. Do they own the show and, thus, have control over the star or his contract? I don’t know the issues with that. But if they didn’t own the show and the contract didn’t have anything in it about morals or such things, they did what they had to do. Eh, I should just shut up about this since I don’t know enough to make a decent argument either way.

    What I do know is that I saw the interview with Charlie Sheen on the Today Show this morning. He’s still on coke, no doubt about it. I know the look. He has it. Not to mention that everything out of his mouth was completely delusional. He’s special. He has “tiger blood,” whatever the hell that is. CBS is out to starve his children. He can cure himself because his mind is so on another plane than other people’s, you know…those less than special people. He will take CBS down and Paramount down and they will be known as the Charlie Network and Charlie Studios. He’s insane.

    I really, really, really feel for his dad, his children, and his siblings. They must be mortified and scared out of their minds for him.

  10. 10.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Mr. Sheen said that recovery programs are for losers and said that he had somehow managed to cure himself of the scourge of addiction “with his mind.”

    Sounds a lot like a certain former Commander in Chief who deserted from the Air National Guard, doesn’t it?

  11. 11.

    Zifnab

    Gots ta get me some Charlie Sheen coverage. Otherwise we all might forget Wisconsin is in full-blown protest mod. :-p

    (Not disparaging BJ, but it’s amazing that Sheen is getting an interview on 20/20 when you’ve got revolutions in Egypt, Libya, and Wisconsin. Thought this reddit summed it up nicely – http://imgur.com/a/hoTkt)

  13. 13.

    Zifnab

    @geg6:

    He will take CBS down and Paramount down and they will be known as the Charlie Network and Charlie Studios. He’s insane.

    He was a cash cow. CBS isn’t suffering the least for employing Sheen.

  14. 14.

    Gin & Tonic

    @geg6:

    I really, really, really feel for his dad, his children, and his siblings. They must be mortified and scared out of their minds for him.

    I can’t help but be reminded of the role his dad played in “Badlands” with Sissy Spacek, based on the spree killer Charles Starkweather. It was a chilling performance, and I think Sonny is coming close to living that path in real life.

  15. 15.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Zifnab:

    Well, the thing is, the focus groups for programs like 20/20 tell them that they’ll get the best ratings with stuff like Charlie Sheen interviews, because people LOVE to look at wrecks on the northbound lanes of the freeway while they’re traveling in the southbound lanes.

    As opposed to actual information about the world, be it in Egypt, Libya, or Wisconsin.

    Since ratings are their premiere concern, at all times, they’ll go with Sheen. That it’s helpful politically for the parasite overclass to divert attention from protests against them in those places is a bonus, but these are Ferengi Controlled Infotainment Networks. The latinum comes first, always.

  16. 16.

    Kermit

    ‎”I won best picture at 20. I wasn’t even trying. I wasn’t even warm”

    ‎”AA was written for normal people people who aren’t special people that don’t have tiger blood and Adonis DNA”

    Good stuff.

  17. 17.

    PaulW

    the word for the day is

    insane

    as in, “the Florida legislature is working on a bill to make it illegal to photograph cows and farms. meanwhile there’s 12 percent unemployment, our houses are worth crap, the governor is a crook and this is all INSANE.”

    how else can you use the word insane in a sentence?

  18. 18.

    General Stuck

    I hate republicans, and Google, for accidentally deleting my main email account. They both are evil and a menace to society. That is all, for now.

  19. 19.

    Mnemosyne

    It’s definitely a “thing” in entertainment that a lot of people will protect you and make excuses for you as long as you’re making money for them. One of the reasons Mel Gibson hung on for so long even after drunk driving, anti-Semitic comments, and beating up his girlfriend was that he had a longtime agent who protected him. When that guy died, though, the agency couldn’t drop Gibson fast enough.

    IOW, it’s not that much different from the excuses that people make for abusers in other industries, but it all happens on a much grander and more public scale.

  21. 21.

    Alex S.

    I guess that one day, Sheen looked at his bank account, realized that he now had enough money to do whatever he wants for the rest of his life, and then decided to do it.

  22. 22.

    Sly

    Krugman on the lack of media coverage of the labor protests:

    I don’t watch cable news, or actually any kind of TV news. But I gather that there’s a virtual blackout on the huge demonstrations in Wisconsin, except on Fox, which portrays them as thuggish and violent.
    __
    What that makes me think of is January-February 2003, when anyone watching cable news would have believed that only a few kooks were opposed to the imminent invasion of Iraq. It was quite spooky, realizing that hundreds of thousands of people could march through New York, and by tacit agreement be ignored by news networks whose headquarters were just a few blocks away.
    __
    And it’s even more spooky to see it happening all over again.

    I lived in D.C. for nearly six years, during which I witnessed protests against the IMF/Worldbank and Bush II’s inauguration. They generally had two things in common: the first was the size of the protests, generally entailing tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people, and the second was the absolute lack of substantive coverage by any national media outlet.

    The lack of coverage of the Bush protests was particularly glaring. The Washington Post did some minor coverage, but it was mostly human interest pieces and tucked away in the local section.

  23. 23.

    MikeJ

    So if you’re accused a crime you should be fired?

    It’s understandable that insulting his boss got him fired. If you find that remarkable, try it out today. What is remarkable is that people think employers should deny a living to somebody who whatever his personal problems is still able to deliver the product.

    Next thing you know people will call the firing of programmers who smoke pot on the weekend.

  24. 24.

    ajr22

    “i’m tired of pretending im not a bitchin rockstar from mars”

    “ya i’m on a drug, it’s called Charlie Sheen”

    “I’m a Warlock”
    #Sheengems…This dude has blown by the Tyson zone.

  25. 25.

    General Stuck

    Sheen says he cured himself with the power of his mind. Becoming the first crazy person to do this, well, maybe the second to Glen Beck.

  26. 26.

    MikeJ

    @Mnemosyne:

    It’s definitely a “thing” in entertainment on earth that a lot of people will protect you and make excuses for you as long as you’re making money for them.

  28. 28.

    Kryptik

    @Sly:

    Especially galling when miniscule Tea Party protests get national attention to absurd levels. And CNN ends up giving a glowing 2 year anniversary special coverage.

  29. 29.

    Mnemosyne

    @MikeJ:

    So if you’re accused a crime you should be fired?

    Sheen was convicted of a crime just six months ago and sentenced to 30 days in jail. And it wasn’t even close to the first time.

    If we’re going by what most employers would do, most employers would can your ass if you went to jail. But Sheen was making too much money for CBS to fire him even after that.

  30. 30.

    ericblair

    @Sly:

    I lived in D.C. for nearly six years, during which I witnessed protests against the IMF/Worldbank and Bush II’s inauguration. They generally had two things in common: the first was the size of the protests, generally entailing tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people, and the second was the absolute lack of substantive coverage by any national media outlet.

    Yep, I live in the area too. IMF/Worldbank protests are considered part of the traffic report, like trackwork on the Metro so you can avoid delays. What actually happens in this protest is None Of Your Business.

  31. 31.

    Bulworth

    Especially galling when miniscule Tea Party protests get national attention to absurd levels. And CNN ends up giving a glowing 2 year anniversary special coverage.

    Well, since Faux news was sponsoring the teabag rallies they kind of had to cover them a lot.

  33. 33.

    MikeTheZ

    @Alex S.: That is called “Fuck you money”

    @Kryptik: What is galling is the most coverage the protests had was when the teabagger were there as the headliners despite being outnumbered thirty to one

  34. 34.

    piratedan

    well out here in the great southwest, the Arizona Lege is in the process of passing a nullification bill which states that the State of Arizona can effectively choose to ignore any federal laws and regulations that it finds offensive or not applicable. All this is being spearheaded by Russell Pearce, the “mastermind” behind AZ SB 1070 which brought you state sanctioned racism. Southern Arizona legislators attached to the bill a rider that stipulates that once it passes both houses that the Pima County Board of Supervisors then has the right to separate from the state and seek legal redress by “rejoining the union” by forming their own state government.

    http://www.blogforarizona.com/blog/2011/02/baja-my-friend-is-blowin-in-the-wind.html

    Viva Baja Arizona!

  36. 36.

    General Stuck

    Was just listening to a wingnut propagandist on MSNBC citing a new poll flogged by The Hill on how the public will blame dems and not repubs for a government shutdown. I thought wow, sounds like a Rasmussen Poll, so I went to The Hill to find out, and learned the poll was done by an outfit called Pulse Opinion Research. Turns out that POR is actually a Rasmussen ninja outfit spinning the same bullshit right wing polling as the mother ship.

  37. 37.

    geg6

    @Zifnab:

    Well, I didn’t say they did. This is all his words, not mine.

    And I hate to tell Charlie, but both Paramount and CBS will still be there when he’s long gone, which should be about next month.

  38. 38.

    Linda Featheringill

    @piratedan:

    Viva Baja Arizona!

    Oh, my! Oh, that would be fun to watch.

    I wonder if the NE corner of Ohio could secede from the Columbus Gang? Cool!

    From my seat far away from Arizona, I suspect that the silly bill will pass both houses and be signed by their wonderful governor. Then, we can see what happens.

    Of course, if Pima County can secede, other counties could too, right? Might have to hold a county-wide referendum or something. Hmmmmm . . . . .

  39. 39.

    Kryptik

    @MikeTheZ:

    Amazing, isn’t it? IOKIYAR strikes again, good and hard, huh?

    @General Stuck:

    Of course, look how much Rasmussen’s polling has ended up becoming the conventional wisdom, precisely because it’s the only poll that ALL news outlets seem to cite and love. It…really makes me depressed about where the issue is going to go, precisely for this reason.

  42. 42.

    piratedan

    @Linda Featheringill: true Linda, there’s already competing facebook pages for Baja Arizona and the GOS chapter of Baja Kossacks are also agitating.

    It sounds like a pipe dream, but then again if the Rethugs can reshape Arizona into their own personal fantasyland by stating that they have the authority to thumb their noses at the feds, it stands to reason that if you’re being forced down that rabbit hole of logic that you can apply it to their own standards by stating that local trumps state.

  45. 45.

    4tehlulz

    I like how all the media navel gazing has somehow not discovered the possibility that Vatican Warlock Assassin’s last name being “Sheen” has a lot to do with it.

    I’m sure it’s just an oversight.

  47. 47.

    piratedan

    Yuma is a blend between less well to do retiree and a heavy hispanic base. It’s in the 7th Congressional district where Grijalva (The Progressive Caucus Whip I believe) was just narrowly returned to office. It’s more purple than Blue but scuttlebutt speculation is along the lines that folks in Santa Cruz County might be more inclined to sign up with Pima if the movement has legs. There have been rumblings for years that the money goes into Phoenix metro and rarely comes out, when it comes to improvement projects around the state, so that flavor is an undercurrent to the political realities that thee inmates are truly running the asylum.

  53. 53.

    wenchacha

    @srv: Absolutamente!

    All I can guess is that the high price of cable teevee is forcing more households to watch network fare and reruns on local channels. I never saw “How I Met Your Mother” or “Charlie Sheen and Two Fifths” until we dropped cable.

    I miss AMC and Colbert and Stewart shows. And I go a little nutty when I know Weeds and True Blood and Dexter are beginning new seasons.

    The Free Hand hasn’t given me the choice to pay only for the exact shows I want. It would probably be too much, anyway.

  56. 56.

    JWL

    I had no idea that he’s a women beater. Up until reading that little nugget of information, I’d more or less been entertained by the guy, in a “look at the man howling at the moon” sort of way.

    And he doesn’t consider himself a loser? What a loser.

Comments are closed.