Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

In after Baud. Damn.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

So many bastards, so little time.

The revolution will be supervised.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

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

We are aware of all internet traditions.

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Reader Interactions

95Comments

  3. 3.

    WereBear

    What does it take for the obvious incompetence and subsequent humiliation to take hold? The other day I saw David Gregory actually question John McCain on something.

    Is there really a line that has been crossed, at long last?

  6. 6.

    kc

    @kc:

    Oops. I should have read the story before I commented. Sounds like the reporter is guilty only of underestimating the stupidity of a Republican.

  7. 7.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    How do we really know that Hagel isn’t friends with Hamas, if Ed Henry can’t get a picture of him shaking hands with Tiger Woods?

  8. 8.

    ericblair

    @WereBear:

    Is there really a line that has been crossed, at long last?

    It gets crossed when the Village collectively realizes that the country doesn’t respect them, doesn’t even fear them, but is laughing at them. If they really didn’t care what anyone thought outside their own circle, they wouldn’t be so desperately trying to dominate the media.

  9. 9.

    c u n d gulag

    GOP POV:

    Hamas, or hummus?
    Taliban, or tabouli?

    Who cares?
    It’s close enough to keep government from working.

    And after all, isn’t that our goal?

  10. 10.

    Bobby_D

    Newsflash: Despite the timely demise of their leader, Breitbart clowns are still clowns…maybe sad clowns, but clowns nonetheless.

    OT: Thanks for the suggestions in the other thread about cat breeds and allergens.

    And Cole: Where is that hockey puck sized valium you promised me? I could use one…or five. Being on the ass-end of the sequestration mess isn’t doing good things to my blood pressure.

  12. 12.

    jrg

    Whoever said “these rats won’t fuck themselves” never met Ben Shapiro.

    Also, too, truthout! Both sides do it!

  13. 13.

    Punchy

    I heard what’s going to sink Hagel is his alleged alliance with the “Friends of Tim Tebow” group.

  17. 17.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    Rinse, wash, repeat.

    Pet peeve – Lather, rinse, repeat. Shampoo bottles may be silly but they know that you rinse after washing, not before.

  18. 18.

    eric

    You liberals guffaw away, but just wait until Hagel ushers in Obama’s reign over the New Caliphate castled on the Potomac. It wont be so ha-ha funny when your loose liberal women are veiled and cloaked from head to toe.

  19. 19.

    SatanicPanic

    I want to be one of these guys. Here would be my typical day= send out an anonymous chain email in the morning full of spurious claims. Take a long lunch and a nap, wake up, call everyone on your list up, ask if they’ve heard any crazy rumors. Type up their responses, hit publish. Respond to any criticism with claims of conspiracy and bullying. Cash check from gullible people.

  20. 20.

    Ash Can

    Ben Shapiro gets pantsed in public and Dan Friedman learns a valuable lesson regarding trusting certain of his GOP contacts. A good outcome all around.

  21. 21.

    JPL

    Earlier I had on the View and Elizabeth Hasselbeck mentioned the Tigergate. Her point was that Tiger said the President is a good player, so that must mean he plays to much golf. Is this the latest scandal?

  22. 22.

    dmbeaster

    @SteveM: His negatives increased some, but 50% still express no opinion. It is more a matter of the 27% learning that they are supposed to hate him. That seems to be the only impact of it.

  24. 24.

    shortstop

    @Xecky Gilchrist: Also, do very many of them still say “lather, rinse, repeat”? I thought most of them knocked off the “repeat” part about the time most people started washing their hair every day, which was decades ago.

  25. 25.

    nemesis

    Friedman trolls the only clown show stupid enough to run the obviously bs story. Virgin Ben got played. Again. And Breitbrat is still dead.

  27. 27.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    @shortstop: I honestly don’t know. It may well be one of those phrases like “out of this world” which is now preserved only in (would-be) witticisms.

  28. 28.

    burnspbesq

    @eric:

    It wont be so ha-ha funny when your loose liberal women are veiled and cloaked from head to toe.

    Clearly, you are not aware of all internet traditions. Hijab porn is a thriving sub-genre.

  29. 29.

    kindness

    I find it funny that Republicans are blaming ‘liberals’ for spoofing them for mentioning the Friends of Hamas & the Jr League.

    In what world does that make any sense? The one Republicans live in.

    @eric: WTF? My sarcasm meter must be broken ’cause I can’t tell.

  30. 30.

    jayjaybear

    @JPL: The only scandal is that Whoopie doesn’t repeat “Shut UP, Elizabeth!” every time Right-Wing Barbie opens her mouth.

  36. 36.

    Ben Franklin

    The Palestinians need an advocate in the Israeli war of attrition. I don’t care if he gets a donation from friends of Hamas. I do care who gets contributions from friends of Bibi.

  37. 37.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @JPL:

    So did Hagel give a speech to the Junior League of Hezbollah?

    He also has a nefarious plan to redirect all Pentagon procurement to the ACME corporation. I hope the troops like rocket-powered roller-skates that go BOOM! at the wrong time and anvils that always fall on top of the person launching them.

  39. 39.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    American conservatism has become an enormous fat baby constantly demanding new justifications for drowning us in its shit. So the Hagel story was pure fabrication; baby don’t care, baby gonna’ shit anyway.

  42. 42.

    John Dillinger

    More tragic news coming out of the Middle East today. In Jerusalem, the Junior League of Hezbollah is claiming credit for the third dressage horse bomb going off at a crowded cotillion in just the past week.

  43. 43.

    El Caganer

    “Friends of Hamas?” No way – that’s obviously phony. Not like, say, “al-Qaida Chamber of Commerce.”

  48. 48.

    ericblair

    @eric:

    You liberals guffaw away, but just wait until Hagel ushers in Obama’s reign over the New Caliphate castled on the Potomac. It wont be so ha-ha funny when your loose liberal women are veiled and cloaked from head to toe.

    I dunno, it might be more of an I-Dream-of-Jeannie type of vibe, with the baggy sheer pants and the bellybuttons. Then Hagel will turn the Pentagon into a giant rug shop, with a permanent Going Out of Business! sign over the metro entrance.

  49. 49.

    JPL

    Since friendsofhamas is offline temporarily, maybe someone wants to add to these tweets……
    Romney is going to speak at Cpac

  50. 50.

    gene108

    Shapiro tweeted the link to his nearly 40,000 Twitter followers. Blogs like RedState.com and the National Review’s The Corner linked to it. In Israel, Mike Huckabee said “rumors of Chuck Hagel’s having received funds from Friends of Hamas,” would, if true, “disqualify him.”

    Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/friends-hamas-rumor-started-article-1.1268284#ixzz2LT5WfdFA

    Why Republicans will never die.

    They have too powerful a media apparatus for people to understand the truth, before they are hit over the head with Republican lies.

    I heard on the T.V. this morning that sequestration is Obama’s idea. He’s the one that proposed this in the summer of 2011. Therefore all the blame for economic harm goes to Obama.

    No mention of the Republicans refusing to raise the debt ceiling, without massive budget cuts and Obama did this to keep the recovery from dying.

    No reporters bother with follow-up on this point.

    The capture of the media is something that’ll keep Republicans around for a long, long, long time.

    EDIT: There really is a “boys will be boys” attitude towards Republican malfeasance by the MSM. It’s just expected they’ll do whatever they want and it’s your fault for putting yourself in a position to get screwed by them. The Hagel-Friends-of-Hamas is just another “boys will be boys”, what can we do episode.

  51. 51.

    some guy

    @Ben Franklin:

    I don’t care if he gets a donation from friends of Hamas. I do care who gets contributions from friends of Bibi.

    please see Congress, United States, member of

  52. 52.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @JPL:

    Since friendsofhamas is offline temporarily, maybe someone wants to add to these tweets……
    Romney is going to speak at Cpac

    Thus unleashing a tsunami of Romney-Palin 2016 speculation from the usual suspects.

  54. 54.

    pamelabrown53

    @JPL: Hasselbeck and Tigergate: …the President is a good player, scandal ensues. If Tiger said the President is a bad player, scandal ensues.

    Everyday is Ground Hog Day.

    Our task in the face of Ground Hog Day is to avoid giving into despair and its behavioral concomitant: apathy.

  55. 55.

    ranchandsyrup

    @SatanicPanic: True enough. Friedman will prolly come out of this worse for wear than young master Shapiro. Shapiro will prolly become the WaPo conservative voice after JRubin rubs herself out. Always be failing upward!

  61. 61.

    GregB

    The latest reports indicate that Hagel received campaign cash from Ayatollah Cannoli, Hassan Ben Sobah and the Sultan Barabadabba.

    Let’s look into this.

  62. 62.

    daverave

    @JPL:
    Bush,jr. was a great brush clearer… did he neglect his duties to clear bushes? What about his mad mountain biking skills… oh, wait a sec.

  64. 64.

    BC

    @gene108:

    No reporters bother with follow-up on this point

    Of course not – they’re too butt hurt about lack of access on golf course!

  65. 65.

    Warren Terra

    All the giggles aside, the take-home here is that the Republican Party dicked around with the administration of our national defense based on a singularly implausible result from the game of Telephone.

  67. 67.

    Warren Terra

    @JPL:
    Which Romney is going to speak At CPAC? Tagg seemed to express the seething rage they crave and share, and he’s probably dumber and even more entitled than his dad … he seems like the obvious choice. Though we shouldn’t discount the amazing charisma and the common touch that Ann Romney could bring to CPAC. Surely it won’t be that washed-up has-been Mitt, who spent the last few weeks of the campaign agreeing with Obama about most everything.

  68. 68.

    xian

    @SteveM: it only “worked” if he doesn’t get approved.

    Who has ever cared what a secdef’s popularity ratings are (well, except maybe Rumsfeld by the time Bush finally made him walk the plank)?

  70. 70.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The Virgin Ben Shapiro demonstrates, once again, that his mother should be convicted of child abuse because it’s painfully obvious that the Virgin was dropped on his head more than once as an infant.

  71. 71.

    Hill Dweller

    @gene108:

    I heard on the T.V. this morning that sequestration is Obama’s idea. He’s the one that proposed this in the summer of 2011. Therefore all the blame for economic harm goes to Obama.

    Evidence came to light today of a Boehner powerpoint presentation selling his members on the sequester in July of 2011. It was obviously part of their strategy going into the negotiations with the White house.

    Also too, some of the leading wingnuts(Kristol, York) and some on the left are publicly starting to point out Boehner has painted himself in a corner. He has acknowledged the sequester will be devastating, but has no plan for stopping it.

  72. 72.

    Roger Moore

    @Warren Terra:

    All the giggles aside, the take-home here is that the Republican Party dicked around with the administration of our national defense based on a singularly implausible result from the game of Telephone.

    Nonsense. The desire to fuck over Hagel came long before this ever came out. It’s the intention of blocking the nomination that made them willing to accept any piece of transparent nonsense, not the other way around.

  73. 73.

    General Stuck

    @gene108:

    Beyond the laughable fact that Boehner and Mcconnell both enthusiastically sold the sequester idea to their winger buds in congress. They were swimming in the sea of wurlitzer bullshit that the country hated Obama, and loved them, and that would force Obama into helping destroy the new deal entitlements.

    And yes, the echo chamber is that deluded, and still is, though a brave few are chunking some rocks at it.

    The idea was first broached by Mitch Mcconnell at the last minute, to prevent real default on our debt. It was a trigger mechanism, euphemistically called The MCConnell Mechanism, due to his previous use of in an earlier budget battle.

    The internet record never forgets, and the wingnuts are lying, as is wannabe Rasputin Bob Woodward for insisting it was the WH idea. Not true. They may have helped put it together, but the trigger mechanism is all GOP>

  74. 74.

    quannlace

    Surely it won’t be that washed-up has-been Mitt, w

    First Palin, now Mitt. When will a speaking engagement at CPAC be a sure sign your political career/influence is officially over?

  77. 77.

    flukebucket

    Both Limbaugh and Hannity are screaming that the cuts are not really cuts and are not going to hurt anything anyway.

  78. 78.

    karen marie

    It’s a given that Ben Shapiro is a moron. But Dan Friedman is none too bright himself if he believes, as he indicates he does, that “no one would print an unchecked rumor.”

  81. 81.

    catclub

    @General Stuck: Well here is the quote from wikipedia that you link, and the McConnell mechanism has to do with the debt limit. Not the sequester.

    “The President could request a further increase of $500 billion, which is subject to a congressional motion of disapproval which the President may veto, in which case a two-thirds majority in Congress would be needed to override the veto.[3] This has been called the ‘McConnell mechanism’ after the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who first suggested it as part of another scheme.[4]”

  82. 82.

    Hill Dweller

    @catclub: The sequester never happens without the wingnuts threatening to destroy the full faith and credit of the United States. Obama just paid the ransom(the sequester).

  84. 84.

    catclub

    @Hill Dweller: of course, by that logic the sequester never happens if Obama is never elected, since then the wingnuts do not go as crazy, but it is Obama’s fault.

  85. 85.

    General Stuck

    @catclub:

    Well here is the quote from wikipedia that you link, and the McConnell mechanism has to do with the debt limit. Not the sequester.

    Upon review, you are correct and I was wrong about that. gracias, amigo!

  86. 86.

    chopper

    of course, conservabloggers are just going to defend it with the old ‘the fact that i believed it just proves it could have been possible’ excuse.

  88. 88.

    Hill Dweller

    @catclub: The Republicans, for the first time in history, threatened to destroy the full faith and credit of the US. Obama, given the choice between default or paying the wingnut ransom, chose to pay the ransom. We can debate his decision, but at the end of the day, Republicans did the hostage taking. Absent that, there would be no need for a ransom.

  89. 89.

    Patricia Kayden

    @General Stuck: Thank you!

    Why aren’t Dems out there trumpeting the truth of the sequestration? One thing I give the Repubs — they get out there and tell their lies loud and clear. Seems like the Dems don’t get their side out there enough and allow the Repub lies to take hold before pushing back.

  92. 92.

    General Stuck

    @Patricia Kayden:

    thank you

    Thank you, but I was wrong about the sequester as the McConnell Mechanism. The sequester seems to have arrived from outer space, though. No one is sure where. But it doesn’t matter, because what we are going to get is an fairly modest example of real pain when right wing demagogues, and a few on the left start blathering about austerity NOW!

    The citizens of this country, and their reps have granite thick skulls that can only be pierced with some reality, when government stuff stops arriving. No pain no gain. The greater good and all that kind of shit. And you watch. The ones that wail the loudest will be the plutocrats and their subsa… subbsda…..subsidiaries.

    Ma and Pa Kettle don’t have a hard line to power. They suffer in silence, until the next election.

    edit – and I think Obama relishes the lesson, being freed from again facing the electorate.

  94. 94.

    Bill Arnold

    @General Stuck:
    From the wikipedia article, there is a little information, attributed to Bob Woodward:

    Ultimately, the solution came from White House National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling, who, on July 12, 2011, proposed a compulsory trigger that would go into effect if another agreement was not made on tax increases and/or budget cuts equal to or greater than the the debt ceiling increase by a future date. The intent was to secure the commitment of both sides to future negotiation by means of an enforcement mechanism that would be unpalatable to Republicans and Democrats alike. President Obama agreed to the plan. House Speaker John Boehner expressed reservations, but also agreed.[15]

    where [15] is “Woodward, Bob. The Price of Politics Simon and Schuster, 2012. Page 215”

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