Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

Let there be snark.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

No one could have predicted…

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

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

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Peak wingnut was a lie.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

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Reader Interactions

64Comments

  2. 2.

    BGinCHI

    I too am shocked, shocked that Time Ideas would post something stupid.

    Well, at least they don’t employ hacks like Halperin.

  3. 3.

    Schlemizel

    JAY-SUS CRUSTY just fucking shoot me! Why would you link to that shit? I lost 30 IQ point reading that.

  4. 4.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Schlemizel: I tried skimming it and couldn’t get through the second paragraph. I don’t think I did any permanent damage to my intellect or my psyche. But, god, it was a damned close run thing.

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    Cole, it’s hard to believe you actually called that “analysis”.

    @Omnes Omnibus: You made it farther than I did. Or should that be further?

    Edit: I should have just said you lasted longer than I did, then I wouldn’t have displayed my further-farther ignorance.

  8. 8.

    muddy

    This is much better.
    http://animalsbeingdicks.com/

    They are so funny, the way dogs give the object agency and get all mad, it’s so personal. My dogs all do this. One also has a wooden rocker as an arch-enemy, he will go over and warn it periodically.

    It’s kind of like the media, their logics fail them too.

  10. 10.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @General Stuck: If Obama actually said that – I refuse to click on the link – he’s being kind. Jesus, or at least his disciples, would strike them dead.

    ETA: OK, I did read it after all. Obama quoted Jesus: “for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.” Nowhere in the article did Obama say Jesus would tax the rich.

  13. 13.

    Steve

    What’s awesome is that she spends this whole piece claiming to speak for a massive cohort of former soccer moms (for the record, most of her positions sound fairly progressive) and then at the end it says

    Browning, the former editor of House & Garden, is the author of Slow Love. The views expressed are solely her own.

    Of course, they don’t mean “solely her own” quite like that, but it’s so true.

  14. 14.

    Violet

    Now, its time for them to understand a few things about — Yoo hoo! Over here, guys! — the largest new cohort of moms any politician has ever faced: The Legacy Moms.

    Legacy Moms? WTF? This woman is just trying to coin a phrase so she can go on pundiTV and blather about it. Ick.

    What I want to know is, what do the Regular Guys think about this? You know, the ones with the Lunch Pails and who are NASCAR fans.

  18. 18.

    DougJarvus Green-Ellis

    @John Cole:

    That wasn’t that, though, that was someone whom I probably agree with on nearly every issue (she’s pro-choice, pro-universal health care, anti-theocratic, etc.) overusing the word “we” til your ears’ bleed. I hate it.

  19. 19.

    General Stuck

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):

    If Obama actually said that –

    Oh, he said a lot more than that on his version of what jesus would do, him being a christian and all. Now, let’s see the Mormon flash his christian holy cards. It ought to turn the fundies into jabbering street walkers before it’s all said and done . The rest of us probly too.

  20. 20.

    cmorenc

    Well, for better or worse there probably are a huge number of women 45-65 who think along similar lines to Dominque Browning, who wrote the Time “Ideas” piece that has so many of you howling like mad dogs at the moon. And they probably turn out to vote in higher-than-average percentages.

    The thought that really ought to kill you is not whether Ms. Browning’s treatise represents deep, coherently articulate insight, but the fact that her thinking is probably among the deepest, most coherently articulate you’ll find among a quite wide section of voters, both male and female, and she’s not even one of the dumb ones. Hopefully, you’ll understand the distinction I’m making here. Oh, and did I mention that they’ll probably turn out to vote? I think I did, but it bears mentioning again.

  21. 21.

    BGinCHI

    It’s hard to picture Doug as a soccer mom, but I’m doing it right now.

    That skort looks pretty funny on you, dude.

  23. 23.

    General Stuck

    OK, I did read it after all. Obama quoted Jesus: “for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.” Nowhere in the article did Obama say Jesus would tax the rich.

    Close enough for election work

  24. 24.

    Donut

    This is kind of unmitigated shite that gives Baby Boomers a bad name.

    Pro tip: you are not the most important person in the world.

    Fuck.

    Now soneone will probably call me a bigot ageist, or something.

  29. 29.

    Mary G

    I’m not a mom, but I’m in her age group and I really liked it, even though I don’t agree with her on everything. WTF our kids aren’t living at home longer? What planet is that from? None of my friends can get their offspring out on their own.

    Women don’t get enough respect and it’s pissing me off to read some of the comments on here. Think I’ll go look under the car seat for some more change to send to Planned Parenthood.

  30. 30.

    Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor

    My favorite Bible passage is the one where Jesus threw all of the Soccer Moms out of the Temple.

  32. 32.

    Cat Lady

    Nutpicking the cultural debris from the 24/7 online spew will turn up this dreck. She’s nobody signifying nothing.

    What fascinates me today is the narrative that’s hardening around Mittens. Nobody – NOBODY is defending him, except Donald fucking Trump. Chew on the meaning of that cultural nugget.

  33. 33.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @General Stuck: Your right, except the people who wouldn’t vote for Big O over that aren’t going to vote for him anyway, and I know some who do think that Jesus would be OK with more taxes.

  36. 36.

    Hill Dweller

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent): I’m sure there is a transcript and/or video of the President’s remark on the WH website.

    The President explicitly said ‘our goal should not be to declare our policies biblical’. Hell, he called out ‘phony religiosity’ and the hypocrites who say one thing and do another.

    Politico was trolling for links.

  37. 37.

    jl

    @DougJarvus Green-Ellis: DougJ Ben Nevis SingleMalt: You want pragmatic idealistic politicians that care?

    hoowuddathunk you had such a soft pragmatic idealistic side, gwarshdanggit.

    And don’t I dare try to make you feel guilty about the privileges you have. Had no idea you were an entitled yuppie.
    (yuppies still exist, right.)

    Man alive, who would have guessed the DougJ Jarel Kryptonite was a superannuated soccer mom?

    Well, strong work, my man/mom, whatever, carry on.

    Edit: superannuated soccer mom, yuppie of a certain age, I guess is better description.

  38. 38.

    scav

    @BGinCHI: They’ve got time-travelling, shape-shifting robots operated by tiny angry people in the Bible? I’ve got to admit, I didn’t see that coming.

  39. 39.

    gogol's wife

    @WaterGirl:

    I saw the words Dominique Browning and stopped right there.
    ETA: even if she is a friend of James Wolcott. I hate her writing.

  40. 40.

    jl

    I eagerly await JohGCole’s weekly newsrag article on the overweight pet owner computer gamer miserable lefty blogger demographic

    My ex farm boy Alaska cowpoke rootless cosmopolitan intellectual elite vote article will positively rock. If the editor will ever accept it. Says there is a problem with the ‘tone’, which seems somehow obscure and difficult to interpret.

    Why do they print this dreck? Anyone know anyone who actually reads this stuff? (except for cases like this where I skimmed the whole thing because, dammit, I do whatever the Cole/BJ command center tells me to do, and I follow all fifth column orders.

  41. 41.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @Hill Dweller: Thanks. I probably should go find the actual speech, but it does get tiring once again to have to go look for facts while the other side does it’s shit, knowing that by the time you find the facts they’ll be going after something else.

    I do sometimes want to enjoy just flaming them.

  43. 43.

    Jerry

    We want something really old-fashioned from politicians: idealism. But we want that idealism served up pragmatically

    lolwhut?

  46. 46.

    jl

    @scav:

    ” time-travelling, shape-shifting robots operated by tiny angry people in the Bible ”

    Well, those are definitely two swing vote groups. Not sure either is important enough this cycle to get an article in NewsUSReportTime or whatever that rag was.

  47. 47.

    Water balloon

    Democrats are going to win big this year. Irrelevant rags like Time will talk about inanities, but the economy will improve enough, and Republicans will be saddled with a crazy House majority and a presidential candidate who will make John Kerry look smooth and lovable, that Dems will hold the Senate, Presidency, and come within 5 votes of winning the House. That’s my prediction.

  48. 48.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @Steve:

    Browning, the former editor of House & Garden, is the author of Slow Love. The views expressed are solely her own.

    Read: “Browning, whose ‘hark at Gwyneth Paltrow’s pantry’ magazine was shut down by Condé Nast in late 2007, is reinventing herself as Mommy Bobo and trying to project her own personal downsizing into a lifestyle trend.”

  49. 49.

    General Stuck

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):

    but it does get tiring once again to have to go look for facts while the other side does it’s shit,

    Well, if Politico improperly attributed their articles Obama quotes, then I agree that they are just looking for page hits and need to be called out for lying. otherwise, Obama was outlining his idea of jesus and gawd, and all that good shit. Which is fine by me, as are any political angles being deployed, or not. Obama is a politician now in campaign mode, after all, it is just that i believe under the bullshit, he is also a very decent empathetic man. Under the wingers bullshit, is simply greed and avarice, in buckets of snot.

  50. 50.

    Dee Loralei

    @General Stuck: Holy fuck, did you just see Rachel’s opening segment? She eviscerated the right for making light of Obama’s speech today and transposed it with Fucking Savanarola Santorum’s sanctimonious bleetings to a mother of a cancer stricken child, on why it’s OK for kids to die, if big Pharma companies can’t make profit! Dear God, I hope he rots in the hell of his own devising! All of them, every last Goddamned one of them!

  51. 51.

    piratedan

    ok, she was long winded but wasn’t all she was saying is that the old soccer mom demographic is no longer the stepford wife demographic it used to be and that they would like a bit more honesty and positive outlook injected into politics….

  53. 53.

    Cat Lady

    @Dee Loralei:

    She’s just about to deal with Komen – it’s the angriest her audience has been about something on her show, she said. This should be good.

  55. 55.

    Kevin T. Keith

    Wow, this is some harsh shit!

    Look, the piece wasn’t brilliant philosophy, but – as another commenter has already pointed out – it’s fairly progressive in its details. She asserts herself as a single woman who’s been taken advantage by men and politicians for too long. She wants the Social Security benefits she earned, and for her children to be able to collect when it’s their time. She wants science-based environmental policies regarding climate change and toxins. She wants tolerance for non-traditional religion, and for gay marriage. She wants people to be able to make their own decisions about abortion (well, at least in some cases, though she doesn’t preclude others). She knows she’s being lied to and doesn’t want to stand for it. She calls out misogyny and patriarchy, resents them, and wants to hear from more women in politics.

    It’s hardly radical, but it’s something worth hearing in today’s climate. And precisely because she positions this as the attitudes of the vaunted suburban moderates – who have come to recognize what a bill of goods they were sold by the right wing – it’s all the more powerful.

    There’s something really snotty about all the sneering going on. She’s saying exactly what we want people to believe! You can ask for more, but this is a good start, and if moderate ex-Bush-voters are really saying these things, that’s the best political news in years. So what if it isn’t tied to an explicitly progressive political program? We want moderates to realize that their best interests are found in progressive policies – the kind she is demanding. That’s a good thing. Or is the problem that it doesn’t sound “sophisticated” enough – or that a “soccer mom” said it so it must be shallow and stupid? I hope we’re better than that.

    Jesus Christ – calm down and welcome allies when they agree with us. That’s what we wanted, isn’t it?

  56. 56.

    Dee Loralei

    @Cat Lady: She and DeGette are doing yoemen’s work on what all this means for women’s reproductive health and even contraception. I Love Rachel!

  57. 57.

    Cat Lady

    @Dee Loralei:

    That segment was awesome – I liked how they described the mood of bewilderment turning to anger and outrage, which is where we all are now. Something good happened today, which DeGette described as waking up to the reality of the fuckedupedness that is the current war on women being waged by the right wing. Komen poked a sleeping tiger.

  59. 59.

    NickM

    Do you think this might be the year that some on the far right realize they’re being played yet again? Seems like the conditions might be moving in that direction.

  60. 60.

    Dee Loralei

    @NickM: No NickM., this is the year the left realizes that the right has been at war with us for umpteen years. This is the year we finally get that what the far right wing want they eventually get. This is the year we realize we have to fight back! This is the year we realize that we are in a real war, a real battle for the very soul of America. Look at the shit that the various Statehouses have thrown at us, from the anti-union stuff to the anti-women’s right stuff. This is the one time we’ve been given advance notice of their intentions. They didn’t tell us in 2010 what was on their agenda, their actions since then have made it perfectly clear. In 2012they intend to propulse their agenda onto the national stage and thrust all of us in to their dystopia they mean to make us all so miserable that we will accept the few rights they are willing to deign we get. These people are not good for women and they will not be good FOR women.

  61. 61.

    Watership

    @Kevin T. Keith: Yeah, I too was having trouble firing up the outraginator. I am annoyed when anyone purports to speak in one voice for a loosely identified group, but apart from that, I was a little encouraged to hear a divorced, suburban woman of fiftyish espousing Democratic principals (for the most part) in the otherwise moldy pages of Time Magazine.

    Another takeaway is that she felt it necessary to defend her “privilege,” which means the Republican argument that Dems are punishing success rather than just making sound judgements about taxes and programs is finding some purchase. Gotta watch that in the months to come

  62. 62.

    Groucho48

    The link? Too prolix. Other than needing a lot of cropping, it was a decent enough article.

  63. 63.

    kay

    I think the difference between this and the soccer mom/white working class/pundit genre is that she is a member of the group she’s describing.

    I object to the group descriptions by punditry because they’re speaking for other people. They aren’t white working class. They aren’t soccer moms.

    Here, she’s just saying what she wants and including people like her that she (probably) knows. I don’t object to this at all. I actually think we’d be better off with opinion like this. It’s HER opinion. She’s not pretending to speak For America.

  64. 64.

    Crispy

    @cmorenc: Yes.

    And, I liked the first comment over there which can be shortered to: “you’re describing the Democratic party – try paying attention once in a while.”

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