Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

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

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

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

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

“But what about the lurkers?”

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Their freedom requires your slavery.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

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

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

The words do not have to be perfect.

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

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2012 / Friday Morning Open Thread

Friday Morning Open Thread

by | 44 Comments

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Via NYMag, to help with the morning’s sleep deprivation – hangover.
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And a great quote from Jon Chait, too:

… During his first campaign, Obama saw the blend of individual and communal responsibility as the obvious, shared belief of the entire country. Now he has come to see it as the belief of an embattled half of America.

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In other commentary, Thursday morning’s cartoon (two-week lead time) is why Garry Trudeau remains necessary:


(Doonesbury via GoComics.com — enbiggenment available at the link)

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What’s on the agenda, apart from recovery after the myriad emotional highs of the last three days?

Reader Interactions

44Comments

  2. 2.

    raven

    Here, chew on this:

    ATLANTA — A state labor official is refusing to restart jobless benefits to seasonally unemployed teachers and bus drivers, setting up a showdown between state and federal officials.

    Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (http://bit.ly/RfUo21 ) on Thursday that the administration in Washington is “over-stepping their bounds” in regards to unemployment.

    “This is really a states’ rights issue. The administration is really over-stepping their bounds,” Butler said. “We will not back down from something we feel right about. We have the authority to write laws when it comes to unemployment.”

  3. 3.

    MikeJ

    @raven: Not even a mater of costing the state money, since the feds are paying it. They just don’t want money to go to teachers (unionists) or come from the other party, who will get credit.

  5. 5.

    danielx

    Am I imagining things, or is/was there a conspicuous enthusiasm gap between the goings-on in Tampa and those in Charlotte? I do believe the Dems are just a bit more fired up…

  6. 6.

    Mino

    Jennifer Granholm needs to replace DiFi next go round. She lit it up.

    Brian Schweitzer was not good. At all.

  8. 8.

    Narcissus

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard “States’ Rights” used in a way I didn’t find repugnant.

  9. 9.

    hep kitty

    @Mino: She was awesome, really hit it out of the park for the auto rescue. I was ready to start pumping my fist, too!

  10. 10.

    hep kitty

    @danielx: Like I was saying on a previous thread, you look in the eyes of the DNC delegates and you see real emotion! Joy and tears. The RNC, dead eyes and frozen smiles everywhere. They were faking it as hard as they could but I don’t think anybody was buying it.

  11. 11.

    hep kitty

    @MikeJ: Yeh, look at the little tie-thingie (what are those called?) he wore. That was apparently Montana thing, which is all good. Srsly, what do I know about MT?

    Shit I have to get out of here and in the shower

  12. 12.

    Mino

    @MikeJ: We’ll just have to disagree on that. He bragged too much about cutting taxes. I’m fucking sick of pols who make such a virtue of that. Context is everything. Was he increasing fees at the same time? Was he making the code fairer? So my back was up immediately.

  14. 14.

    MikeJ

    @Mino:

    Was he increasing fees at the same time?

    Since he was explicitly attacking Romney for that I’d guess not.

    It’s just as silly to be reflexively anti-cutting as it is to be reflexively anti-tax. If Montana can meet the needs of its citizens while collecting less in tax they have a responsibility to do so.

  15. 15.

    MikeJ

    @Mino: I believe you are correct. Whatever. His base is in Montana, he’s a Montana politician, and he’s a solid Democrat.

  16. 16.

    marv

    It irritates me that so many “pundits” are calling Obama’s speech pedestrian or routine because it seems obvious that what they wanted – a barnburner from start to finish – would have actually cost him votes among the only group that seems to matter now, the small group of undecideds. The people who aren’t sure about Obama are sure they don’t think he walks on water and just a crowd response like 2004 would have been counter-productive, I think. Not to mention the last four years he’s put up with so much shit I doubt he really felt like punching our happy buttons, and the guy strikes me as the most straightforward politian I’ve ever seen.

  18. 18.

    hep kitty

    @marv: You know, it’s ridiculous to expect that of Obama. That is simply not his style. Clinton laid out the attack, Obama didn’t need to.

    Ok, CSPAN, do you really have to read the idiotic, juvenile, talking point laden tweets? I’m sure you can find some more reasonable, reality based ones. Aren’t you a little better than that ? And yes, you can do that on both sides so as not to appear non-partisan.

  19. 19.

    JPL

    @raven: Deal’s policies are lowering the unemployment rate… Why are we ruled by such idiots?
    “It’s a pretty serious issue if the states just let the federal government tell us what to do all the time. We’re not trying to pick a fight here. We’re just trying to govern Georgia the way Georgians want us to govern.”

    also, too… get off my lawn

  20. 20.

    WereBear

    The compare/contrast between the two conventions was incredible!

    Low info votes, who go by vibes, should pick Democrats this year. I want sweep. I want both houses.

    I want a mandate as big as the sky.

  22. 22.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @raven: @JPL:

    “This is really a states’ rights issue. The administration is really over-stepping their bounds,” Butler said. “We will not back down from something we feel right about. We have the authority to write laws when it comes to unemployment.”

    I really think that “United” part in United States is often more of a wish than a reality. As I’ve posted before, one’s physical processes don’t suddenly change to entirely new processes when you move from one state to another.

  24. 24.

    Valdivia

    I haven’t read all the threads so I don’t know if we have already bitched at the consensus that Obama’s speech was bad. So many people calling it pedestrian. And Tomasky saying Obama blew it and probably lost the election with it. What? Where they watching the same speech as me?

  25. 25.

    Celeriac

    As a person currently residing well south of the Mason-Dixon I beg only for a few weeks to gather my belongings and find housing back in The World. Then by all means, enforce secession and build that wall the Wingnuts are so keen on.

  26. 26.

    Soonergrunt

    @Narcissus: “States rights” has ALWAYS been used to invoke the privilege of one small regional group of people to fuck over another group of people.

  30. 30.

    EconWatcher

    @Mino: Well, “states’ rights” are why the feds should let the states make their own choices on medical marijuana. As someone with a household member fighting cancer, i feel strongly about that one. Ditto gay marriage. It doesn’t always tilt to the right, although i agree that “states’ rights” has an ugly historical taint.

  32. 32.

    Ann Rynd

    please, please, please, can we have a thread called “Throwing peanuts at Chuck Todd.” This yutz is shreading my last nerve!

  33. 33.

    Suffern ACE

    @Valdivia: They’re not talking to the people who watched the speech, but the people who didn’t watch the speech. Obama’s speech may have seemed a lot like his stump speech which they have heard because they follow such things. But it would be unusual for it not to be. there’s really a limited number of topics candidates are going to cover in their speeches…whatever.

  34. 34.

    hep kitty

    Paid hack (I’m a registered Dem and I’m voting for Romney this time) callers this morning on WJ.

    RLY?? Come on now.

  36. 36.

    hep kitty

    @Valdivia: Just his typical style which never moves me, but pretty sure it’s not going to cost him the election! How shallow can ppl be?

  40. 40.

    BruinKid

    Speaking of Garry Trudeau, here’s a trivia question. His former college roommate, whom he drew upon for inspiration for the comic strip, ran for Congress in 2010 (not just in a primary, in the general election). Who won that election?

  41. 41.

    1badbaba3

    @BruinKid: Love Doonsebury, but I do not know the answer. Don’t keep us in suspense, though. I am purposely not going to use my google-fu, so unless you spill I won’t know. But no pressure.

  42. 42.

    Mnemosyne

    @raven:

    Shorter Mark Butler: “We should be allowed to starve the residents of our state to death if we damn well feel like it! States’ rights!”

  43. 43.

    Mike

    Lincoln said he was finishing the founders’ work, but he was far from dispatching the racists. The president mentioned him once last night and it got me thinking how proud Lincoln would have been at this moment, if dismayed at how long it took, seeing his work really completed.

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