First up, Colonel Mustard has decided that Elizabeth Warren has been practicing law without a license. Wingnuts rejoice, he gets the obligatory Instapundit and Althhouse links, thus ensuring that the three stooges of law school profs are all on board. But, wait, what is this:
In making his arguments, Professor Jacobson makes a fatal error by assuming that merely preparing legal briefs in (seemingly non-Massachusetts) federal cases or providing advice on federal law while located in Massachusetts and maintaining a primary office in Massachusetts constitutes the “practice of law in Massachusetts.” Although he cites several cases for this proposition, these cases do not go nearly as far as Professor Jacobson assumes, as they each involve cases wholly within the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts courts, specifically Massachusetts real estate transactions and Massachusetts probate matters.
He further errs in deeming “on point” a 1976 case in which the Massachusetts state bar issued an ethics opinion prohibiting a law firm from listing a “Boston Office” address on its letterhead where the firm lacked any Massachusetts-admitted attorneys but instead sought to claim that a Massachusetts firm with which it had a relationship falling short of an “associate” or “partnership” relationship constituted its “Boston Office.” This case, however, is not “on point,” as it is not an unauthorized practice of law case but is instead a misleading communications case in which the firm was prohibited from “holding itself out to the public” as having a Massachusetts office. Jacobson incorrectly assumes that merely listing an office location in a court filing, rather than a communication “to the public” constitutes “holding oneself out to the public” as being licensed in the jurisdiction in which one’s office is located.
But most importantly, Professor Jacobson ignores Massachusetts Rule of Professional Conduct 5.5(d), which states that:
“A lawyer admitted in another United States jurisdiction, and not disbarred or suspended from practice in any jurisdiction, may provide legal services in this jurisdiction that…are services that the lawyer is authorized to provide by federal law or other law of this jurisdiction.”
The Official Comments to Rule 5.5(d) further elaborate to make explicit that 5.5(d) permits such an attorney to have even a “systematic and continuous presence in [Massachusetts] for the practice of law as well as provide legal services on a temporary basis.”
Fail.
Up next, Republicans have decided that polling science has a well known liberal bias:
Republicans have taken their complaints about media polls allegedly favoring Democrats a step further this morning, embracing an obscure new polling website that re-engineers public polls to add more Republicans to their samples, and which gives Republican Mitt Romney a wide lead.
Some Romney supporters have long complained that public polls suggest higher Democratic turnout, and lower Republican turnout, than they think is likely this year. Pollsters have replied that their samples are dictated by what poll respondents themselves say. (This exchange between Hugh Hewitt and Lee Miringoff is illustrative of the argument.)
I have to give them points for creativity on this one. I mean, why didn’t I think of this back in grad school? If I just change the responses to survey questions I don’t like, I can make sure all my hypotheses are confirmed. Truly ingenious- “Sure, all the polling data shows Romney behind, but if you just change the polling data to reflect what you want, then look- RMONEY WINS!”
Epic Fail.
Remember a couple years ago when some idiot predicted we might be at peak wingnut? Gosh, what a moron.
Ben Franklin
Gawd. They are grasping at straw-men. If only they had an Eagleton.
Hunter
Re: Polling
That’s what I call “faith-based science” — you start with your conclusion, then you fish around until you find some evidence that supports it. If you can’t find any, you make something up.
blingee
I really don’t know what you are babbling on about but why are you linking to that wingnut memeorandom site? Maybe you aren’t up to speed on this thing called the internet and all but you do realize that linking to them is exactly what they want rrrright?
The occasional link to Politico or Fluffington Puff is sort of understandable I guess but not those obscure backwoods swamp ultra right wing bullshit factory websites. No excuse for that.
Violet
I remember desperately trying to believe any poll that showed Bush losing in 2004. I really tried to will it to happen, as much as I thought Kerry was a meh candidate. I get where they’re coming from.
The Ancient Randonneur
Oh, the Thinks you can Think.
Trentrunner
This will be an effective smear, just like the heritage smear was.
Brown is effectively painting Warren as a lefty-elitist-outsider-out-of-touch-Affirmative-Action-glasses-wearing-feminist.
He is still likely to win.
Corner Stone
Abby Huntsman is just flat out freakin’ smokin’ hot.
Violet
From your Peak Wingnut post:
Oh, the heady days of 2008. Seem so quaint now, don’t they?
kindness
Oh Curse you who led me to link over to Breitbarts delinquents. They are proud of their racism & their purposeful stupidity.
Where’s the brain bleech?
@Trentrunner: He is still likely to win.
Uhh no he isn’t. Elizabeth is ahead by 4 to 5 points.
Corner Store Operator
Posted in the last thread but since you mentioned the infamous instapundit himself here.
BREAKING: Glenn Reynolds is a libertarian-New Dealer
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-09-23/jill-stein-green-party-presidential/57837680/1
joes527
Ugh.
Made the mistake of clicking through to the LI site, and the COMPOUNDED that mistake by looking at the comments.
Truly ugly people* hang out around there. The “little squaw” and Pocahontas comments make clear what is going on.
They are pissed because a fucking WOMAN has stepped out of her place.
* I’m talking about their souls, nothing as superficial as their looks.
SFAW
‘Cause you’re naive? Seriously, John, you never came across someone “curve-fitting” data to match their otherwise-ridiculous hypothesis? I am amazed that you’ve led such a sheltered life.
The wingnut mantra goes something like this:
When in trouble
When in doubt
Run in circles
Scream and shout
And make shit up
To “prove” your point
A Ghost To Most
They don’t believe what they see, they see what they believe.
Willfully ignorant.
Eta: Damn,wrong thread
Violet
@Trentrunner: Romney stench may stick to him. No one likes Romney.
cathyx
They must think that if the polls show Romney ahead, even if it’s fake, then the power of suggestion will make him win.
Enhanced Mooching Techniques
Go look up the creationists verses biology. That is a common game the creationists played.
22over7
Maybe Peak Wingnut is so elusive because it’s generational, like evil, and has to be defeated and defeated again.
I hope that the next installment doesn’t entail firing on Fort Sumnter.
jwb
@Violet: “Oh, the heady days of 2008. Seem so quaint now, don’t they?”
And so long ago. It really feels to me like more time has passed since 2008 than passed from 2000-2008.
Keith G
A desperate person may well latch on to anything to avoid the abyss.
In an non-subtle temporary deflection of attention: I highly recommend this comic monologue from McSweeny’s. With all the serious news about, this 2 minute read is a needed bit of refreshment.
Ben Franklin
@Corner Store Operator:
“remember Nader in 2000?” Yeah, Harlan. I see where yer comin’ from.
The Dangerman
@Corner Stone:
Generally, I read these things and look for a picture and go, yeah, whatever….
…but, on finding her picture … um … concur. Damn.
GregB
The polling issue is hilarious.
Let’s ad another chapter on to the conservative affirmative action playbook.
It used to be they’d at least try to hide their thumb on the scale.
Now they have a website dedicated to showing pictures of the thumb.
geg6
@Violet:
Yeah, I get what you’re saying here and I, too, did the same as you in ’04. But do you remember doing anything as ridiculous as that unskewed polls site? I sure don’t. I went out and worked for what I hoped for, a Kerry win. I didn’t get it, but I didn’t have to make up conspiracy theories for why that happened, even though both 2000 and 2004 had enough voter suppression (FL and OH, respectively)to make that a logical conclusion for people on the left.
Quicksand
Not only is there no Peak Wingnut —
Wingnuttery will continue to expand, monotonically, like the space between galaxies. Only the inevitable “heat death” of the universe will cease its expansion, and then we will all be center-right.
The end.
Joel
This guy was just arrested for committing a drive-by murder less than a mile from my house. Cue the NRA…
Violet
@geg6: Oh, no, I was pretty realistic about the polls. I still hoped they’d be wrong. In 2004, the legacy of 2000 was fresh in everyone’s minds, and it was the first presidential election since 9/11. I remember a kind of “no one knows what might happen” feeling about the whole thing.
eemom
I hate that fucking asshole Jacobson. That is fucking all.
FlipYrWhig
Re: “Unskewed”…
If you assume an electorate that is 60% Republican, lookit how much the Republicans win by! Hey, let’s try 70%! Holy shit that’s impressive!
I think this is how Paul Ryan asked for his stupid-ass budget to be scored.
geg6
@Violet:
Exactly. And that’s why we aren’t and never could be wingnuts. We prefer reality, even when it sucks.
Dennis SGMM
@Keith G:
A welcome break in the intensity. Thank you.
Bokonon
It will be all over Boston sports radio tomorrow. You know, the same jerks that have been having the yuk-fest about “Fauxcahontas” for … what? Months now?
Doesn’t matter if it is true. The main thing is that they get to say over and over – “Warren isn’t one of us! She is from AWAYYYYYYYYY!”
Comrade Mary
@The Dangerman: Yep, she’s glorious, but then again, her dad is a certified silver fox.
FlipYrWhig
@geg6: Then again, I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve heard that Democrats are lagging in the polls because of every poll’s undersampling of cell-phone-only voters. I guess, if you trust Nate Silver (and I do), that has finally materialized this year. But our side has been grasping at that one for a long-ass time.
Ash Can
Also today in wingnut insanity, I happened to spot an article from a few days ago in Crain’s Chicago Business saying that the congressional race between Tammy Duckworth and Joe “Misogynist, Deadbeat Dad, and All-Around Asshole” Walsh is tightening up. Anyone and everyone reading this who resides in that district needs to know this, and needs to be doing something about it — talking to friends, family, and neighbors; volunteering for Duckworth’s campaign; throwing her campaign some scratch. It would be awful if she lost to that schmuck.
MattR
I’m confused by the second half of this story. Are you saying that Rasmussen polls were not available online before now?
(EDIT: And now I finally clicked on the Buzzfeed link and learn that this new website is just readjusting other polls to use Rasmussen’s party breakdown. Reality keeps ruining my jokes)
Corner Store Operator
@Bokonon: That’s really interesting. Not living in Boston I didn’t know this was going on.
Watch this clip for basically the exact same version of this dynamic, but in reverse with Sherrod Brown (liberal senator from Ohio). I guess he can pull it off because he’s a man and has a deep voice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng7sgI0qbFY
Violet
@Ash Can: Yep. Here’s an article on it. A SuperPAC just put $800,000 into the fight for Walsh.
Hill Dweller
@Ash Can: I heard Duckworth was pretty awful in their debate. Walsh was just saying crazy shit, but she couldn’t refute/correct him.
Is there any outside money in the race? Is the wingnut machine supporting Walsh?
Liberty60
I commented over at The League, that I am puzzled as to how effective this will be.
I don’t live in Mass, so can’t speak for their politics, but this seems like one of those arcane petty things that the street level voter doesn’t give two shits about.
The wingnuts who pounce on it are the 27%ers who hate her already.
Are there really any moderates who would have this be their tipping issue?
dmsilev
You know, I kind of hope this ‘Unskewed’ thing catches on. We need the GOP to campaign based on the worst information possible, and this is a very healthy step in that direction. Next up, intensive ad campaigns in the crucial swing states of Texas and Alaska.
burnspbesq
@eemom:
If I were to wonder out loud whether Jacobson has ever engaged in the same conduct that he erroneously claims consitutes unauthorized practice by Warren, would that make me a petty, vindictive person?
KG
@Liberty60: I think it’s more a Hail Mary type move, hoping that she’s done something so terrible that she’d have to drop out of the race.
ChrisNYC
Once again copiers. It is one of the things I despise most about them. “Why do the libs get all the fun of protesting? We wanna do it TOOOOO!” “We want our OWN NATE DAMMIT! Where’s OUR polling guru, huh?” That site shows Romney up 10, btw. Hahahahaaha.
dmsilev
@Hill Dweller: There’s some PAC or another that is advertising in favor of Walsh. He really is, even by the low standards of the House GOP, a truly repulsive individual.
Cacti
Wasn’t it Rove who said that the right wing creates its own reality?
DPS
The beauty of the polling idiocy is that, after the election, when the polls turn out to have been substantially correct, they won’t admit that they were wrong. Instead, they’ll say that liberal polling organizations depressed Republican turnout by underestimating support for Romney, and that if only those organizations hadn’t lied Romney would have been lifted to victory atop a swell of Republican enthusiasm.
Roger Moore
OT: Guess why the Romney campaign can’t match the Obama campaign when it comes to their ground game. It’s because they can only afford half as many staffers for the same amount of money. So who is the party of fiscal responsibility, again?
Hill Dweller
@dmsilev: Walsh certainly is repulsive, but if the rocket scientists in that district elect him over a smart woman that gave her legs for her country, they’re every bit as bad.
ChrisNYC
@DPS: Or that there was massive voter fraud/ballot box stuffing. A grand conspiracy that started last year. We can expect lots of references to Kennedy v Nixon and Chicago and dead people voting.
NonyNony
This takes me back to 2004, when there were so many liberals around me who were sure that the polling was all wrong because of cell phones and land lines and the massive numbers of cell phone only households were getting ignored. And that Kerry was sure to win because of it.
In retrospect it was pure desperation to find a way to not have to think about the fact that Bush was going to win it, and to cling to a sliver of hope that he’d go down. Wishful thinking doesn’t win elections, though.
Bubblegum Tate
Isn’t the whole “Unskewed Data” thing just the Goldberg Theorem applied to polling?
srv
The Wingularity is like a black hole event horizon. You’re just trapped there, for eons, and you don’t know that you’ve already passed the point of no return.
There is no back from that abyss. There’s no there there. As a famous Dr. once said, “He’s dead already.” The only endpoint is utter and complete destruction.
The question is, how much of the country and world will they take with them?
dmsilev
@Roger Moore: Hey, they have to cover the cost of all those bonuses to the senior folks *somehow*.
Romney truly is running the campaign the way he believes businesses should be run.
DPS
@ChrisNYC:
Oh, God, you’re right. I forgot about “Chicago politics.”
Frankensteinbeck
@Violet:
The mistake with Peak Wingnut theories is not that it doesn’t exist, it’s assuming it will be a sharp and visible spike. We are not seeing anything stupider now than the horseshit from the 2010 midterms. Akin’s accidentally telling the truth pales beside ‘I am not a witch.’ It’s really pathetic that the wingnut went so high that it sucked down their presidential candidate, but if 2010 had been another presidential election someone truly batshit would have been the Republican candidate. Peak Wingnut has already passed. We are still in the long plateau on either side of it. I personally suspect it will drop noticeably a few months after Obama wins reelection (due to despair), but it might last the whole next four years (because a black man will still be president).
Gravenstone
@SFAW: An old friend of mine has a saying re. statistics; if you torture the numbers enough, they will confess.
Todd
I’m curious as to whether Jacobson has a law license, and whether he has worked in this profession. He’s so thoroughly off base, he needs to experience a “bringing bench and bar into disrepute” bar complaint.
This is really pissing me off.
JGabriel
John Cole:
Now, now, no need to be unfair. That poor schmuck probably just had the wrong measure for “peak” and the wrong sampling proportion for “wingnut”.
It all would have been perfectly fine if he’d just consulted with a polling re-engineer to make sure he was announcing peak wingnut at the proper time.
.
Todd
@burnspbesq:
You mean the same kind of conduct engaged in daily by law professors from sea to shining sea?
Todd
@burnspbesq:
You mean the same kind of conduct engaged in daily by law professors from sea to shining sea?
HinTN
Long ago, in another universe, a rock star to whom no one refers (much) any more, began his long form disquisition on the subject du jour as follows: “When I was back there in seminary school, a person there put forth the proposition that ‘You can petition the Lord with prayer.’ Petition the Lord with prayer. Petition the Lord with prayer! YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER!!!” He then went on to talk about finding sanctuary because he could not find a place to hide. That snark (and subsequent lament) rings true today.
arguingwithsignposts
Sure, all the occupied cities and casualty reports say the US is winning, but if you just change reality to reflect what you want, the Confederacy wins!
FlipYrWhig
@NonyNony: I said the same thing above! And in 2004, cell phones were, like, the size of a loaf of Wonder bread.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@NonyNony: I believe Kos’ first post election post that year was titled “so I guess republicans have cell phones, too”
Eric U.
there was a EE prof at Penn State that is probably going to jail for 20 years. He got caught stealing research funds, but the whole investigation started when some of his disgruntled grad students made an ethics complaint about him making up data. He apparently published multiple, totally unrelated papers using the same plots where the only difference was the labels.
Mike in NC
Some unknown loser who writes for a blog nobody ever heard of? Living in a town nobody ever heard of? Sitting in his basement consuming copious amounts of Mountain Dew and Cheetos?
GAME CHANGER!
? Martin
Any poll that includes minorities is biased. The GOP has banned those votes in most states.
Spaghetti Lee
Wait a minute, I thought licenses were EVIL STATIST CONTROL-ISM and the right choice was to let the market decide? So confused…
Chris
@? Martin:
FTFY
PurpleGirl
@SFAW: In chemistry class we called it a fudge factor. A very useful variable/constant.
Ben Franklin
@? Martin:
The GOP has banned those votes in most states
if comments reach 999, you should receive the Herman Cain Award….
To be determinedd :p.
Liberty60
@KG: Or as I call it- High Birtherism
jl
News piece says Obama leads Romney among NASCAR fans, and military families.
Obama can sew up NASCAR easy: Biden does a swing through the Heartland at the wheel of sweet Grand Am, or whatever the hell is muscle car he drives.
Obama leads Romney among NASCAR fans: Poll
By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News
Senior Media Reporter
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-romney-nascar-poll-140401668–politics.html
Edit: If this poll result holds up, going to put a huge dent in David Brooks’ MO. What will poor David do?
And,
Did I get the muscle car reference right? I dunno WTF the names of the muscle cars are, I keep forgetting.
PsiFighter37
@Hill Dweller: Duckworth has a great story, but frankly – I don’t think she comes off very well in terms of public speaking or as a politician. I’d love to be proven wrong, and she certainly should be in Congress instead of the deadbeat.
In this kind of election, running with Obama on the top of the ticket in his home state – this is the kind of seat that we really have no business losing.
Rick Taylor
I was with you. At the time it just seemed like there had to be a limit to how dumb discourse among conservatives in this country could become and we had to be approaching that limit. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a theory so swiftly falsified.
Spaghetti Lee
@Violet:
Or…they haven’t heard about it.
Seriously. My parents are both Democrats who will vote for Duckworth, and they basically know that Walsh is a bad seed, but if I said “remember the time Walsh said Duckworth talks too much about her military experience?” they wouldn’t know what I was talking about.
I think this is a mistake people here make a lot: assuming that everyone else follows politics as much as they do. What this leads to is the idea that the entire electorate is following this news day by day, and liking what they see about Walsh, rather than not knowing what happened. I think the latter, for the vast majority of people is more likely. We know this stuff because it’s all over Kos and TPM and ThinkProgress. How many people do you think read these sites daily?
I’m not just trying to chide people here, but this is a fundamental error. If you assume the whole electorate thinks and gets their news the same way as a small portion of it does, you’re going to get incorrect conclusions.
I also think people are assuming it’s going to be too easy. Most of this territory has been represented by Republicans literally since it became part of the union. It was altered a bit to help Duckworth, but there’s no magical alchemy you can work on DuPage County and come out with a D+20 district. So let’s all just relax and help Duckworth win in concrete ways.
TooManyJens
@? Martin:
Otherwise known as the Byron York hypothesis.
max
@Ash Can: Anyone and everyone reading this who resides in that district needs to know this, and needs to be doing something about it—talking to friends, family, and neighbors; volunteering for Duckworth’s campaign; throwing her campaign some scratch. It would be awful if she lost to that schmuck.
She’s on my list, and I will get her some money here in a bit. (Note: never been to WI, don’t care though.)
Remember a couple years ago when some idiot predicted we might be at peak wingnut? Gosh, what a moron.
You were just early, John. (Better to be right too soon than going in the opposite of the right direction at any time.) The R reality-bubble is shrinking now though. That’s why they’re so upset.
cathyx: They must think that if the polls show Romney ahead, even if it’s fake, then the power of suggestion will make him win.
Well, yeah, although it’s better than that. This is straight of Curveball-land. Why they took some lying Iraqi dude, and amped up his testimony and then it was promoted all over hell and creation (by William Safire, et al.), obscuring both the original assertions and the falseness involved and… the nuts still believe that Saddam Hussein hid an Al-Qaeda camp in Kurdistan – a piece of territory he hadn’t controlled since 1991. And that the US couldn’t find that camp either on satellite or by the more typical method of sending some guy over to said location to ask the Al-Qaeda dudes if they were Al-Qaeda.
In this particular instance, a large number of the usual suspects (including me) have been back and forthing about whether or not the overall pitch of the polls is favoring or not favoring Romney. I’m sure this has not gone unnoticed in slope-headed world. So this fine citizen is trying to buoy up his pals by arguing that the turnout in this election year with mirror turnout in 2010, which is essentially what Fox News believes anyways. The funny part is that the poll averages (RCP in particular) are being tilted by conservative astroturfing outfits cooking up nigh-impossible turnout numbers, taking them as true and then cooking them some more. It makes a certain sense – if conservatives become discouraged they won’t turn out at even 2008 levels.
Pity half the R punditocracy has already cracked and admitted that Romney is behind. :)
(Back in August, in the both sides do it category, everyone was saying that one side or the other couldn’t be right that the Paul Ryan choice but I don’t it’s too hard to figure out who is going to be surprised.)
max
[‘Don’t forget, Lincoln attacked the Confederates at Fort Sumter! Or so I have heard from a certain type of person.’]
Spaghetti Lee
@NonyNony:
Cell-phone-only households in 2004? A few, maybe, but a massive undercounted part of the electorate? I’d like to think that would have smelled funny to me if I was paying attention at the time.
I dunno. Polls can obviously have methodological problems and biases, and it shouldn’t be shouted down if someone points that out and can prove it. But it seems to me that the Romney squad’s primary message, GOTV-wise is becoming “all polls are biased, pay no attention to them, we’ve got this”. Seems like if they actually did feel confident of victory, they wouldn’t even bother with that sort of spin.
Trentrunner
Tammy Duckworth is a shitty, shitty candidate. It’s Kerry Redux, where we think being a veteran covers all political sins…like being a shitty, shitty candidate.
Roger Moore
@jl:
I think you’re thinking of the Onion article about him washing his Trans Am. He actually has a vintage Corvette, which is at least American, but isn’t exactly the style NASCAR fans are likely to find most exciting.
? Martin
@jl: The proper response is Trans Am. Though the accurate response is Corvette.
Baud
@Spaghetti Lee:
Amen.
Napoleon
Jesus, I am an attorney I thought every attorney realized that the physical location you give the legal advice at is totally irrelevant. What matters is what law you are giving advice on. If you are in MA and advising an MA client on AK law, all you need to be licensed is in AK. It is that simple.
TooManyJens
FYWP. I am apparently in moderation for some godforsaken reason.
Spaghetti Lee
@Trentrunner:
A (supposedly) poor performance in one debate = OH MY GOD SHE’S AN AWFUL CANDIDATE ABANDON SHIP! Jesus Christ, what sparked this was her being up in the polls by two points! In territory once held by Henry Hyde and Phil Crane! Exactly how high were everybody’s expectations that the candidate being ahead in the polls is a letdown?
I love you guys, but we all need to cut back on the oh-god-we’re doomed crap. It’s worse than pointless-it’s self-fulfilling.
jl
@Roger Moore:
@? Martin:
Thanks.
Trans Am Trans Am Trans Am Trans AM
Corvette Corvette Corvette Corvette
Got it.
I think a Corvette is cooler, right?
Another idea would be a Barack and Joe townhall, subject is Car Talk. Winner! Get 90 percent of the NASCAR vote.
PurpleGirl
@FlipYrWhig: No, they were the size of bread loafs/bricks back in the late 1990s. By 2004, they were getting smaller.
Napoleon
@jl:
More expensive (by far), a true American classic and a real sports car, not a fake one.
taylormattd
John. I’ve been trying to nap all day in advance of the midnight (west coast time) drop of MoP. I managed to get one 2 hour nap in. But looks like I’m going to be brewing some strong coffee to feul me until I hit level 90. /crazynerd
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
Um…. I have MSBC on and I was in the next room doing dishes, but I think Tommy Thompson just said he was gonna “get rid of” Social Security and Medicare, with block grants to the states.
Villago Delenda Est
@Trentrunner:
Trentrunner, why don’t you just take a long walk off a short pier and let the rest of us get on with our lives? Mmkay?
SFAW
@Gravenstone:
Never heard that one before. I like it.
@PurpleGirl:
Yeah, we called it that in various engineering lab courses.
Joel
@Trentrunner: Maybe, but she’s a likely win in any event.
Eric U.
I think that predicting peak wingnut was a public service. However, that raises the question of how we would know that peak wingnut had been reached? 27% shrinks back to the 12% of Americans that are permanently dressed in straight jackets?
FlipYrWhig
Wasn’t Duckworth at one point much despised by the “netroots”? Isn’t she a RAHM! protege?
FlipYrWhig
@PurpleGirl: That’s right. Small but short on functionality. I think my current phone is vintage ’06. Clamshell-style in da heezy.
Anya
@PsiFighter37: I watched the debate and Duckworth was awful. She didn’t seem informed or had anything meaningful to say. Walsh kept saying crazy shit and she will reply with: This is not about Democrats or republicans but about what we can do for America and other inanities. She kept repeating the same things and every time her douchebag opponent repeated another teabagger talking point she just looked and sounded like she didn’t know the first thing about the issues. If there’s another debate she needs to do better or she’ll lose.
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker: I just found this by way of google
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/171048491.html
jwb
@PurpleGirl: Very tasty, too. Fudge, mmm.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@FlipYrWhig: Yes. Now that we’re done in Iraq her opposition to timetables is kind of moot, however.
? Martin
@jl: Cooler is in the eye of the beholder. But Corvette is on its 6th decade and sura as fuck a lot faster.
Grand Am is a car as well, but more momish. More notably, Grand Am is a racing sanctioning body that oversees cars similar to what race in the 24 hrs of LeMans. They’re seriously cool, and Corvette competes in the series with the notable marketing line that they had to take 100-odd horsepower out of the car to get them to racing spec, which is actually pretty impressive.
Less impressive is that cars with half the horsepower will eat it for lunch, but that’s a whole other flame war.
SFAW
@? Martin: @jl:
TA? ‘Vette? Riiigght.
Well, it’s certainly cooler than a Trabant. Or an Anglia.
@Napoleon:
Well, it was. Not so sure it still is, unless you’re talking about a pre-1970.
Maybe in the 1950s and 1960s. A Mazda Miata is more of a sports car than any recent ‘Vette.
JackHughes
It’s important for Republicans to have favorable polls they can point to — no matter how flawed or how egregiously the numbers have been massaged — when they steal the 2012 elections.
They will desperately need the “implausible deniability” these outlier polls will provide when all of the other pre- and exit polling indicates another Republican election theft.
It will be enough for the corporate media to hit the snooze button.
Roger Moore
@jl:
A Trans Am is a pony car, which is basically an attempt to make a cheap high performance car on a family car platform. The Corvette is more of a traditional and more elitist sports car. I think of the pony car as being more attractive to the NASCAR set.
SFAW
@? Martin:
From your fingers to FSM’s noodley ear-like appendages.
M. Bouffant
Peak wingnut is an authoritarian/totalitarian theocracy, where businessmen are the sons of gawd on earth. Nothing less will satisfy them, & even as they fade from the earth, the fewer there are, the louder they’ll be.
SFAW
Of course, I could probably be happy with a 427 AC Cobra, but what do I know?
Roger Moore
@PurpleGirl:
FTFY. By 1989, Motorola was able to produce a phone that fit in a shirt pocket (the MicroTac). By 1996, Motorola came out with the MicroTac, the first flip phone. If anything, smartphones have tended to push phones to get bigger than they were 10 or 15 years ago.
redshirt
Heck, with UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH you should just create a polling agency whole cloth, and then have it report the numbers you want to a newspaper you also own, then all the media will spread it. Especially if liberals complain – good for ratings!
Bex
@Villago Delenda Est: Or as they say in Chicago, walk east ’til your hat floats.
FlipYrWhig
@redshirt: My wingnut polling firm says Romney totally wins by, like, a million. With no margin of error because we have zero tolerance for it. Confidence interval? Pshaw. There’s no gap in our confidence in how much we are right.
I CAN HAZ WINGNUTZ WELLFAIR NAO?!
jl
@? Martin:
“Grand Am is a car as well,”
WTF. There is a Trans Am, and a Grand Am?
This is too many for me. I’m going to pratice some knots.
Linda Featheringill
Well, a girl can wish, can’t she?
http://www.politico.com/blogs/charlie-mahtesian/2012/09/gary-johnson-on-ballot-in-states-135285.html
Gary Johnson is on the ballot in 47 states plus DC.
Comment to the article on Politico:
Sweet dreams are made of this. Who am I to disagree?
pseudonymous in nc
Duckworth may be an admirable person, but she’s a weak candidate. She was a weak candidate first time around, too.
Comrade Mary
The Obama team has an ad up already on Mitt’s ER pronouncements from yesterday (via LGF).
Oh, and one of out favourite villagers makes an appearance in it and (indirectly) calls Mitt stupid. Wonder if he’ll be flattered by his burst of stardom?
Gopher2b
I have friends all over the country that do legal work in states where they aren’t licensed. Often, the work is a deposition, but with telecommuting, many have moved to cheap locales a d work for big city firms
This is so stupid.
Spike
@FlipYrWhig: If a clamshell is good enough for Walter White…
Ben Franklin
@Spike:
Two clamshells, better.
Central Planning
My dad had an ’81 Grand Prix when I was a teenager. I thought that thing was the shit.
I just looked at some pictures of them on google – I swear I now think that’s the kind of car my grandfather would drive.
That thing sure would move. I remember smoking some other kid in a Saab – however I did slow down to avoid a collision.
Emma
@Gopher2b: At the last Conference I attended I met an attorney who lives in South Carolina and practices in Texas. She has one of the first almost-all-online practices in the country.
Matt McIrvin
@Violet: There’s a difference. Romney is objectively doing worse right now than Kerry was doing at this point in 2004. You need a correspondingly higher grade of wishful thinking to put him in the lead.
Electoral vote counts from state polling in the various election cycles are compared here:
http://electoral-vote.com/evp2012/Pres/ec_graph-2012.html
Ken_L
It’s Associate Professor Jacobson, for the record. Given the amount of time he spends writing on his blog, I doubt he’ll ever make full professor.
Xenos
Jacobson seems to have no idea how the practice of bankruptcy law works. Unless he can find a case where Warren signed off on pleadings as a Massachusetts attorney, with a fake BBO number, he has nothing. She was admitted to the federal bar before she moved to Massachusetts, so if she ever filed any pleadings she just needed to file an admission form for the first circuit with her first pleading. The clerk would have kicked it out if she did not.
So strange that he could do all that research and not realize such a thing, or be able to find a bankruptcy attorney to talk to. They have bankruptcy courts in upstate NY, right?
gorram
@cathyx: Nope. Quantum Romney violates laws of causality, so why can’t they?
We’re dealing with an entire post-truth, quantumified political party, guys.
You know what other political party had constantly mutating policies…
gorram
@Matt McIrvin: I’ve been checking electoral vote for years, but I didn’t realize they had a tracker for shifts in electoral vote count! Hella!
Also, as you said, Obama has had a consistent lead throughout the entire race – something he lacked in 2008 and Bush lacked in 2004. This is one of the least competitive presidential races in recent history.
J R in WVa
@gorram:
I’m sure hoping so. I put my money where my mouth is, too!
Hoping he has coattails for the senate and house, too!!!
CZHA
This comment (from Erick at Red State) surpassed peak wingnut in your 13 October 2008 post:
Four years later, the movie Dreams of My Real Father — touted by the chair of the Alabama Republican Party (“I verified that it is factual, all of it.”) — claims that Frank Marshall Davis is Barack Obama’s true father.
Surely the wingnut doofi will put these assertions together to “prove” that Obama engaged in incest? How long must we wait?