Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Bark louder, little dog.

We still have time to mess this up!

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

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

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

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

Republicans in disarray!

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

In my day, never was longer.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

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Saturday Morning Open Thread

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Mark Twain is supposed to have said “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” If you like a little acid on the tongue to kick-start your day, here is “The Collective” of Esquire’s Political Blog on fearmongering in politics:

All in all, it was one hell of a good week for fear. National Public Radio decapitated itself because a pasty-faced little charlatan — who, by all rights, should be shucking crawfish in a Louisiana prison farm — faked another tape, and an NPR executive got caught telling the truth about the Tea Party in such a way that would agitate anyone’s chamomile. Since the Republicans in Congress once again have NPR in the crosshairs, the executive got fired and the CEO got tossed out a window.
__
But NPR was not alone in being scared out of its Dockers by legions of misinformed elderly people….

Dave Weigel at Slate reports that The NPR Sting’s “Racist Tea Party” Comment Was Taken Out of Context… based on an analysis by Glenn Beck’s website The Blaze. Yes, Glenn “Rodeo Clown” Beck thinks O’Keefe has gone too far in the pursuit of his agenda. Truly, these are strange days, my friends.

Although, cowardly as they may be, at least the NPR suits are unlikely to be soiling themselves over the rumor that Michelle Obama has murdered Captain Crunch.

Reader Interactions

43Comments

  3. 3.

    Viva BrisVegas

    I still don’t get it.

    In a private conversation Schiller calls, or maybe refers to, teabaggers as xenophobic racists.

    For this he and his boss are sacked.

    In what universe are teabaggers not xenophobic racists?

    Is this some winger version of political correctness? Where racists can no longer be called racists, but are now to be referred to as the “tolerance challenged”.

  6. 6.

    kansi

    I simply don’t get it! NPR isn’t the only one to jump the gun on these guys (I’m lookin’ at you, Tom Vilsack.) When the full, unedited tapes come out, it’s always obvious they have slanted everything.

    Dude says he knows NPR’s Schiller believes tea partiers are racist, when it turns out he was quoting what other people had said to him while describing the current GOP?

    How do these lowlifes keep getting away with such blatantly shoddy and deceptive “newsgathering?”

  7. 7.

    kansi

    Okay, so now I read the second link about Cap’n Crunch and my had has already exploded for the day. Thank you very much!

  8. 8.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @kansi:

    How do these lowlifes keep getting away with such blatantly shoddy and deceptive “newsgathering?”

    And how does Walker not resign after the Beast prank?

  11. 11.

    Yevgraf (fka Michael)

    I just want to thank Balloon Juicers. I turned on the tube to CNN and just watched footage of American relief efforts and discussions about the humanitarian problems. Similar stuff on MSNBC. Had it not been for the Tsunami thread, I wouldn’t have known of the meltdown, and that sent me to the always more reliable BBC, Guardian, Sky News and Sydney Morning Herald sites.

    God damn it, journalism in this country sucks ass anymore.

  12. 12.

    JPL

    @kdaug: Now I’m hungry. I will plead not guilty to the Captain Crunch charge. I live in a Captain Crunch free zone.

  14. 14.

    Elizabelle

    Here’s something to really get behind. Combat that negativity.

    Bob Herbert column today, “The Master Key.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/opinion/12herbert.html

    The American people are watching what’s happening in Japan and elsewhere. Good timing for this initiative. Drum up support. Play to our better angels, for a change.

    Herbert:

    Senator [John] Kerry will introduce legislation next week to create a federal infrastructure bank — officially, the American Infrastructure Financing Authority — to provide loans and loan guarantees to large, essential infrastructure projects. The loans will be seed money used to leverage other sources of funding.

    “These are strictly loans — not grants — for commercially viable projects,” the senator said. “The federal government does no more than 50 percent of the loan. We expect that to leverage $600 billion or so in infrastructure investments over time.”

    Mr. Kerry said the initial cost to the government would be $10 billion. ….

    Herbert: We’ve moved so far from that forward-looking, can-do philosophy of prior eras that there is a danger that we really are incapable of preventing the nation’s infrastructure from deteriorating further. We’ve seen how catastrophic that can be. New Orleans was all but lost for want of an adequate system of levees and floodwalls. Thirteen people were killed in the rush-hour collapse of the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. [Natural gas pipelines and our roads are more dangerous than they should be.]

    … I sometimes try to imagine New York City without its subways, or the United States without the interstate highway system. Those kinds of projects could not be built today. Try to imagine life in the 21st century without the Internet. Imagine if we had never gone to the moon.

    I would guess that 70% of sane Americans are ready to rally around something positive. They see the banksters raking it in. Why can’t our government fund some long-term investments that will improve life for all of us and CREATE SOME JOBS.

    We need to make some progress or just give up. And giving up, increment by increment, is what the oligarchs and their puppets like Scott Walker are counting on.

  15. 15.

    JPL

    @Elizabelle: This article has a similar theme andpoints to the Republicans as the naysayers. link

    The opinion piece is titled No silver lining in GOP’s clouds and is worth a read.

  17. 17.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Elizabelle:
    @JPL:

    This is something about which have been wondering for a while now. I graduated from high school in 1982, throughout my childhood there seemed to be funds to pay for sports, art, music, school trips, and all sorts of other things. Why have people decided that we can’t afford to pay for a good education? Decline happens because people give up an accept second an third rate results. How do we turn that around?

  18. 18.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Omnes Omnibus:Despite the typos evident in my plaintive comment, I did actually receive a good education. I suppose that is what I get for rereading a comment after the time for editing has expired.

  19. 19.

    debbie

    Since the category is Assholes, I’ll contribute this:

    Yesterday, the brilliant Governor Kasich proudly announced that for a mere $16,000,000 in tax breaks, he’s gotten a business who was never really going to leave Ohio for Texas to instead move from Columbus to a wealthy suburb only 20 miles away. Not only did the governor not require that the company create any new jobs in return for the tax breaks; he didn’t even ask them to promise not to eliminate any of the already existing 315 jobs.

    Brilliant fiscal policy!

    My math tells me this works out to more than $50,000 per job. The company makes sausage. Those must be some well-paid employees!

  21. 21.

    Ija

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    It’s one post per week on soccer and that’s too much for you? How about just not reading it? I’m not a fan of cute pet pictures and cute pet stories, but I don’t go around complaining about them, I just don’t read them. The blog is not an assignment, you don’t have to read every single post.

  22. 22.

    debbie

    There’s an article in The Dispatch, but I like this one better (and it’s got a link to The Dispatch if you insist):

    http://www.plunderbund.com/2011/03/10/kasich-defends-moving-bob-evans-out-of-columbus-by-citing-population-loss-in-our-cities/

    The company is Bob Evans. My father ran the ad agency that did their campaigns back in the 1960s. I guarantee that that company was never going to leave Ohio. Plus, they’re moving from Columbus to New Albany, about 20 miles away. Columbus (with its Democratic mayor) is losing tax revenue, while New Albany, the domain of a very white-bread, corporate mentality, is gaining the revenue. Ohio gets absolutely nothing in the process, which I guess for Kasich is another win-win!

  23. 23.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Ija:

    I think it’s his way of saying that he doesn’t have a life.

    That’s my take on it and I’m sticking with it.

  26. 26.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @debbie: So Bob Evans is leaving it’s cute little complex on S. High St for New Albany? That’s fucked up. You are that right, that company was not going to Texas.

  27. 27.

    Mike in NC

    @Elizabelle:

    Why can’t our government fund some long-term investments that will improve life for all of us and CREATE SOME JOBS.

    I read yesterday that the small government Republicans in South Carolina want to create jobs by establishing a new state agency modeled on the US Border Patrol, solely dedicated to tracking down and rounding up illegal aliens. This brand new agency will have its own bureaucracy, vehicles, uniforms, etc.

    Remember, SC is one of those incredibly backward southern states where half the children live below the poverty level.

  29. 29.

    Vishnu Schist

    Reprinted in full, my email to NPR on the whole firing bullshit and the robo response. What a pack of assholes at NPR. I’d like to punch them in the neck.

    My email:

    I am extremely disappointed that the NPR Board has forced out Ms. Schiller. I have been a contributor to NPR for 20 years and cannot fathom why this organization is so afraid of any controversy or any “appearance” of “liberal bias”. If the intent of the board to to avoid the destruction of National Public Radio, they are doing a very lousy job. It is this type of cowardly action that will turn off long term supporters such as myself. Good lord, have some courage, stand for something. This politically correct nonsense that goes on is nearly intolerable. From the firing of Juan Williams to this. You want to avoid liberal bias? Quit pandering to the worst characterizations of so called liberals, of being weak. You want to not seem like liberals? Act like conservatives then and tell your critics to jump in a lake. I’m not sending my hard earned dollars to what I perceive as one of the few worthwhile media outlets in this country only for them verify every criticism that is leveled when the chips are down.

    The brain dead robo response:

    Thank you for taking the time to write to us. I want to address the developments of this week and assure you that NPR remains unwavering in our commitment to the highest standards of journalism and public service. On Tuesday, a video of a lunch meeting featuring individuals posing as potential funders and two NPR fundraisers was posted online. Later in the week, an additional audiotape was released. The comments contained in the video are contrary to everything we stand for and we completely disavow the views expressed. NPR is fair and open minded about the people we cover. Our reporting reflects those values every single day — in the civility of our programming, the range of opinions we reflect and the diversity of stories we tell. The assertion that NPR and public radio stations would be better off without federal funding does not reflect reality. The elimination of federal funding would significantly damage public broadcasting as a whole. Ron Schiller, the former NPR fundraiser featured in the video, tendered his resignation well before the lunch meeting occurred and his resignation was announced prior to the video being posted. He was intending to stay with NPR through May 5. The day the video surfaced, we mutually agreed that he would leave NPR effective that day. Betsy Liley, the other NPR employee who was featured in the video, was placed on administrative leave that day. On Wednesday, the NPR Board of Directors announced that it had accepted the resignation of Vivian Schiller (no relation) as President and CEO of NPR, effective immediately. Board Chairman Dave Edwards said: “The Board accepted Vivian’s resignation with understanding, genuine regret, and great respect for her leadership of NPR these past two years.” According to a CEO succession plan adopted by the Board in 2009, Joyce Slocum, SVP of Legal Affairs and General Counsel, has been appointed to the position of Interim CEO. The Board is in the process of establishing an Executive Transition Committee to develop a timeframe and process for the recruitment and selection of new leadership. NPR employs hundreds of stellar journalists who have dedicated themselves to bringing you the most comprehensive, intelligent, and incisive journalism possible. As you’ve seen in our recent Mideast coverage, they are risking their lives to bring you the facts you need to make informed decisions about global events. Throughout all of this, the excellence of our coverage has endured – and is as strong as ever. If you have supported NPR in the past, I ask that you continue that support. We need you to be our advocate now more than ever. If you have not been a listener, I ask you to tune in and listen to the work we do and judge the quality of our programming on its merits alone. I also urge you to contact your local station with your messages of support – to convey your personal belief in their work, and your financial support for what they do every day to serve the unique needs of your community. NPR’s management is completely independent of that of your local station. Changes in the management of NPR, and indeed all NPR management decisions, are independent of your local station’s operations. I thank you for sharing the passions you obviously feel about these difficult developments

    TO NPR: FUCK YOU!

  30. 30.

    James E Powell

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Why have people decided that we can’t afford to pay for a good education?

    I wonder how many of the people who vote regularly have children in public schools. My sense is that the people who are outraged about the costs of public education, including but not limited to teachers’ salaries, are outraged at the costs of educating other peoples’ children.

    I also think that there is no real consensus on what comprises a ‘good’ education or how ‘good’ an education other peoples’ children deserve.

  31. 31.

    Liberty60

    From a friend of mine on Facebook-

    Earthquake followed by radioactive release in Japan today… We are one step closer to our final battle with Godzilla than I previously imagined…

  34. 34.

    Jay in Oregon

    @debbie:

    My math tells me this works out to more than $50,000 per job. The company makes sausage. Those must be some well-paid employees!

    Those numbers can’t be right. We’re talking about sausage, not public-school teachers.

  36. 36.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @James E Powell: My very conservative grandfather, the kind of conservative who believed that the only thing Nixon did wrong was to be too loyal to his subordinates, always voted for school levies and never complained about the cost of educating the children of others. He would say old people had paid for the cost of educating his children, and it was only fair that he pay to education the children of others in return.

  38. 38.

    JWL

    If Captain Crunch could survive his 1978 arrest for possession of child pornography, nothing Michelle Obama can do will ever cost him his job.

  39. 39.

    James E Powell

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I’m not sure that our personal experiences with our families and friends can give us the whole picture, but my parents (Depression/WWII generation) are just like your very conservative grandfather. But my parents are not Rush Limbaugh Republicans.

    My Republican brothers and sisters, and their neighbors (Boomers who love Rush), are constantly bitching about the injustice of paying taxes for services that they do not need or use.

    At the same time, invading and occupying countries that were never any threat to the U.S. remains very popular with this group. So maybe I’m missing something.

  41. 41.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Vishnu Schist:

    NPR is completely and totally useless. As someone else pointed out once it’s initials ought to stand for “Nice and Police to Republicans”. NPR isn’t an alternative to corporate radio, it’s just alternative corporate radio, as witness their opposition, based upon nothing more than fear of competition, to licensing low power FM stations..

    NPR management is more concerned with seeking the approval of David Brooks and his ilk than it is in actually being any sort of objective news network.

  42. 42.

    jl

    @Ash Can: late to this thread, but I don’t think Beck is anyone’s to lose. I read that Fox is concerned that Beck has wandered a little too far into crazytown and may not renew his contract. I think you will see Beck’s thought ‘evolving’ back somewhat towards his CNN incarnation, which was a combo of facile ‘center right’ general purpose concern troll, and near crazy (as compared to batshit insane) conservative.

  43. 43.

    El Cid

    @Vishnu Schist: Due to the seriousness of your e-mail criticism, the remainder of NPR’s executive staff have resigned just in case anyone criticize them for not doing so.

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