Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

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

We will not go back.

Giving up is unforgivable.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

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

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

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

Accountability, motherfuckers.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

No one could have predicted…

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

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Reader Interactions

85Comments

  1. 1.

    soonergrunt

    This sucks! You suck!

    There. Now that that nonsense is out of the way, how is your evening, Miss Sarah?

  3. 3.

    Sarah, Proud and Tall - An awful writer (and an awful person) whom you should probably all agree to run out of town.

    @soonergrunt:

    I did spend seven hours weeping in the corner because james jordan doesn’t like me, but I have self medicated with vodka and valium and I appear to be able to face the world again…

    I’m watching old Doctor Who as part of my marathon attempt to watch all of the episodes in order – I’m up to The Daleks’ Master Plan, and it’s time for Katerina to die, so it’s a happy evening all in all.

  5. 5.

    Joseph Nobles

    I suspect Miss Sarah has been run out of better towns than this. When’s the last time you saw her in Buenos Aires?

  6. 6.

    jl

    Trolling for love in all the wrong places. Or maybe right place, BJers are suckers for that kind of thing.

    Now, whisper in our ear that the BJ commenters are deranged losers.

    John used to do that, but… seems like he just care that much anymore…. sniff…

  9. 9.

    SectarianSofa

    @jl:

    Trolling for love in all the wrong places. Or maybe right place, BJers are suckers for that kind of thing.

    Ha. I think I love everyone here today. (*sniff*)
    Probably just a migraine coming on. Does weird things to the brain.

  10. 10.

    No one of importance

    An awful writer (and an awful person) whom you should probably all agree to run out of town.

    Only if you agree to run thisaways, Miz Sarah. And I’d rather have funny than nice any day.

  11. 11.

    KCinDC

    I’ve been looking at the #occupydc, and I’m more surprised than I should be by the number of wingnuts there expressing outrage at the supposed violence of the protesters — they claim that videos show protesters “pushing a grandma down stairs” and “using children as human shields”, but you have to have the right video edit and secret decoder ring to see these events happening. They’re so outraged by the violence, in fact, that they’re repeatedly fantasizing about killing the protesters in various ways.

  12. 12.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Joseph Nobles:

    When’s the last time you saw her in Buenos Aires?

    That isn’t fair. You know damn well I can’t go back there since the thing happened.

    Edited for vague coherence.

  15. 15.

    MikeJ

    Has anyone upgraded to Oneiric Ocelot yet? Any trouble? Worth doing, especially if you already can’t stand and don’t use unity?

  16. 16.

    Suffern ACE

    @KCinDC:

    They’re so outraged by the violence, in fact, that they’re repeatedly fantasizing about killing the protesters in various ways.

    Well, I see my work here is done. The serfs are about to duke it out.

    With Love,

    Right wing noise machine.

  17. 17.

    cckids

    @suzanne: That is too sweet. My spouse used to give me all kinds of crap because I’d video or photog our kids falling asleep, or while they were checked out. Today (they are 17 & 19), they make us both sniff & say awwww.

    Enjoy your kids, at any & every age, cause time flies, whether you’re having fun or not. And before you know it, they’re on their way away from you.

  19. 19.

    SectarianSofa

    @MikeJ:

    Re. Oneiric Otterlots. I have 5 systems running it now (3 at work). Mix of 32 and 64-bit, laptop and desktop. Stable enough. I’m running Unity. The expected weirdness with that, but for me it’s been very stable.

    Worth it? Unable to assess. Could be unless you’re running 10.04 happily. I’m good with it.

  20. 20.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @MikeJ: I find your gibberish intriguing and would like to subscribe to your translator.

    (Got it with a quick Google. That is one hell of release name, I have to say. “Dreamy dwarf leopard” basically)

  23. 23.

    MikeJ

    @Yutsano: The new version of ubuntu linux has been out about a month. I never, ever update anything until it’s been out for a while, and my computer is still nagging me about it.

    However, I hate their default UI I and I don’t want to have to jump through all the hoops to get rid of it again. (I’m also the last person on earth to still use xdmcp every day, and again, I don’t want to have to wrestle with some half assed chooser they may install over my carefully crafted config.)

    So if they only thing they did was fuck up the UI even worse than before, I may continue to pass on upgrading. Or go back to slack and yell at the kids on my lawn.

  24. 24.

    SectarianSofa

    @MikeJ: I used SunOS before (it was Solaris) and fvwm back in the day, and personally I’m not very attached to desktop bling. (Slackware on floppies was my first Linux.) I’m ambivalent about Unity, though I like the shortcuts. I switch between Unity/Compiz and fluxbox (for when I want minimal).

    I hope Gnome figures out what they want to do with version 3. Ubuntu 12.04 may tip me away from ‘buntu if Unity isn’t compelling, but we’ll see.

  26. 26.

    SectarianSofa

    @SectarianSofa: On the other hand, they might be doing good things with the server version. Solid, good packaging, and good updates. I have a couple of those running at work. No worries with the UI there. Crossed my mind that it might be a good way to go with the DE of preference on a desktop. Install server, then add whatever X bits are needed for functionality.

  27. 27.

    SectarianSofa

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Heh. MikeJ’s fault. Talking about the controversial (for Linux elitists) but sometimes delicious Linux distribution Ubuntu, and the latest release, Tingly Pterodactyl, or Onanistic Onion, or whatever (those being pretend release/version codenames or aliases or what-have-you).

  28. 28.

    Yutsano

    @MikeJ:

    The new version of ubuntu linux has been out about a month. I never, ever update anything until it’s been out for a while, and my computer is still nagging me about it.

    This is not a bad idea. I’ve downloaded new versions of Firefox before it was a prudent idea and regretted the decision mightily. Even though it will squak at me to upgrade every. time. I. sign. on.

  30. 30.

    MikeJ

    @SectarianSofa: It’s just a pity to have to go through all that to get a usable computer. I switched to ubuntu since it was supposed to be the linux for the rest of them, and I thought it would be neat to see how easy it could be. Sadly it looks more and more like they’ve forgotten that you should make things as simple as possible, and no more simple than that.

    I understand wanting a ui for non hackers, but hackers are the ones that keep things running and it would be nice if they didn’t go out of their way to make our jobs harder.

    It does seem like we’ve been through this all before. Maybe the balance will come back with Precise Pangolin.

  31. 31.

    MsWimey

    Miz Sarah I luvs you and your splendiforous posts and havent viewed the bruhaha du jour that is running you outta town (I presume there is one). Sod the naysayers stay and laugh with (or at)us I dont care so long as I still get to read all about it.
    That said thats a bloody awful remix of Personal Jesus I’m off to freshen my ears with the original..
    Cheers!

  33. 33.

    Yutsano

    @clayton:

    What are the deviants going to do

    Oh we’re all quite deviant here my dear. I’m deviant. You’re deviant. Of course you are. If you weren’t you wouldn’t have come here.

    /Cheshire cat

  35. 35.

    SRW1

    Tech question.

    Firefox gives me the fits since I upgraded to 7.0. There seems to be a problem with loading sites as that f*cking whirly indicator for loading is whirling forever. During that time no other hyperlinks can be opened, neither in a ‘New Tab’ nor in a New Window’. Firefolx will open a new tab or a new window, alright, but it will just show an empty page and will forever pretend that it is connecting, i.e. the hyperlinks are effectively dead. Often that dysfunction continues even after I forced the first page to stop whirling and then tried to use the hyperlinks.

    From the obervation that the severity of this annoyance depends on the web site I am accessing, my guess is that it’s Firefox haveing a problem with scripting, though that is purely guesswork. As mentioned, BJ is by far the most problematic web site for this problem.

    Anybody have a similar experience and know what the source of the problem is. I am about ready to dump FF or give up on BJ.

  36. 36.

    Amir Khalid

    @SRW1:
    I have the same problems with certain sites e.g. heutzutage Daily Beast’s and LA Times’ blog servers often time out on me. Not techie enough to know of a solution, alas.

  37. 37.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @SRW1: I’m having all kinds of problems with the spinning beachball but I also added Last Pass and I suspect it may be part of the problem since it’s not just FF but Safari is slowed as well.

  38. 38.

    WereBear

    It was this kind of behavior that drove me away from Sadly, No! which I very much regretted, but the only browser that worked for me was some open source thing I’ve forgotten the name of, because it stopped working.

  39. 39.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Has anybody tried to read MoDo’s latest babblings?

    If no, don’t waste the brain cells or the four minutes of your life you’ll never get back.

    If yes, do you have a clue WTF her point is supposed to be? (Yeah, I know, it’s MoDo, but usually you can figure out what the point is supposed to be, even if it’s well-disguised, which is much of the time. But today’s thing on shoes — I have no idea why this stuff merits real estate on the op-ed page of the once-respected NYT.)

  40. 40.

    SiubhanDuinne

    By the way, the BJ or FYWP clock forgot to fall back an hour. Is confusing to track comments. Why isn’t that just an automatic thing, like my computer, iPad, BlackBerry, and at least two wall clocks?

    /auditioning for the vacant Resident Curmudgeon slot at 60 Minutes

  42. 42.

    Ivan Ivanovich Renko

    I am sitting in the Cleveland airport right now, on my way to South Korea–but I’m stuck next to a group of privileged firebaggers. Thank the gods I have headphones to close them out.

  45. 45.

    WereBear

    I just made a fool of myself, running out to get half ‘n’ half for my coffee… and the grocery isn’t open because it really isn’t 7 AM yet.

    Convenience store was open, but DOH! Note to self; adjust clock in car.

  46. 46.

    Joseph Nobles

    I just had a nasty thought – Scott Walker may be looking for a job around GOP-vice-presidential-nominee selection time.

    ETA: Of course, Cain/Walker would make me laugh for three minutes, at least.

  48. 48.

    amk

    For the past week, I have seen the BBC staff (newsreaders / reporters) on teevee wearing some kinda pink/green leaf lapel pin. Anyone know what’s up with that ?

  49. 49.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @SiubhanDuinne: I just gave a quick look but honestly, shoes are the one subject that truly separate your major world genders, in my experience. Even the most non-girly female friends of mine seem to have this entirely different relationship to shoes, one that I don’t pretend to understand but can only ponder from afar. Thus, that article may be witty and right on the money about something or other but I’d never know.

    On the other hand, Ross Douthat has written the most pointless opinion piece in history this morning. Rough shorter:

    Liberals decrying hereditary aristocracies always want to replace these with meritocracies instead, but that’s no good either because people can be too smart for their own britches just as easily as too rich for their own smarts (Corzine, Democrat, etc).

    Republicans have overreacted to this Democrat idea by putting forward candidates who are actually dribbling imbeciles in a clinical sense, but that’sa no good either. What we need are people who are smart, but not too smart, that is, right in the middle. Because that’s the favorite place to be, always.

  50. 50.

    James

    OT (or is anything OT on an open thread? Rhetorical question…)

    Here is a really nicely written piece on the national drive by the GOP to suppress Democratic voters nationwide — and efforts by the Dems, albeit weak and probably ineffectual, to deal with it.

    AFP: Democrats target restrictive voter laws

    I haven’t seen that the major American media organizations have become aware of these efforts, and I intend to draw their attention to this piece. Hope others will do the same. If these laws stand, it’s all over. Preznit Cain. Vice Preznit Gingrich.

    Here’s the study that the piece refers to.
    Voting Law Changes in 2012 | Brennan Center for Justice

  51. 51.

    JPL

    @amk: If it is a poppy, it is for remembrance of those that died during the war..thanks to google

    November is the time of the year when we wear a red poppy in memory of those who sacrificed their lives for us during wars.

  52. 52.

    James

    More from that link:
    “In September, we told you about Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s attempt to prevent thousands of duly registered Colorado citizens from voting in this November’s mail ballot election merely because they failed to vote in a single election.
    (snip)
    “In Pueblo’s District Two, an area with a disproportionately high number of low-income citizens, inactive voters constituted 23 percent of the total voting electorate.
    (snip)
    Media reports indicate that as of Monday night, in Pueblo County, an astonishing 16 percent of the County’s approximately 17,000 “inactive voters” had cast ballots: a total of roughly 2,700 voters. This represented nearly 9 percent of all votes cast in Pueblo County.
    (snip)
    With the 2012 election looming, Secretary Gessler has indicated that he will continue to press for restrictive voting laws that would prevent registered voters who miss a single election from participating in elections unless they first submit to an administrative process to “reactivate” their status. ”

    Preznit Cain. Vice Preznit Gingrich.

  53. 53.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @amk: Yeah Armistice Day is Friday. At least I assume it’s Friday there too, it’s a national/bank holiday in France.

    Edit: Oh and it’s Veteran’s Day in the US. Didn’t realize.

  54. 54.

    JPL

    @James: But..the illegals might vote. The story won’t be covered because it doesn’t involve sex. The Supreme Court already ruled in favor of Citizens United so if the laws were challenged, I fear that they would decide only land owners could vote. At what point do we rise up and revolt. In FL a civics teacher was fined because she registered to vote those who were 18 or near 18 in her class.

  55. 55.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    I just gave a quick look but honestly, shoes are the one subject that truly separate your major world genders, in my experience. Even the most non-girly female friends of mine seem to have this entirely different relationship to shoes, one that I don’t pretend to understand but can only ponder from afar. Thus, that article may be witty and right on the money about something or other but I’d never know.

    Well, that’s the thing. I’m female and like shoes well enough, but if there’s anything witty and right on the money about anything, I’m just not getting it. Personally, I think there’s no there there.

    Agree totally about Chunky. I just hated to cite two NYT columnists in a single comment.

  56. 56.

    amk

    @James: mother of all democracies man. If you didn’t vote before, you can’t vote now. And of course, you can’ vote in the election after the next, since you didn’t vote in the previous election. Rethugs are venally great at it and dems are the usual lame-ass punks.

    Thanks JPL and Bill for pointing out some relevance there.

  57. 57.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @SiubhanDuinne: Well that’s what I would have guessed, seeing that it’s her, but good to get an expert appraisal.

    Re Chunky oh and I didn’t mean in comparison with hers, just as a general thing, but I think now we can claim that the two most pointless columns in history appeared side by side on this day. How nice for them.

  58. 58.

    El Cid

    Mommas, don’t let your baby grow up to be internet Republican straw polls.

    CHICAGO (Reuters) – Ron Paul was declared the winner on Saturday of a weeklong Republican presidential straw poll in Democratic President Barack Obama’s home state of Illinois.
    __
    Texas Congressman Paul won 52 percent of the combined 3,649 online and in-person votes cast between October 29 and Saturday evening. He won 66.5 percent of the votes cast over the Internet and 8 percent of those cast in person.

  61. 61.

    kay

    James @50,
    Can we please stop with the ‘weak and ineffectual’ stuff on voter protection?
    It’s not true.
    Democrats and allies bust ass on voter protection and have been doing so since at least 2005, when I got involved with it, so became aware of it.
    I don’t know what else we can do.
    We sue, in state and federal courts. We have
    huge teams of volunteer lawyers. We use
    every legal and grass roots tool to stop or
    mitigate these laws. We lobby state legislatures. There are ballot efforts right now in three states. There was a two day rally on it last week in Toledo.
    It’s huge. Thousands of people work hard at it.
    It’s neither ‘weak’ nor ‘ineffectual’.

    It’s just really discouraging to hear ‘weak and ineffectual’
    It’s now a national top-tier issue but that’s only because lazy media finally noticed.

  62. 62.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    but I think now we can claim that the two most pointless columns in history appeared side by side on this any day there’s any combination of MoDo, Bobo, Chunky Bobo, the Mustache of Understanding, and sometimes Bruni and/or Blow on the Op-Ed page of the NYTimes.

    There you go. All better.

  63. 63.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    I live in Georgia. Last I heard, the harsh new immigration laws had chased all the Spanish-speakers back to their foreign brown people Spanish-speaking homes, so no. And anyhow, why would illegals need luxuries like toilet paper, hmmm?

  65. 65.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    Yet though Modo, Bobo, C Bobo and TMofU may blow, neither that nor heat nor dark of night will stay me from reading them on my appointed rounds.

    There must be methadone of some kind right? Maybe that’s why John reads Sullivan so much. I’m thinking… Ezra Klein?

  67. 67.

    bemused

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    Add to the list Kathleen Parker. Booman pounces on her sly lies on “The Futility of Class Warfare” this morning.

    Friday I had Hardball on and had to chuckle listening to Chris Matthews. He developed a case of laryngitis after hawking his JFK book last week. He kills me. I doubt he has ever suffered a moment of lack of self esteem. He was so giddy with pride over his book, like a little kid, I was almost embarrassed for him.

  68. 68.

    scav

    @El Cid: Can we keep a teeny tiny small breeding population? They do add a little magic to the scene: it’s like being in a world inhabited by pixies or madcap little imps. Sure they turn the milk sour but then they pull out the stool from underneath our wisest aunt and down topples she, and “tailor” cries. I know it’s dangerous and maybe akin to keeping smallpox around but they’re just so darn cute when they’re small.

  70. 70.

    kay

    Actually, James, in my experience, the largest hurdle voter protection folks had to jump was rank and file upper middle class liberals and Democrats, who could not imagine not having a picture ID, and blew these laws off as minor.
    ID is a class issue. We had to convince our own side first, which took years.
    Politicians knew this was a problem. They know exactly who their voters are.
    It was rank and file Democrats who blew it off., for years.

  71. 71.

    James

    @kay: I take your point but I stand by my characterization. The Dems have no understanding of how to push their issues as a national concern. They are completely inept at messaging on a national level and have proven over and over that they are incapable of manipulating the national press as the GOP does.

    Instead of grousing and moralizing about the failure of the national press to take up their issues, a better way is to develop an effective strategy to make it an issue that the press will cover.

    A perfect example on a completely different issue, and a momentary look behind the curtain at what I am getting at is here:
    Why Push Weiner Out But Not Vitter?

    “There’s a simple reason for the difference. With Weiner, the entire Republican Party has leaned its shoulder into putting the Democratic Party in a box. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has gone on TODAY to demand Weiner’s resignation, while a top aide to House Minority Leader Eric Cantor has tweeted the latest developments in the story. By contrast, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee issued press releases for a week when the Ensign news first broke. But after that, Democrats let go… Republicans are much more disciplined at the drumbeat than Democrats have proven to be.

    That’s what I mean by weak and ineffectual. Sure, it’s great that lawsuits are brought — especially since the right has packed the federal appeals courts with conservatives when nobody was looking. Ballot efforts are great — for future elections, if they pass. Nothing, but nothing beats having your issues as one of the top concerns on the national level. Lead stories on the nightly news. Panels talking about it on Sunday bobble-fest. CNN talking about it all day long. Multiple leads all week long on front-page New York Times and Washington Post. Jake Tapper and Ed Henry asking urgent questions at the White House briefing. Multiple press conferences from Congressional leadership — daily and twice daily. That’s how the GOP does it.

    The two-day rally must have been exciting. Too bad nobody else heard about it. I rest my case.

  72. 72.

    James

    @kay: Kay, with respect to #70, I’m with you. On your page. But so what? You can philosophize all you want, but that doesn’t win elections. Rail all you want about class issues among Dems, so what? The time is over for Dems to be on their moral high horse about the press, to wring their hands about inter-party failings. It’s time to get over that, and develop an effective strategy that will make this voting thing a national issue that the media is talking about. Not just liberal blogs. Television. Punditry. Newspapers. Over and over. Like Weiner.

  73. 73.

    Suffern ACE

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    Liberals decrying hereditary aristocracies always want to replace these with meritocracies instead, but that’s no good either because people can be too smart for their own britches just as easily as too rich for their own smarts (Corzine, Democrat, etc).

    Well, at least those Republicans are trying to throw off those failed meritocrats via Michelle Bachman and other goofy candidates. There just simply isn’t any movement on the liberal side out there organizing around that, at least not one with as much virtue. Nope. Not at all.

  74. 74.

    kay

    James, the one and only reason you’re reading so much about voter supression is people stayed at it, FOR YEARS.
    That’s how long it took. Five years.
    I don’t know that there’s some marketing magic bullet for this shit.
    I don’t believe that.
    It’s a fucking long war, like everything else.
    I wish I believed it was a matter of better marketing. It would be easier.
    Anyway, we agree on voting rights, so that’s good :)

  75. 75.

    kay

    James, do you know how many times I’ve heard ‘you need ID to cash a check!’

    That’s from Democrats. They compare voting to a commercial transaction. Regularly.

    I don’t know how we’re going to have this coordinated media blitz when we’re still convincing our own voters it matters, at all.

  76. 76.

    PurpleGirl

    @Yutsano: I’m still using FireFox 6.X and when they update that they remind that there is newer version. Haven’t taken the newer version yet; a friend complained to me when he upgraded and began having problems.

  78. 78.

    amk

    @Yutsano: You can stop the squawking in FF by going into Tools>Options>Advanced>Update and disabling the automatic check for updates.

    But then I am on FF 9.0 beta version and tweaked out all the bugs.

  79. 79.

    Steeplejack

    @PurpleGirl:

    I am using Firefox 7.0.1 (on Windows XP) and haven’t experienced any problems. Not any new ones, anyway. Sometime in the last few versions Firefox implemented a gizmo (plugin-container.exe) to backstop unruly Flash animation (I think that’s what it does), and it is a problem for me, because it is a memory hog. It starts to slow down my computer, especially when I have a lot of Firefox tabs open, and I frequently have to go into Task Manager and nuke it.

    Both my desktop computer and my laptop have only 2 GB of RAM. Sometimes I will see that plugin-container.exe is using 500-600 MB. WTF?!

  80. 80.

    amk

    @Steeplejack: You can permanently disable that memory hog plugin container by going to about:config and switch “dom.ipc.plugins.enabled” to “false”.

  81. 81.

    Steeplejack

    @amk:

    But will that nuke my ability to see Flash videos in Firefox? When I turn it off now it blows up any Flash stuff on any open pages.

    Guess I’ll have to read up on this.

  82. 82.

    Anne Laurie

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    If yes, do you have a clue WTF her point is supposed to be? (Yeah, I know, it’s MoDo, but usually you can figure out what the point is supposed to be, even if it’s well-disguised, which is much of the time. But today’s thing on shoes—I have no idea why this stuff merits real estate on the op-ed page of the once-respected NYT.)

    AFAICT, it’s Dowd’s way of letting all NYTimes readers know that she gets to banter with Andre Leon Talley (and we don’t). As someone who can appreciate the aesthetic virtues of a ‘sexy’ shoe, as long as I’m not required to wear it, my opinion is: While MoDo is writing columns about high-end shoe sales, she is not writing columns about electoral politics, and this is good for my blood pressur & probably hers as well!

  85. 85.

    Jebediah

    @kay:

    I don’t know how we’re going to have this coordinated media blitz when we’re still convincing our own voters it matters, at all.

    Well, isn’t that only the first hurdle? You would still need a press that will give Dems one single iota of he cooperation they regularly give the fucking wingers/teabaggers/GOP. Also, the fact that any Dems need convincing on this issue chaps me most chappily.

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