Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

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

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Not all heroes wear capes.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Infrastructure week. at last.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

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

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

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71Comments

  1. 1.

    Phyllis

    Happy Wednesday, y’all. Going to ride my bike in a bit, run a few errands, then settle in with Keith Richard’s autobiography. Promises to be a hoot.

  2. 2.

    murbella

    Moving slow this morning for some reason.

    its your crushing burden of hypocrisy.

  3. 3.

    stuckinred

    Draggin ass after a great weekend in Champaign-Urbana. Being with people that you hung with 40 years ago is amazing but, damn, time is harder on some than others.

  4. 4.

    Montysano

    @ stuck

    but, damn, time is harder on some than others.

    I consistently find that it’s been harder on others than it’s been on me. Funny how that works.

    Champaign-Urbana, huh? I went to school just across the state line in W. Lafayette, IN.

  5. 5.

    JGabriel

    Finally, a Democrat who doesn’t apologize for blunt language:

    In an interview with The Star-Ledger of Newark, published Sunday, Mr. Sweeney called the governor [Chris Christie] “a bully and a punk,” “a rotten bastard” and a few other names, including at least one best left unrepeated.
    __
    “I wanted to punch him in his head,” the senator said.
    __
    […]
    __
    “Maybe my language was beyond what it needed to be,” Mr. Sweeney said Tuesday. “But I’m not apologizing.”

    Of course, it might have been better if Sweeney learned this before compromising with Christie and screwing his own constituents, only to have Christie screw him over anyway — because that’s what Republicans do:

    In paring the budget to $29.7 billion, Mr. Christie’s vetoes eliminated $1.3 billion in spending, most of it for schools, Medicaid and aid to cities. But he also cut much smaller items favored by Democrats, like programs to help abused children and provide legal aid to the poor.
    __
    […]
    __
    The vetoes were especially hard to take, Mr. Sweeney said, coming just days after he, Assembly Speaker Sheila Y. Oliver and other Democrats took the risk of breaking ranks with most of their party and siding with the governor on the employee benefits bill. Labor unions, a key Democratic constituency, vowed revenge and started an advertising campaign attacking Mr. Sweeney.

    .

  6. 6.

    stuckinred

    Montysano

    Yea, this was a hard partying tribe and some of it is certainly long term life-style choices. That tavern life is a bitch.

  7. 7.

    Keith G

    Just had a egg white omlette taco™ as an reward for my early morning run at a nearby high school track – as I try to keep my 50’s from defeating me. Time to get ready for work.

  9. 9.

    RossInDetroit

    Stiff and slow this morning from hard work yesterday. Today will be more of the same. Hoping for some rain to break the 90 degree heat. Moving furniture in a stuffy upstairs is pretty exhausting.

  11. 11.

    gene108

    What would you have eaten if you had not run?

    I’m sick of food. We’re in the 21st century. I think it’s time they distilled all the nutrients and calories we need into pills, so we don’t end up screwing ourselves with food.

    I mean seriously isn’t the 21st century a let down? No silver unitard jump suits in style. No flying cars. No space bases on the Moon or Mars.

    And what do we have instead? iPhones, the internets and the Google…

    Really, some trade off…space bases versus our current access to nearly unlimited quantities of porn…

  13. 13.

    J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford

    I love the “She loves her veggies” sidebar ad with the hot blonde woman attempting to deep throat the foot long cucumber.

  15. 15.

    Bob

    OK, I know this topic has been discussed a lot, but I must ask.

    Let’s say Obama ignores the debt ceiling cap and says that he preferred a compromise, but the GOP has forced his hand. He is constitutionally obligated to pay our bills.
    At that point how do people object? To test the constitutionality of the debt ceiling statute, someone must sue. I assume that ends up being some Tea Bag group. Doesn’t suing to force default make the R look even more crazy? Seems like win – win to me.

  16. 16.

    bkny

    christie has apparently gone on vacation … man, what a nasty piece of work he is. gotta wonder what groups tormented him as a child…

  19. 19.

    RossInDetroit

    I mean seriously isn’t the 21st century a let down? No silver unitard jump suits in style. No flying cars. No space bases on the Moon or Mars. And what do we have instead? iPhones, the internets and the Google…

    Taking this somewhat seriously, innovation in the private sector is driven by maximum profit. If jet packs, videophones and houses under the ocean were more profitable than iPods, SUVs and Ed Hardy we’d have them already. In a capitalist consumer society progress is determined by what we’re willing to give up the most profit for.

  20. 20.

    RossInDetroit

    @Bob:

    Let’s say Obama ignores the debt ceiling cap and says that he preferred a compromise, but the GOP has forced his hand. He is constitutionally obligated to pay our bills.

    Tomasky discussed this in a column and he seems to be for Obama ignoring the debt ceiling and forcing a constitutional crisis over it.

  21. 21.

    JGabriel

    gene108:

    I mean seriously isn’t the 21st century a let down? No silver unitard jump suits in style. No flying cars. No space bases on the Moon or Mars. And what do we have instead? iPhones, the internets and the Google …

    And flat screens.

    Honestly, the internets and flat screens are pretty cool. If we had to choose between the internets and flying cars, I’d have chosen the internets.

    I wish we’d hurry up with interstellar travel and alien conact, though.

    On the other hand, maybe we should wait on the alien contact. Republicans would probably call them illegal and declare war on them.

    .

  24. 24.

    4tehlulz

    @Bob: Congress objects by impeaching Obama and Geithner and refusing to pass a budget for the next fiscal year. I would be surprised if Cantor’s staff isn’t already laying the groundwork for impeachment.

    Not saying that Obama shouldn’t do it if it comes to that, but those are the likely consequences. Legal action would be a nuisance compared to that.

  26. 26.

    RossInDetroit

    Murdoch’s papers in Britain:

    How are they able to do that? Who all has or is being hacked?

    Apparently they got into various people’s voice mail accounts and listened to messages. In the case of the missing girl they deleted messages in order to make room for more. Scotland Yard says they’re looking at EVERY high profile case over a span of some years, searching for signs of the media tampering with voice mail accounts. It’s considered to be a widespread practice.

  27. 27.

    Bob

    @RossInDetroit

    Tomasky discussed this in a column and he seems to be for Obama ignoring the debt ceiling and forcing a constitutional crisis over it.

    Good article. Although I don’t think it should be considered a “Constitutional Crisis”. It’s a Constitutional Crisis when the Constitution does not provide any remedies for a legal conflict, or an official ignores the Constitution. In this case it is a leader falling back on the constitution.

    @4tehlulz
    Perhaps they will try to impeach, but if the courts rule the debt. ceiling law was unconstitutional, on what grounds will they impeach? Impeach him for doing what they claim is so sacred? Following the constitution?

  28. 28.

    NobodySpecial

    JGabriel:

    Let them. Any species intelligent enough to cross the stars and find us is probably smart enough to figure out which ones are the troublemakers.

  29. 29.

    PaulW

    Doesn’t feel like Wednesday, does it?

    The Reply option btw isn’t showing on existing posts…

    Also, I would like to shamelessly promote a new epublished short story… ;-) “The Hero Cleanup Protocol” published via Smashwords, currently available on B&N Nook and should be available very soon on Sony Reader, Kindle, Kobo, iBook and other ereader retailers. Priced at .99 per copy. Cover art by Mike Rooth!

  30. 30.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    Moving fast this morning. Installed the cams on my motorcycle head, noted the valve shim numbers and lash, using that info to calculate the amount needed to be ground off of each valve stem. Once I had that data then disassembled it all so I can take five of the valves to the machine shop for length resizing. I decided to install new valve guides/seals and have the valves ground (valve job) since I’ve put 23,000 miles on it since the last one. When the valve faces and seats are ground, more valve stem is sticking out of the spring side of the head. The lash (air gap) between the cam and valve is set with numbered shims that come in .00197 inch increments. After this valve job the shims are near the bottom (thinnest) and I need to reposition the lash back in the middle of the shim range. Thus the pre-fitting and checking of everything prior to final sizing and assembly. Boring stuff for many but I like the exacting nature of machinery.

    Unlike politics, with machinery you can make shit work that actually does something good for you. :)

  31. 31.

    Mark S.

    TPM had a list of the seven biggest fails of the campaign so far. I missed this one:

    Newt Gingrich: Obama Is So Bad, Black People Will Vote Republican

    Darn, actually reading it, it’s not as awesome as I thought it would be:

    “The morning they [African-AMericans] believe that, you’re going to see margins in percents you never dreamed of decide there’s a better future,” Gingrich said.

    He just meant he’d get 5% of the black vote instead of the traditional 3% Republicans usually get.

  32. 32.

    scav

    Another fun thing about the News of the World / Murdoch hacking scandal is that only now have companies woken up and are pulling their ads. Aldi is the latest according to the Guard. The ad revenue slippage is also apparently the thing that dragged the ChiTrib into paying attention @mdash; the simple outrage of tampering with evidence in a police investigation didn’t even push them over the edge. Final straws are falling upon final straws. Might get generally interesting as I can’t quite see them pulling off the one bad apple at one bad media company in one bad country (etc) defense.

  35. 35.

    Linda Featheringill

    stuck up at the top somewhere

    time is harder on some than others

    I always figured that time was harder on me than on others in my age cohort. On the other hand, I have been noticing in the course of my [medical transcription] work that lots and lots of people seem to just fall apart at age 60. Maybe I just look old. My innards seem to be working fine.

    My client facility is in the US Southwest. Some commenter on BJ once mentioned 60 being the new 70 in the SW. Don’t remember who it was. Maybe he had a point.

    Late getting down to work today. The furry overlords got me up early. Then EVERY ONE OF THEM promptly went back to sleep. Fie! So I took a nap.

  37. 37.

    geg6

    Another fun thing about the News of the World / Murdoch hacking scandal is that only now have companies woken up and are pulling their ads.

    I saw a fun thing about this burgeoning scandal on the CBS Morning Show. They were interviewing Hugh Grant about this (he was a victim of the hacking, apparently) and all the anchor kept talking about was the journalistic integrity (or not) of the News of the World (no mention of the owner). And all Hugh wanted to talk about was that it was all about Rupert Murdoch and his media empire and Rupert Murdoch and his bought and paid for politicians and Rupert Murdoch. The anchor guy was shell shocked that Murdoch was being trashed, by name and numerous times. When he finally regained a little composure, he shuffled ol’ Hugh right off. I never thought I’d find myself doing this, but I stood and gave Hugh a standing ovation in my sun room.

  38. 38.

    handsmile

    SouthernBeale, cathyx, RossinDetroit:

    As you may well know, the Guardian newspaper in July 2009 first broke the story of the phone and voicemail hacking of celebrities and politicians by Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid “News of the World”‘.

    At the moment, the Guardian’s virtual “front page” (link below) has a summary of breaking events on the story, e.g, PM David Cameron has agreed to public investigative inquiries, families of victims of the July 7 bus bombing may have been hacked, etc., as well as a useful timeline of the unfolding scandal. There is also a link to the original July 2009 article.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/

    Because of the revelation that the investigation of a child’s murder may have been compromised by NoW’s illegal practices, this story has now exploded in Britain, with widespread condemnations across the political spectrum. Most tellingly, major corporations have pulled advertising from NoW.

    Given Murdoch’s media/political clout in this country, I (like SouthernBealed) will keenly and skeptically watch for domestic reporting of this scandal. As the US media environment lacks the fiercely competitive relationship among British newspapers, it’s difficult for me to see any news organization here going up strongly against Murdoch.

  39. 39.

    dmsilev

    Started reading Charlie Stross’s new novel yesterday. As you might expect from a work titled _Rule 34_, he Is Aware Of All Internet Traditions. On roughly page two, a cop is telling his superior officer that a dead body has been discovered and “it looks like it’s going to be a two-wetsuit case”. Awesome.

  40. 40.

    gene108

    Taking this somewhat seriously, innovation in the private sector is driven by maximum profit. If jet packs, videophones and houses under the ocean were more profitable than iPods, SUVs and Ed Hardy we’d have them already. In a capitalist consumer society progress is determined by what we’re willing to give up the most profit for.

    True.

    In most sci-fi futures the Communists would’ve either won, pushed us more towards socialism, and/or still exist in a significant way to counter-balance capitalism.

    Red Beans a and Rice sho would be nice!

    No cooking! Just take a breakfast pill and be done with it. Gods I’ve become lazy :-)

    Honestly, the internets and flat screens are pretty cool. If we had to choose between the internets and flying cars, I’d have chosen the internets.

    (1) We should have holographic T.V.’s by now. I’m not talking about 3-D, I’m talking about you being enclosed in a virtual environment with the story taking place all around you and immersing you in the environment.
    (2) A Jetson’s flying car, that collapses into a brief-case would do wonders for solving any problems I have with parking, when I go to NYC or Philadelphia.

  41. 41.

    suzanne

    @ Montysano:

    I consistently find that it’s been harder on others than it’s been on me.

    Me, too. I find that it’s been exceptionally hard on those people who thought they were the shit in high school. Reaffirming my belief in karma, at least of a sort.

    Damn, that dust storm we had last night was amazing. Except, in the middle of it, I decided I wanted a cannoli. So I went out and drove to the store down the road to get one. I missed hitting the downed tree, but someone behind me wasn’t so lucky. I suppose driving with visibility down to almost nil wasn’t the wisest thing I’ve ever done. Cannoli was good, though.

    I don’t wanna go to work today. Arrrrgh.

  43. 43.

    liberal

    @RossInDetroit:

    Another intriguing method is for the Fed to just wipe out some of the Federal debt it owns, thus lowering the total debt out there. (Mentioned by Dean Baker, supported by Ron Paul for reasons I can’t figure out.)

  44. 44.

    bob h

    Any possibility the UK Newscorp phone hacking scandal extends to the US (hope, hope).

  45. 45.

    Gin & Tonic

    They were interviewing Hugh Grant

    It’s juvenile of me, but every time I see him I still can’t get past the idea of him getting a blow job in his car from some skanky cheap whore — while he was dating/married to (can’t recall) the uber-hot Liz Hurley. What a moran.

  46. 46.

    jeffreyw

    @Han’s Solo: Copy the code in the comment on that thread last night, Click on options on stylish in the add ons manager, click on new style, paste the code into the box, give it a name (BJ reply fix?) then click save–should be good to go

  47. 47.

    keestadoll

    Interesting local article this morning regarding a local tribal council and its shutting down a newspaper that it subsidizes. Lots of local angst over how the tribal council is undermining the First Amendment. Question: how closely are tribal constitutions/charters modeled to the USC? Must they model them on the USC at all? Do USC rights/laws supersede tribal laws? I’ve never thought about this before and I’m curious as to how it works.

  48. 48.

    burnspbesq

    @handsmile:

    Even if no other media outlet in the US covers the story, you can be certain that the New York Daily News will be all over it.

  49. 49.

    Keith G

    @stuckinred: Possibly lowfat granola and a banana.

    I miss the days when I rolled out of bed 15 min before leaving – no maintenance required.

  52. 52.

    Linda Featheringill

    suzanne #41

    dust storm

    I forgot you were in Arizona.

    Dust storms [like that one] worry me. The monster is carrying along tons and tons of topsoil stolen from land upstream [?]. Dust storms do deposit all this soil somewhere else but by then it is totally dry and totally sterile and totally useless. Not like a flood picking up topsoil and depositing it along a river bed or something.

    One more step towards desertification. Bah.

  54. 54.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Linda Featheringill: Loess is some of the richest farmland in the world.

    Bad from where it comes from, good — eventually — for where it lands.

    Circle of life and such…

    (Reply button kludge working flawlessly, btw)

  55. 55.

    stuckinred

    jeffreyw

    The weather for big reunion we had on the 4th was very tolerable.

  60. 60.

    handsmile

    burnspbesq #48):

    Your lips to God’s ears and all that…but, strangely, NYC’s two tabloids largely maintain a kind of detente on issues of journalistic malpractice within each paper. Latest example: the News’ muted response to the defamation lawsuit filed against the Post by the hotel housekeeper in l’affaire DSK.

    One would be shrill to imagine that such editorial sangfroid might be related to the cozy social relationship enjoyed between Mort Zuckerman, publisher of the News, and Mr. Murdoch in the swankier boites of Manhattan and Washington and the woodland antics at Bohemian Grove.

  61. 61.

    4jkb4ia

    via Chris Hayes, EW, and the twitter: Dawn Johnsen weighs in on Libya and the OLC in Slate

    Points in article:
    No, Koh is not as bad as Yoo.
    This is an aberration from general regard for rule of law in the Obama admin
    When you are going to disregard DOJ advice, have formal process–meet with the head of OLC–instead of filtering it through WH counsel. Ackerman is skeptical about OLC–wants a commission–and times like this is when that does not work well
    Part of why Koh is not as bad as Yoo is that Obama has not said that Congress cannot constrain him period. He has not come out and said that WPA is unconstitutional. Congress has the power to brake what Obama is doing/fix the ambiguity.

  62. 62.

    4jkb4ia

    I have Safari so none of this reply button code is going to work. I have to dig out what Steeplejack did for it originally.

  63. 63.

    4jkb4ia

    @39:

    Front-paged in print copy of NYT today. NYT has every reason to hate Murdoch because he has stated his intent to bring them down repeatedly.

  66. 66.

    scav

    Linda F. Grumble about dust storms all you like but loess is an aeolian sediment: it blew there.

  67. 67.

    handsmile

    4jkb4ia (#63):

    Thanks for the heads-up! I haven’t staggered downstairs yet to pick up this morning’s fishwrap.

    Also, just as a courtesy, couldn’t you come up with an easier-to-type handle? :)

  69. 69.

    murbella

    In case n/e one is interested it looks like we will be leaving Iraq in December. al-Iraqiya bloc just lined up with Muqtada.

    * MP: Al-Iraqiya with the Sadrists on US withdrawal
    JULY 6TH, 2011 06:05 AM · POSTED IN NEWS (IRAQ & WORLD CURRENCY)
    06/07/2011 14:58 Baghdad, July 6 (AKnews) – An MP from the al-Iraqiya bloc said today that his party supports the Sadrist’s in their strident opposition to an extension of the U.S. troop stay.
    Itab al-Dawri told AKnews that al-Iraqiya, headed by former prime minister Ayad Allawi, not only demands the departure of U.S. troops but it also calls for financial compensation and an official apology.
    “The U.S. forces displaced 7 million Iraqis and left 5 million orphans and 2 million widows, according to international reports, and all MPs of the Iraqiya list agreed on refusing the extension of the presence of the troops,” she said.

    Maliki will cave now.
    Kiss those fab airbases goodbye!

  71. 71.

    MonkeyBoy

    @dmsilev:

    Started reading Charlie Stross’s new novel yesterday … Rule 34

    Thanks for the tip. My local library system has 4 copies currently “in processing” with 7 holds on them already.

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