Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Let me file that under fuck it.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

The willow is too close to the house.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

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

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

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84Comments

  3. 3.

    danielx

    #1 on today’s things-to-do list is enjoying the weather. It’s 49 degrees and crystalline clear outside at 7:45; fall is here.

  4. 4.

    Aimai

    Been up since three am with post birthday insomnia. But had the pleasure of reading boon juice comments and blessed Peggy noonan’s public melt down so I’m feeling pretty great.

  10. 10.

    R-Jud

    I’m locked in mortal combat with a head cold I am pretty certain I caught while lurking on this blog.

    Also, too: discovering the joys of samphire. I sauteed it with some shrimp, lemon, butter and chili. NOM.

  11. 11.

    Aimai

    On my phone so can’t link but her latest column in these, which must have come out last night, is unbelievable. She wails, without taking breath, for what looks like twenty column inches. It’s called ” Romney needs an intervention”

  14. 14.

    Linda Featheringill

    Lovely portrait of your friend, Betty!

    My plan for the day is to keep calm and carry one, which tells you what kind of a week it’s been so far. Ugh! [What’s the word? Tsuris.]

    My favorite moment so far this week was when I found out that 7-Eleven’s cup-choice vote for Prez puts Obama ahead in Texas. When I quit giggling, perhaps I should try to find a real, authentic poll for that state.

  16. 16.

    Patricia Kayden

    Love boxers! Have 1 full and 1 mixed boxer. They’re such cute, playful dogs. Don’t even notice the drool.

    Today, will be following the interesting World of Mittens. Let’s see what else he can do to muck up his campaign.

  18. 18.

    SiubhanDuinne

    What are y’all up to today?

    I’m in Savannah — drove down yesterday for an event last night, heading back to Atlanta in a little while (after I haul my ass out of this Very Comfortable hotel bed, shower, and grab some breakfast). Don’t mind the long, often tedious drive, but I would have enjoyed being able to spend a little more time here instead of just a quick overnight.

  20. 20.

    Randy P

    @SiubhanDuinne: Story told by a Russian friend. Russian has no articles, so when to use them and the distinction between “a” and “the” is hard for Russians learning English to grasp.

    She was called into some meeting with the boss, and it was some typically idiotic work meeting about some messed-up scheme or other. She comes out shaking her head ruefully and says to the rest of her co-workers in the office, “What a f**k”.

  28. 28.

    hep kitty

    Well hello there, Mr. Doggeh McDoggersons!

    I finally broke down in tears over the 47% comments & also the donor questions.

    I mean, I know basically what they are up to, but still. Your talking about my parents, my bf’s sons who are students, me when I was on unemployment, my struggling niece in between jobs, and everyone out there who’s down and just needs a little help. It doesn’t have to be just “me and mine” for me to care and care deeply.

    This mentality is alien to me. How can I not love and care for those less fortunate than myself?

    We get it, Mitt and donors. We finally get the point. And you have broken my heart. Hope you feel exceptionally happy and smug with yourselves today.

  32. 32.

    JPL

    Well Ann said Mitt doesn’t disdain the poor according to BuzzFeed

    I haven’t watched it yet because just the idea that she would have to be used to defend his statements is odd. I bet a lot of families who earn less than 50,000 didn’t think of themselves as poor.
    Maybe I’ll watch it to see if she says you people.

  33. 33.

    catclub

    @JPL: That reminds me of the marvelous condescension of Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice.

    It also reminds me of: “He abhors not the Virgin’s Womb.”

    I am sure both of those are the tone she was looking for.

  35. 35.

    Chyron HR

    @jurassicpork:

    Why don’t you Obots stop mindlessly licking shit from Dear Leader’s anus for a minute and give me free money?

    I think I may have spotted a flaw in your business model.

  36. 36.

    Schlemizel

    they had old loadpants on NPR yesterday to defend the Marquis du Mittens 47% comment. He used an old technique to lie and they let him do it.

    According to Jonah (who’s mom was one of the best he ever had according to LBJ) Federal spending for give away programs is 700-something percent higher now than it was in 1960!!!!11!!1. (I don’t remember his exact number).

    So I took 2 seconds with the google & discovered that inflation since 1960 has been 768%. It appears that give away’s may actually be DOWN a tiny amount adjusted for inflation. I wrote All Things Considered asking them to question people who cite numbers like that about inflation. I won’t help I bet

  37. 37.

    PurpleGirl

    It looks sunny here in NYC; really nice after yesterday’s all day of rain and wind. May go for a walk.

  39. 39.

    jibeaux

    @jeffreyw: I seem to have heard something mentioned about this thing called a “Baby Boom” and how the products of said boom are called “boomers” and how they are retiring and collecting social security and Medicare.

  40. 40.

    raven

    Had to go to the county clerk to get a document for a re-fi. Walked out of the house and there is the princess’s iPhone in the street. Go downtown with the pups in tow, go to the wrong building. Go to the right building, the courthouse, and can’t get in because of the little swiss army knife on my keyring. Go outside and hide my keys in the bushes. Go to the tax assessor’s office. Sorry, you have to go to the county clerk, 2 floor up. Go up there, every office opens at 8am except them, 8:30. Go back to the van, move it closer to the courthouse. No change for the meter. Back through security, no weapons this time, go in the courthouse and by some cheese crackers from the visually impaired guy. Marvel at the little machine that determines I did, in fact, give him a bleedin fiver. Back out, pet the dogs and feed the meter. Back up to the county clerk, wait five more minutes and BOOM, I’m in. Nice young lady looks up my security deed and says, that will be $10. Fiddles around in the back and finally comes out with a 20 page bundle! Now I have to scan the damn thing and email it! So there.

  41. 41.

    Violet

    @jeffreyw: Good lord, Jeffrey! That’s amazing. How do you get so many hummingbirds on a feeder at one time? That doesn’t happen at mine–the one bird that “owns” the feeder spends half his time chasing off the rest that show up. It’s not that more hummingbirds aren’t around, it’s that the one that considers the feeder his (or hers) doesn’t allow any of the others to share. I have seen two birds on the feeder at once, but one was quite small, so I think the larger bird didn’t feel threatened.

  43. 43.

    Ash Can

    @JPL: I watched it on Buzzfeed. The “Mitt doesn’t disdain the poor” bit was what the interviewer said. Ann R. didn’t say it herself, she just agreed with it. And said a lot of other stupid stuff.

  44. 44.

    JPL

    @Ash Can: Thanks. The headline was misleading then. Mitt and Ann have been in a cocoon so long they have no clue how real Americans live and thrive.

  45. 45.

    geg6

    Gotta lot to get done today before I am forced to slog my way to State College for the annual Enrollment Conference tomorrow morning. I hate this conference because it is not a learning experience in any way, shape or form, especially when this is the 14th year I’ve had to go. I much prefer the summer Student Aid (only) Conference where we get real work done. That said, this one is basically a foodfest, so I’ll at least have a full belly the whole time.

    Gotta finish getting all scholarships ready to disburse, complete two special circumstance evaluations (a dad is incarcerated and another has passed away), complete the list of student addresses, the scholarships they received, and who the donors are so the invitations can go out and the program be printed for the campus scholarship dinner, and contact the two scholarship recipients who we’re asking to speak at the dinner. And that’s all while answering all student aid questions posed by phone, email, or just dropping into my office.

    Did I mention how much I hate having to go to this conference?

  46. 46.

    jeffreyw

    @Violet: We just hang the feeders and let the hummers organize the schedule. I had no idea the numbers were anything special until I started posting pictures and reading the comments. We’ve been feeding them for over 25 years and I’m sure many of them and their kids visit us on consecutive seasons.

  47. 47.

    hep kitty

    @jeffreyw: Just as jealous as I can be. What are you, the modern day St. Francis?

    But srsly, that is one awesome photo! You obviously do not have problems with wasps chasing them away. Don’t know if you have those in your neck of the woods, but my mom finally put her hummingbird feeder away b/c of that problem.

  48. 48.

    JPL

    The Letterman interview was good and it’s worth streaming the entire video. Letterman obviously likes Obama but his questions were not softball questions. He asked about the deficit, Libya and the forty-seven percent. Truthfully not a lot of follow up but the President doesn’t appear to duck those questions. If you have the opportunity, watch the entire thing.

  50. 50.

    martha

    @jeffreyw: One of the highlights of this summer is the afternoon that I brought a hummer “back to life”. It had slammed into the window of our cabin and I found it on the deck…thought the gorgeous thing was dead. I couldn’t accept that so I held it for awhile, took it to our feeder, and put its beak right into the juice. For about 20 minutes, I held it and fed it occasionally. Finally, I positioned it at the feeder and just let it sit by itself. She sat there for about another few minutes, flapped her wings, and flew away! I know she survived, for at least a day, because she came back and buzzed me several times (I typically had 2 visitors at that feeder…out in the woods). The other hummer was there too. That was a magical weekend. They are incredible.

  52. 52.

    Ash Can

    @JPL: It was painful listening to her talk about how she and her husband really, truly understood what issues were important to women (such as lowering the deficit). And you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned their “coccoon”: She reiterated several times that she was meeting “a lot of frightened people” out on the campaign trail. Yeah, no kidding, Ann; the only people who show up to see you or your husband are cranky white people who can’t stand any kind of deviation from the orderly WASP-dominated society of their imaginations and are scared of their own fucking shadows.

  56. 56.

    jayjaybear

    Reagan in 1984 used to put out his hand: “Come too, come walk with me.”

    Thirty years on and Nooners is still flicking her niblet over Reagan in public. When are the public safety people going to bundle her into a van and take her to St. Elizabeth’s?

  57. 57.

    Gus

    Driving home from my son’s daycare yesterday, I turned on the radio and heard someone give a defense of Romney’s remarks. “Who is this asshat?” I thought to myself. “Thank you, Jonah Goldberg.” Today, I get in the car to drive to work, and there’s another asshat defending Romney saying he should own his remarks. “This dude’s fucking worse than Goldberg,” I think to myself. “Thank you Erick Erickson.” Gotta love that liberal NPR.

  58. 58.

    MattF

    I was going to get some work done this morning, but then said to myself, “Hmm, Wednesday… I should take a look at the new xkcd.”

  60. 60.

    Violet

    @jeffreyw: That’s just amazing. I suspect different kinds of hummingbirds are more or less territorial. The ones I get are mostly ruby throated hummingbirds and they’re known to be very territorial. I think the Rufus (sp?) are slightly less so.

    Maybe because you’ve had the feeders in the same place for so long they are more comfortable so don’t worry about sharing. I’m gradually transitioning the garden to natives that will attract hummers and butterflies, so hopefully we’ll have more as time goes on. I did see one on the salvia the other day, so that was encouraging!

  61. 61.

    rumpole

    I read Noonan’s piece. She hit on something (indirectly). Romney is a data guy. He’s sliced and diced the electorate in the same way that he would the operations of Staples or some other target, and expects the pieces magically to fall into place. At some point, campaigns reflect the candidates. It’s why Obama’s campaign seems deliberate, why McCain’s was impulsive, why Kerry’s was “senatorial.”

    His sounds like exactly what he is: a statistical arbitrageur looking for that one little advantage that earns him an outsized windfall. In this respect, Noonan’s right–he doesn’t understand people, doesn’t really like them or empathize with them, and doesn’t really care what happens to them so long as he gets his. That is who he is, and it is the nature of the private equity business he was in and how he ran it. What he doesn’t appear equipped for is the fact that there’s no tax loophole that guarantees the returns analogous to those in his private sector life; you actually have to convince people that you give a f–k.

    If I were advising the Ds, I would be trying to figure out how I could nationalize this election and take some house seats back.

  62. 62.

    1badbaba3

    @jayjaybear: This makes me smile. Flicking the nibblet, indeed.

    This all-out multi-media assault they have been mounting, relentless, ubiquitous, all day, every day. This thing that they have that can only slam Obama and the Dems, but never gets around to listing their accomplishments or their results. All of this… and they are still losing.

    Man, that’s gotta suck.

  63. 63.

    AHH onna Droid

    This 47% rhetoric scares me. It’s a return to the status anxiety of the mid 2000s. The basis of greed, being fear. It’s no way to live and I don’t care to relive it.

    Also, too, 53% started with RW radio freaking out about the we are the 99%.

    They should freak out. I make the same money as Joe, but unlike me, Joe has kids and a mortgage. I pay fed tax, Joe doesn’t. Hes a moocher and looter and I’m a taxpayer?

    So confusing, I thought Joe was a promise keeper, patriarch, and Kings Son, and I was a selfish, godless, home destroying feminazi queer slut who (gasp!) rents.

  65. 65.

    Spike

    Love boxers. A dear friend of mine fosters for a boxer rescue group down in Texas. They’re so sweet and playful.

  66. 66.

    Karen S.

    @jayjaybear:

    Pretty amazing, isn’t it, that she’s still gushing over Reagan. I stopped reading Time magazine years ago when it published one of her breathless pieces about how much she (well, she wrote “we”) missed Ronnie after Bush the Elder had been inaugurated. It read exactly like something that could easily have been published in Tiger Beat magazine. I stopped reading Time magazine then and there.

  69. 69.

    maya

    “Mitt doesn’t disdain the poor.”

    Great opportunity for Mittster to start a new vulture fund – Dain Capital, who’s goal will be to weave the poor’s pocket lint into gold. Somehow.

  70. 70.

    WereBear

    @maya: The seriously whacked part is why they yanked that video; one article theorized the Base lurves them some victim bashing, and would not look kindly on evidence that Mitt Romney Cares.

    Not that I believe he does, not for a nanosecond.

  72. 72.

    Patricia Kayden

    @JPL: Definitely will do that. Have always loved Letterman (can’t watch Leno). I’ve also enjoyed when FLOTUS was on Letterman a few times.

  73. 73.

    Mnemosyne

    @martha:

    Hummingbirds are very smart for such tiny creatures. My parents had a hummingbird feeder in Arizona that the woodpeckers kept drinking from and one of the local hummers figured out that if it hovered in front of the sliding glass door, one of my parents would come outside and scare the woodpeckers away so the hummer could have its turn at the feeder.

  74. 74.

    hep kitty

    So Peggy Noonan is upset b/c the authentic, undistilled Romney has finally been exposed to the public in a very raw manner, much to their horror.

    That’s all she’s really upset about. The rest of us finding out since it means doom for Mitt and some congressional republicans.

    I usually don’t take sweetener in my coffee but just for this morning, I think I’ll stir in a little Noonan tears. Mmmm, tasty.

    :)

  75. 75.

    catclub

    @rumpole: I disagree about the data guy bit. He was slinging the usual rightwing redmeat.

    If he had said: “these people are likely to vote for Obama because of blah-di-blah-di-blah”, then that is data. But HE SAID: “These people believe that….” A data guy should know that he does NOT know what people think. He knows what they do.

  76. 76.

    hep kitty

    Oh, and hummingbirds love beer. The only time I ever see one is when I am drinking beer on my front porch. I tried the feeder thing but beer works much better.

  78. 78.

    hep kitty

    @catclub: What seems to be lost in the ongoing debates about this, Mitt said 47% of the population will vote for Obama. So, even though I pay fed taxes, I am a member of that 47% b/c I am going to vote for Obama.

    So he is basically not only insulting seniors, students and service people, he is insulting those of us who do pay fed taxes and are voting for Obama by saying we are all lazy parasites.

    So you know, I’m going around trumpeting “I am the 47%” b/c I am voting for Obama. I also stand in solidarity with the 47%.

    This callousness, this language, has to be deeply hurtful to a lot of people who happen to be down and out b/c of the economy.

    It’s a heartless attack on their pride and self-esteem, including undecideds, telling them they want to suck on the gov’t teat on the rich peoples’ dime, and not take responsibility for their lives.

  80. 80.

    catclub

    @hep kitty: Well, Mitt was also
    playing fast and loose with those numbers and definitions.
    And in the most incompetent way. If he has already written off the 47% who do not pay taxes, then he has clearly lost already. The unions, and the teachers, who DO pay taxes, would be enough to push Obama over 50%.

    Too bad no one asked him: “So what percent of people who DO pay taxes will you have to get to win?”

    I calculate it as over 94% . Numbers guy has cooked his own goose. He is not going to get 94% of hedge fund managers. Some of them have sense!

  81. 81.

    JR in WV

    @jeffreyw:

    A friend of ours, lives in a rural farming area, many hummie (I like that!) feeders out. She was out gardening seriously, as she does, when she was suddenly surrounded by a cloud of dozens of angry hungry hummies who herded her to the kitchen from which the hummie nectar comes.

    All the feeders were empty, and they worked together to let her know she had to do something, right NOW!

    Amazing…

  84. 84.

    Ruckus

    @Chyron HR:
    I was going to answer that we pay what it’s worth.

    Yours is better.

    ETA Also if I’m giving any blog money it’s going to be my own but it’s worth the same amount.

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