Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Come on, man.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

… gradually, and then suddenly.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

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

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Bark louder, little dog.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

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Monday Evening Open Thread

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(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)
__
Stolen from the comments, great bumper sticker:

Bipartisanship — I’ll hug your elephant, as soon as you kiss my ass

ETA: Commentor Omnes Omnibus claims gets his hard-won, well-deserved credit for the sighting. Commentor & locker-room historian Ronzoni Rigatoni says the originals dates back to at least 1952.

Apart from class warfare, what’s on the agenda for this evening?

Reader Interactions

84Comments

  2. 2.

    Calouste

    I see from the adverts that Google is adhering tightly to their “do no evil” strategy by cobranding themselves with FOXNews.

  3. 3.

    lamh34

    so I see over at TPM that Ralph Nader is gonna primary Obama. So I guess the primary Obama crowd can rejoice now.

    Anyhoo:

    It’s official: `Don’t ask don’t tell’ is history

    It’s over: The United States Army has become the first branch of the armed services to formally end its “don’t ask don’t tell” policy. An announcement is expected for tomorrow, but my Post colleague Ed O’Keefe obtained the actual document sent to soldiers around the globe today announcing the change…

    Separately, the military has begun accepting applications from openly gay recruits. Though there wasn’t any serious doubt about the policy being officially repealed, some gay activists had remained guarded until the end. “Seems this is for real,” John Aravosis noted with relief today.

    It’s easy to forget this — after all, repeal passed Congress and was signed by the president a full nine months ago — but even when repeal seemed within reach, success was anything but assured. It only came after a nearly pitch-perfect effort by Obama and the military leadership to create the political conditions necessary to bring about repeal, as well as well as some very shrewd public and private gamesmanship by Senate leaders that left GOP moderates with little choice but to do the right thing. It will be endlessly debated whether Obama and Dems did this in response to outside pressure, but the fact is, they did it…

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    @BGinCHI:

    Just class warfare. Who has time for anything else?

    Class warfare. That’s when the seniors haze the freshmen, right?

    (Orientation week here; we’re drowning under a tidal wave of confused larval freshmen and enough helicopter parents to reenact the Ride of the Valkyries scene from Apocalypse Now)

  6. 6.

    dmsilev

    Thought this was amusing. Via TPM, apparently to at least one Teahaddist, John Boehner is a soshalist:

    “Well, John Boehner is a socialist. I’m not calling him names,” said Lewis, in response to Cavuto’s rebuttal that the bill Boehner voted for was already doomed. “Here is someone that refuses to phase out Social Security.”

    (Lewis is attempting to primary Orange John)

  8. 8.

    AxelFoley

    @lamh34:

    so I see over at TPM that Ralph Nader is gonna primary Obama. So I guess the primary Obama crowd can rejoice now.

    That old worthless fucker gonna register as a Democrat? Cause last I checked, he was a member of the Green Party, IIRC.

    Notice how this piece of shit bastard always does what he can to try to hurt Dems. In 2000, he only attacked Gore, leaving Bush alone. Now, instead of going after the GOP field, he decides to try to primary President Obama.

    Whatever, you old sack of shit. It’s time to put the bastard out of his misery.

  15. 15.

    James

    @AxelFoley:

    What a hateful little shit you are. Nader is probably one of the finest Americans who’s lived in the past century. Since when did wanting to participate in the electoral process make one a ‘piece of shit’?

    Besides… Obama’s got the primary and re-election on lockdown. Chill out, queef.

  16. 16.

    scav

    @lamh34: Ok, Quick change of plans for the evening: Do Ask, Do Tell and Do Drink. Ha!

    And to repeat my OT comment from the last thread, looks like Deep Springs is going co-ed. Probably not high-ranking on the class-warfare index, scoring perhaps rather higher on the crumblings of social order index — but then again, really, DS is more of a bastion of social oddity. Still, reason enough to spring for a slightly less cheap bottle of wine.

  18. 18.

    MikeBoyScout

    I regret I will be unable to join the class warfare until after I have finished hanging the new curtains.

    Yes, yes, I understand the class warfare is very important, but I’m not the one in this household who sets the priorities.

  19. 19.

    AxelFoley

    @James:

    What a hateful little shit you are. Nader is probably one of the finest Americans who’s lived in the past century. Since when did wanting to participate in the electoral process make one a ‘piece of shit’?
    Besides… Obama’s got the primary and re-election on lockdown. Chill out, queef.

    Fuck both you and Ralph Nader, bitch. And fuck your mother while we’re at it.

    That old fuck, and his asshole supporters like you, helped give us 8 years of Bush, and put us in the fucking hole we’re still trying to climb out of.

    That bastard isn’t trying to participate in the electoral process, and you damn well know it, assmunch. He’s trying to screw over the Democrats once again.

    Go chew on a dick.

  20. 20.

    MikeJ

    @cathyx:

    It’s only evening in some parts of the country.

    I decided 3:30 was late enough to start drinking.

    @James: The union busting piece of shit can DIAF for all I care.

  21. 21.

    Professor

    Now please put me out of my misery: who advised the Democratic Party to take an ASS as their emblem? Even the Puritans did not want to pronounce the word ‘ASS’ so they invented Donkey to replace it!

  22. 22.

    Southern Beale

    My day today: clean up cat vomit. Clean up pieces of a baby bunny the cat caught and the dogs decided to munch on. Wash quilt after cat tossed hairball onto it. Try to cook red beans & rice for dinner after one of the dogs ate most of the andouille sausage (culprit to be determined later, if you know what I mean. You can run, you can’t hide the stinky farts.)

    Anyone want a dog or cat?

  23. 23.

    BGinCHI

    @MikeBoyScout: As long as class warfare is on your to-do list, that’s fine.

    You can’t stick it to the man if your wife has you in the doghouse.

    That’s fucking axiomatic.

  24. 24.

    harlana

    reposting from a previous thread for the purpose of class warfare:

    This encapsulates for me what is wrong; most depressing comment ever:

    She began to cry. “I never understood why there were so many food pantries and why people couldn’t just get on their feet and get going, but now that I’m in it, I fully understand,”

    you don’t get it until it personally affects you in a negative manner. it has to personally wreck your life first for any of this to register. where is your God, people?

  26. 26.

    joes527

    @MikeBoyScout: Oh yeah … curtains. Sure.

    Trying to prevent anyone from looking through your window and seeing your counter tops I suppose?

    It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

  28. 28.

    lamh34

    Alright, the FALL TV SEASON starts today for us TV addicts…yay! New shows premiering tonight: “2 Broke Girls” on CBS, “The Playboy Club” on NBC, and “Hart of Dixie” on CW. I’m gonna check out “2 Broke Girls” it looks like it might be good.

    Returning shows tonight: “How I Met Your Mother”, “Two and A Half Men” &”Hawaii Five-O” on CBS; “Dancing With The Stars” and “Castle” on ABC; and “Gossip Girl” on CW. I’m looking forward to “How I Met Your Mother”, I like that show and I did watch “Two and A Half Men” with Charlie Sheen, but I only gonna give the new version with Ashton Kutcher a chance if I like the first 2 episode.

  33. 33.

    russ

    so I see over at TPM that Ralph Nader is gonna primary Obama. So I guess the primary Obama crowd can rejoice now.

    Kinda like $2.00 gas.

    Both sides do it!

  34. 34.

    scav

    @BGinCHI: Besides, if we all immediately man les barricades at the same time, there’ll be no-one left for the second and third shifts. Plus, the traffic will be terrible if all arrive at once. Staggered deployment should handle both problems. And who’s handling childcare and snacks for the troops? Do we have enough cobblestones and are they from ecologically sustainable sources?

  35. 35.

    wrb

    @Tom Levenson:

    Class warfare: it’s what’s for dinner.
    (Who can afford beef?)

    Just talked to a guy who drives water truck.

    “My total hours over the last four years don’t amount to one year’s worth and now Obama’s going to tax us 65%”

  36. 36.

    James

    @AxelFoley:

    If I’ve ever voted for Ralph Nader there’d have been some serious electoral fraud going on. He is however ‘a rad dude’ when one takes the totality of his life and his work in perspective. I may not agree with everything he’s done, but Sweet Supply-Side Jesus, you’re fucking angry about nothing.

    Lolling at ‘Nader Supporter’ and all the death threats. Stay classy ‘progressives’, stay classy.

  37. 37.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @wrb:

    “My total hours over the last four years don’t amount to one year’s worth and now Obama’s going to tax us 65%”

    Oh, I can just imagine the radio that guy listens to in that truck….

  39. 39.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @wrb:

    It seems like there’s lots of people out there who can identify the problem, but not who to blame for it.

  40. 40.

    Spaghetti Lee

    Delicious rotini for dinner. Then class warfare. Everyone else in town will be watching the Rams, so I should be able to wreak it unnoticed.

  42. 42.

    Ronzoni Rigatoni

    hahaha The bumper sticker is from an old poem I found in a “Locker Room Humor” Booklet back in c. 1952, to wit:

    The election is over,
    The results are known,
    The will of the people
    Is clearly shown.

    Let’s forget all our conflicts;
    Let bitterness pass.
    I’ll hug your elephant.
    You kiss my…donkey.

    LOL I have never forgotten it after all these years LOL

  43. 43.

    MikeBoyScout

    @22 BGinCHI:

    I did try and put the 2 chores together by offering to fight the class warfare the way the Russians fought Napoleon’s Grande Armée in Moscow in 1812 by burning the old and the new drapes, but that suggestion was met with a firmly disapproving look.

  44. 44.

    MikeBoyScout

    Was the stupidness formerly known as Netflix discussed yet?

    I think O and Team D could score a win by coming out against it with a proposal for Big Gubermint intervention. You gotta fight teh stoopid with teh stoopid.

  49. 49.

    Roger Moore

    @harlana:

    you don’t get it until it personally affects you in a negative manner.

    That’s the difference between an old-fashioned conservative and the new “compassionate” kind. A compassionate conservative is actually capable of exhibiting sympathy for others, but only for people whose problems they have some personal experience of. Old-school conservatives aren’t even capable of that.

  50. 50.

    Felinious Wench

    I’ll participate in the class uprising tomorrow. Tonight, my book club is meeting for cheap wine and fondue and discussing The Hunger Games.

    Viva la revolucion!

  51. 51.

    LanceThruster

    The GOP would be far less disastrous if their ignorance was not in reverse proportion to their certainty.

  52. 52.

    Phylllis

    @harlana: I live in the part of the South where folks love to talk about Jesus, and what he said. Most of them get it all wrong, all the fucking time. And they get real mad when I say, “Jesus didn’t say that. Double-check your New Testament. What he said isn’t hard to find, since it’s all in red, you moron“.

    Thanks. I feel better now.

  54. 54.

    aimai

    Nader? Really? Well, first time tragedy/Second time Farce. That has to be the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. Nader is the equivalent of the guy in the Monty Python sketch who goes to his job placement interview and insists that he can be a Lion Tamer because he has the correct hat. He has no constituency and pretty much never did. Ron Paul has a better lock on the nutty libertarian youth vote. And any other political activist who is really active and older than their twenties has to know that Nader is all hat and no cattle. He’s a disgusting person whose best actions and only real source of name recognition is so long ago in voter years that it might as well have taken place on the moon two centuries ago. Nader…who? is the only right response.

    PS: I take this personally because his sister is actually a well known Anthropologist and so I feel tremendous sympathy to her for having to own this piece of shit as her brother.

    aimai

  55. 55.

    aimai

    @Roger Moore:

    That’s a horrendous article Harlana links to. I highly recommend it to everyone, but if you read it be prepared to take a good, stiff, drink afterwards. Its that grim.

    aimai

  57. 57.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @dmsilev: Helicopter parents. Heh. My P’s put me on an airplane across the country and that was it until I phoned home (collect, of course) that evening. The first time they saw my college was Graduation Day.

    I broke down as far as to help my kid move his stuff into his dorm room.

  58. 58.

    Jess

    Here’s the bumper sticker I like/want:

    “Freedom isn’t free, so stop whining and pay your taxes!”

  59. 59.

    Corner Stone

    @AxelFoley:

    Fuck both you and Ralph Nader, bitch. And fuck your mother while we’re at it.

    Good God. Please, someone, please tell me you’ve heard from FlipYrNick recently and he’s ok.

  61. 61.

    suzanne

    Got rear-ended on the way to work this morning. And the get-paid-for-30-while-working-40-OR-MORE! thing continues. Going to take it easy and be suzanne +1 or maybe even +2 tonight.

  62. 62.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @James:

    Nader is probably one of the finest Americans who’s lived in the past century.

    Well, yes, but isn’t interesting how a couple of bad later career moves can wreck everything that came before (See Mel Gibson, Charlie Sheen).

  63. 63.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @Southern Beale: No, don’t want a dog or cat, but I’d love a lesson in cooking red beans and rice. It doesn’t come out right here in the Northeast, no matter which recipe I use.

  65. 65.

    James

    @Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:

    So he should be burned alive? Or reason to crack jokes about how my mother should be raped? Some shit involving animal cruelty? Not that you said any of these things, but they were said.

    I thought it was quite noble the way he chose to stand up for Bradley Manning and Wikileaks during the judiciary commitee meetings on the subject. As I said, when looking at the totality of his works, he’s a pretty rad dude. The way he gets blamed for the fact Kerry was an abject failure is quite honestly absurd to me.

    It’s quite sad how quickly people will piss and shit on someone for not living up to standards they themselves are incapable of reaching. Moreso when they seemingly run afoul of some bizzare and unwritten dictum on ‘how one should participate in the political process.’

    America would be worse off had the man never lived.

  66. 66.

    gelfling545

    @Jess: My favorite for a long time was “Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?” but your idea could be my new favorite

  71. 71.

    Ruckus

    @Anne Laurie:
    Listening to people tell me that they are having a hard time screwing over their employees and living on 400K after all expenses does tend to raise the ire a bit. As well as some clown talking about ralph asshole nader being one of the greatest americans ever? Yeah, ire is up to about 82 right now. When it gets to 100 I’m going to sell.

  73. 73.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ruckus: Don’t sell now; hold on to your ire. Buy my new book “Ire:36,000” in which I explain that ire will reach, you guessed it, 36,000.

  74. 74.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    The actual problem is that my ire keeps getting reloaded. As soon as I find a quiet, dark place to hid in for a couple of hours and it gets back down to somewhere about 30, some moron comes along and zoom back up it goes. The chart looks like a roller coaster ride, up, down, up, down… It’s making me a little nauseous. I’m looking for a conservative to throw up on.

  75. 75.

    BGinCHI

    @Ruckus: When I was a lad we could afford no ire, but had to settle for scot or taffy. Either way it was tepid but we loved it for we were modest folk.

  76. 76.

    Ruckus

    @BGinCHI:
    Taffy I know, what is scot?

    I can’t afford ire either but it seems to show up just when I least want it to. It seems I have to take it on cause, you know, just because. Then I have to work extra to pay it back down. I’m tired from all the extra work but that seems to be my lot in life. If I lived in WV, I’d be a coal miner, if I lived in Rotterdam I’d be a longshoreman, if I lived in Siberia I’d just be fucked. And not in the good way.

  78. 78.

    Paul in KY

    @James: If I ever see Ralph Nader, I will probably try to strangle him.

    He is a megalomanic weirdo who should spend every remaining day of his worthless life apologizing for gumming up the works back in 2000.

  79. 79.

    Paul in KY

    @wrb: I hope you chuckled at his remarks & said ‘Hey millionaire water truck driver, it is time you rich people paid your fair share’.

  80. 80.

    Paul in KY

    @DP: I saw one last week that said ‘John Galt 2012’. I thought: ‘Yeah, dumbass, write his name in!’.

  81. 81.

    Paul in KY

    @James: No, we would be better off. The Corvair wasn’t that bad of a car, it was just that Americans weren’t at all used to driving a car with a rear mounted angine, that made the car weighted towards the back.

    Plus we would have had President Gore.

  83. 83.

    Gravie

    I had to laugh bitterly at that cartoon, having just read a letter to the editor in the Washington Post yesterday that begins:

    “My husband and I operate our own jobs program. So far, in 2011, we have hired painters, plumbers, electricians, landscapers and carpenters. We have installed new carpeting and some new cabinets, and we upgraded several appliances. With the exception of replacing the washing machine, the projects we undertook were not critical but enhanced our home and our lives.If our taxes are raised to fund President Obama’s jobs program, jobs programs like ours will disappear.”

    The utter cluelessness of calling one-shot home improvement gigs a “jobs program” is bad enough, but the fact that the letter writer lives in Potomac, Maryland, where the median income is $160,000/year, is … well.

  84. 84.

    Death Panel Truck

    @James:

    ‘a rad dude’

    A “rad dude”?

    Seriously? I haven’t heard anyone say “rad” since about, I don’t know, 1986 maybe? And when they did they were usually completely shitfaced.

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