I’ve had a touch of scotch while watching the Pens, so I don’t want to elaborate too much on the rampant douchebaggery of Clive Crook, but can I just say I am tired of rich jerks wanking about why Kthug and the other people who have BEEN RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING. For fuck’s sake, I have no idea why there has not been an insurrection in Greece and elsewhere and a move to make Atrios (who has been right about this shit for years) monarch and leader of the states that Merkel and the Germans have castrated for the last five years?
Hey- Clive Crook- how has austerity hurt you? Wait? What? Your Roth and 401 and other investments are doing fine because the market is through the roof? While worker’s wages are crashing and the rest of the population is now basically reduced to slave labor? And while your Republican friends are looking at those people making minimum wage or less, and deciding the real place for budget cuts is to food stamps and welfare while we talk about medicare patients, slash medicaid, and now the scumbags who put us in this mess are gunning for Pete Peterson’s social security slashing. Remember when we had a budget surplus, and C+ Augustus gave it away to the Koch brothers and Richie Rich while expanding a give out to pharm companies, excuse me, I mean expanding Medicare but not allowing for competitive bids.
I hate them all. I eagerly await turning 60 and watching all my investments get gutted in the ineviable market crash and I am forced to live on what I can grow, because, you know, the market just tanked and hoocoodanode and hey- you should have had more money and a more diversified portfolio that was immune to Republican perfidy and malfeasance!
I honestly think we are not too far from food riots and the blood of douchebags running in the street. The only solace is that I know how to grow food and that Matt Welch and the Fonzi of Freedom will be the first scumbags to have their heads put on pikes.
*** Update ***
I’ve been paying into SS and Medicare since I was 16 and had my first job on the books. That means I have 26 years of payments into these programs. But for some reason, I don’t deserve the benefits of them, but my parents, who started paying into it much later in their lives, get the full benefits? The only reason is because rich pricks want more tax cuts. It’s insane.
S. cerevisiae
Righteous fucking rant, John. Nothing more to add.
Rex
Shrill. Someone’s feelings could get hurt by this sort of language.
NotMax
A Burkean moment.
“Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.”
- Edmund Burke
Too many of the chattering pundit class seemingly have this, stitched as a sampler, hanging prominently in their office.
johnny aquitard
Excellent! Take another nip of scotch and stick it to these guys, right through their heads.
cbear
I’m with you, Cole, but let’s go all in—hell, it was good enough for the forefathers.
I wonder what those free range, home-schooled little gooper children taste like? Maybe like chicken but a little more gamy?
Pass the salt and pepper, please.
/J. Swift
the Conster
May Day Havana. Always remember – there are way more of us than them.
jamick6000
@cbear: T. Swift <3
burnspbesq
You know perfectly well that in the unlikely event that there is ever blood in the streets, it won’t have come from the people you want it to come from. As a West Virginian, you have to be familiar with the history of violent labor unrest in this country. A good chunk of it played out in your back yard.
Get a grip. Or get a keyboard that stops working for 12 hours when you blow more than .08.
Ben W
Thanks, John. Put a smile on my face.
burnspbesq
@the Conster:
Perhaps. But they have the National Guard. Whadda you got?
NotMax
Apt then, apt now.
The gulf between employers and the employed is constantly widening, and classes are rapidly forming, one comprising the very rich and powerful, while in another are found the toiling poor. As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully-restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters.
- Grover Cleveland
John Cole
@burnspbesq: The lead apologist for the haves and the corrupt chimes in. I feel so much more enlightened.
Shorter Bankster courtier- “IF THERE IS BLOOD IN THE STREETS IT WILL BE YOURS BUT I WILL BE OK AS I WILL BE BUSY SUCKING JAMIE DIMON’S CHOAD. ALSO TOO, GOLDMAN SACHS NEVER TECHNICALLY BROKE ANY LAWS, SO SUCK IT PLEBES.”
God, you are just a reprehensible fuck. Every fucking lawyer joke is based on you.
NotMax
#11 – wrong thread. Apologies. Too many tabs open.
PeakVT
Angry blogger is angry. And rightfully so.
MikeInSewickley
This isn’t a rant as much as it is really a good prediction of where we are headed.
I listened to a local KDKA douchebag wail about the morning after pill as the end of American civilization. Buddy, for the last 30+ years the upper 0.1% (fuck the 1%- they’re going to get hosed too) have gerrymandered the laws to where we are now.
Want money to build infrastructure and add 100,000s of jobs? FU
Want to stop being the world’s policeman and cut back on welfare to the Defense contractors? FU
Want to remove the $110,000 cap on Social Security and make it solvent into the 22nd Century? FU
George Carlin was right as always – It’s a big club and we ain’t in it.
I really am beginning to think that we are heading for rioting and some really bad events down the road.
I’ve started reading Michael Lind’s “Land of Promise”. It is an economic history of the U.S. He describes the three great economic revivals in our history and says this manufactured Great Recession is going to lead to a 4th with a changed Middle Class among other things.
It’s going to be a very bumpy ride.
hamletta
@burnspbesq:
Perhaps consider getting your own fucking blog.
Pooh
@John Cole: Shots. Fired.
In more ways than one it appears.
hamletta
While we’re on the subject, Ed over at Gin & Tacos takes on that rentier starver-of-artists, Amanda Palmer.
Good Lord, that woman is awful.
NotMax
BTW (perhaps it was the whiskey talking) –
NotMax
Dang it, my fingers are NOT working well. Arthritis is a harsh taskmaster.
Corrected for clarity.
BTW (perhaps it was the whiskey talking) –
Budget surplus.
Social Security still runs a surplus annually.
zombie rotten mcdonald
Epic rant, Mr. Cole. Have a drink on me.
Petorado
The Crook-ian argument seems predicated by to central premises:
1.) There is virtue in diametric opposition to the other party. This spites the fact that even if the other party is closer to the truth, somehow, it is noble to oppose it — just because.
2.) Liberalism is inherently wrong. Therefore, if a conservative, or libertarian, postulates something, there must (by definition) be some truth to it.
The sooner these two are debunked, the better. But I won’t hold me breath.
zombie rotten mcdonald
@hamletta:
Take my word for it, there are LOTS of people on the internoodles who are happy to tell just about anyone that they are blogging incorrectly.
Loviatar, Firebagger
I wonder if John and the Obots will feel the same when we’ve been proven right about Obama.
.
After Reagan the most successful Republican president in my lifetime has been President Obama. So far he has implemented a Republican healthcare plan, begun the gutting of Medicaid, suggested the first steps in the dismantling of Social Security and is continuing the Bush torture, drone and civil rights policies.
If he was white would there be any hesitation in proclaiming him the second coming of Reagan.
Cacti
@burnspbesq:
If gates around the palace didn’t save the Tsar from the Bolsheviks, do you really think the gates around your housing development will protect a petit bourgeois courtier like yourself?
RaflW
It really does rather suck to be living in the decline and fall of the American empire. Sprinkle in 5 deg C of warming, the end of useable antibiotics, the realization that the #1 herbacide in global factory ag causes Alzheimers and a host of diseases, and a ruling class that appears to have become criminally (yet comically!) corrupt and evil, and we’re gonna be having ourselves a baaaaad decade or two. Or three.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@John Cole: EPIC.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Cacti: His “ARMED RESPONSE” signs on the lawn will protect him.
Cacti
@RaflW:
We’re well past the generation of evil genius robber barons, who built their fortunes through smarts and ruthlessness. We’re on about the third or fourth generation of idiot sons who were handed the keys to the kingdom by accident of birth.
I thought George W. Bush was the nadir of American meritocracy, but I think someone worse is yet to come.
TriassicSands
How disappointing.
Evidence based decision making takes a hit. I don’t understand why Obama wants to fight this battle.
Sophist
@Petorado:
How do you debunk an idea that never makes it higher than the brain stem? The id ain’t exactly amenable to reasoned discourse.
hamletta
@zombie rotten mcdonald: Oh, dear, I know. I used to hang around Eschaton when “What about biofuels?” was a running joke. I just find self-appointed managing editors supremely annoying. Print costs money, but blogs are free to start, so it’s just bad manners to go busting up into someone else’s and lecture them about their subject matter.
@Loviatar, Firebagger: If you were old enough to remember Reagan, you’d realize how stupid that statement is.
Ruckus
John, I’ve been paying into SS for 51 years. Can’t say the same about Medicare because I was drawing a paycheck 4 years before it was enacted. But I feel the same as you, assholes who have not only no need for them but probably are drawing SS just because they can, could care less that I, among so many others, might either starve or have to live in a box. Think about wages a little here. If you have a low paying job you don’t put much into SS so you don’t get much out. All because the assholes don’t want to pay a few percent of wages into SS. Craven, selfish, greedy bastards. The French sure developed the correct instrument to adjust the situation.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@TriassicSands: It was bad before the 2012 election, and even worse now.
ETA:
@hamletta: I kind of skipped over that after the word “Firebagger”, but damn, that’s some serious stupid.
ranchandsyrup
Best bedtime story ever.
zombie rotten mcdonald
@hamletta:
I recently had a pretty good online friend impose a self-exile from my blog because I posted a tribute to one of my favorite musicians, Scott Miller, who died recently and it affected me, and when he came in saying “I don’t know him, so I want to talk about something entirely different” and I reminded him that he had his own damn blog, he got sniffy and flounced.
Ruckus
@John Cole:
This is almost better than the original post.
hamletta
@TriassicSands: It is odd, but Obama is nothing if not thorough.
People were hacked off when the Justice Dept. defended DOMA in one federal circuit(?), but then they said they couldn’t make the argument in another that had different precedents and standards for determining discrimination, and it fell to the GOP to defend the law.
I’m not talking about 11-dimensional chess or anything like that, just that he’s willing to let things get hashed out through the whole process, and embed them in judicial precedent.
If you just leave it to the FDA’s ruling, that’s just the executive branch. So Congress can come in and override their call.
I think it’s a wise, long-term approach. Compare it to, say, the Mexico City policy, where health organizations in other countries receiving US funds can/can’t mention abortion depending on which party holds the White House. That’s insane!
hamletta
@zombie rotten mcdonald: Oh, I’m sorry. That sucks.
You also about gave me a heart attack, because I thought you meant Scott Miller from the V-Roys.
SG
It’s not just that the rich fucks want more tax cuts, it’s that they don’t want to pay back the money they raided from the SS trust fund to pay for their Bush tax cuts, wars and corporate give-aways in the first place. That means that when Obama punted on letting those cuts expire and then let almost all of them become permanent, these same rich fucks knew they would rather see the U.S. government default than raise taxes to pay its obligations. Hence, their desperate need for austerity and to destroy SS and Medicare before the bill comes due. It’s that simple: The rich fucks just want to avoid paying back the money they borrowed because they’re the actual takers, the real moochers, the parasites on the body politic.
And nothing will change until they are crushed. There are no compromises with these fuckers. There’s no working with them or reasoning with them. There is only crushing them so they can’t affect policy or economics for at least two or three generations. Prison, impoverishment, shunning, whatever it takes. Unfortunately, sometimes I think the only recourse the people have will turn out to be dusting off the tumbrels and sharpening the guillotines. If they’re not stopped, along with the ignorant yahoos they recruit with their propaganda, they’ll destroy not just this country but the entire planet to satisfy their greed.
zombie rotten mcdonald
@hamletta:
Yeah. I hope he comes back. But I don’t feel like I overstepped, it was my post, you know?
Scott Miller from Game Theory and Loud Family. Still a loss. I think someone here mentioned it. LGM did, as did Big Bad Bald Bastard and some other boutique blogs.
The prophet Nostradumbass
A really fucking obnoxious PG&E ad keeps appearing on this page for me, and I don’t even live in a city where they operate. Perhaps you should spend more money on fixing your fucking gas pipelines, and less on stupid web ads, assholes.
zombie rotten mcdonald
@SG:
You got a lot of truth, there, but Obama did not let all the tax breaks for rich fucks become permanent; he extended them, then they lapsed last time round, when the Republicans were calling them the “largest tax increase in history until the next one”
the ones that became permanent are for income earners below 400K, which is still pretty wealthy, admittedly. But maybe not in the “rich fuck” category.
As far as ‘destroying the planet to satisfy their greed’ I vacillate between suicidal depression and bleak cynical amusement at watching the Dance Band on the Toilet Bowl Titanic select upbeat, cheerful songs.
zombie rotten mcdonald
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
That battle was lost long ago. Mad Men convinced them that advertising was more worthwhile than actually being good.
As a creative-professional sort who does not have the political and familial connections that typically make a career, I testify. And bleakly, cynically, chuckle.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@zombie rotten mcdonald: If it was just an ad, I wouldn’t have even noticed it, but it was this thing that, if you happened to drag your mouse over it, took up the whole goddamn window.
I happen to live in a town with socialized utilities, for which I am very happy. Fuck PG&E.
NotMax
@Loviatar, Firebagger
Simplistic is as simplistic does.
Congratulations, however, are in order for constructing a crock large enough to stew an entire side of bull.
PeakVT
@SG: Agree with the general sentiment, but the SSTF hasn’t been “raided”. The money is all still there, invested in one of the most secure asset on the planet, US Treasuries.
zombie rotten mcdonald
@hamletta:
You also about gave me a heart attack, because I thought you meant Scott Miller from the V-Roys.
Sorry to alarm you. Loss of one Scott Miller at a time is hard enough.
Xenos
Given the balance between political movements in the US, calling for violence is an unforced error.
The national security state’s first allegiance is to itself, and will guard its monopoly on violence quite vigorously. Whoever moves first will get stomped on, and the political system will move to support the security state.
? Martin
@PeakVT: But in a way, they have. The financial class has so throughly fucked the global economy and pushed for austerity measures that we’re rattling around with 0% Treasury rates. That’s only going to require increased tax contributions from the working class to keep the trust going because nobody is getting the benefits of amortization to grow the national pension fund.
scav
@Xenos: Telling how certain calls to ‘volence’ are more noted, called out, and tut-tutted as unforced errors and scary scary dangerous than others. Even on days with polls on the predisposition.
SG
@PeakVT:
Yes, that’s true, but aren’t those the special T-bills that Republicans kept describing as “a bunch of worthless I.O.U.s?” That was the opening salvo in Bush’s push to destroy SS, by trying to convince people that it was insolvent and the T-bills weren’t worth the paper they were written on. That, in turn, is part of the endless campaign by the far right to convince people that the federal government is incompetent, feckless, unreliable and taking your money and squandering it.
It’s incredible when you think about it — the wingnuts were suggesting that the U.S. government would default on its debt to the trust fund despite never defaulting in its entire history and owning the printing presses to boot. Since the insane debt ceiling showdown, however, actual default is no longer unthinkable when the cracked teapots are in the driver’s seat.
By forcing austerity and cutting SS benefits now, the time when taxes will need to be raised to redeem the T-bills will be delayed, perhaps forever if the economy does well enough and the poors and the olds die off more quickly by cutting their Medicare and Medicaid. At least it gives the rich fucks a longer lead time to destroy the programs completely or find a way to exempt themselves from all taxes.
AA+ Bonds
It is true that Clive Crook is a notable shit.
Xenos
@scav: Exactly. When you have the stronger long-term strategic position the risk of damage due to unforced errors is greater. We are winning, albeit slowly, so we have more to lose by being reckless. And we know there is a structural bias in the media for false equivalency, so this is all the worse.
44% of republicans consider armed rebellion necessary = drunk blogger blowing off some steam, you know.
Xenos
@AA+ Bonds: Absolutely no disagreement on that issue.
zombie rotten mcdonald
@AA+ Bonds:
Yes, that is hard to argue.
PeakVT
@Martin: The SSTF assets earned about 4.4% in 2011, so that’s not the problem.
There are 2 risks to the SS old age insurance program. The first is decreased revenue. One cause of reduced revenue is rising inequality, which makes the current cap too low to capture the revenue that was expected. That’s why people call for raising or eliminating the cap. Another is high unemployment, which also reduces revenue. If more revenue isn’t raised, then at some point in the 2030s benefits will have to be cut by about 25%. The second risk is political, stemming from the possibility that Americans might elect politicians who will cut SS benefits now rather than raise the cap or institute short-term fiscal policies that will lower unemployment. Why would the American people do that? Well, one reason might be that they become convinced that the money has been “raided”, which to most people means stolen and permanently gone. But that’s not true. The money is there, held as assets in the trust fund. And that’s why I don’t like people using the term “raided”.
Villago Delenda Est
@NotMax:
It really is too bad Burke didn’t ride a tumbrel.
What a shitstain.
PeakVT
@SG: They are non-marketable bonds, but 1) they’re not going to need to be redeemed (as in returned to the Treasury for cash, instead of being rolled over) for decades, and 2) the chance of the US government explicitly refusing to honor such an obligation is low (though I suppose not zero as long as Teahadists control a portion of the government). If for some reason the rest of the government doesn’t have the cash to handle redemptions, then the politicians will (almost certainly) vote to cut benefits instead of defaulting.
Villago Delenda Est
@SG:
This is wishful thinking.
These vile parasites are insatiable, and furthermore, they have absolutely no sense of self-preservation, or they’d stop this shit, now.
They’re not only going to lose the Mandate of Heaven, they’re going to lose it in spectacular fashion unprecedented in the history of mankind.
Villago Delenda Est
@Petorado:
The “conservatives” and “libertarians” are neither. They work, sometimes without even knowing it, for societal instability.
The “evil socia1ists” that they fear are actually out to stabilize society, by reigning in these children playing with fire.
Don’t wish for revolution. You will probably not get what you’re looking for, because when you upend the table, the pieces will not be rearranged in the same places.
piratedan
@Loviatar, Firebagger: except that he’s not white and you can bloody well see how the Rethuglican party has embraced his Republican agenda, you douchcanoe.
Has he implemented the moderate Republican ideas of the 90’s yes, because he actually had the naivete to actually believe that the R’s were a party that was interested in helping to govern the country, so he adopted the ideas that he thought would help to bring the country together after the R’s had driven the economy off the fucking cliff. How was he to know that they would drop the mask and all pretension to be the party of the perpetually afraid?
afraid of the browns, the blacks, the poors, the muslims, the women who could think for themselves and the gheys. What is some damnably depressing is how little faith that R’s have in the American people and American ideals, for them it’s come down to who’s in power and who has the money, everything else is window dressing to promote that they have control over those two things.
SG
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’ve wondered about this and I’ve decided that the rich fucks and their delusional minions actually believe they’ll be safe when the temperatures and oceans rise, the crops fail, the plagues rampage and the masses revolt. I believe the rich fucks think they’ll corner all the available real estate in the higher latitudes, their money will secure adequate food and water supplies and their private and national armies will protect them from the mob.
I think the rich fucks have decided that catastrophic climate change is inevitable and they might as well ride the carbon tiger to the bitter end, hoard as much of everything as possible and wait out the decades of strife and death. They plan to be survivors and winners. Mass population die-offs can only make their control easier.
I also think they’ll be surprised. Maybe their best hope is a ride on Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic to one of those planets discovered the other day. Let the fuckers rot in the endless dark of space.
Cygil
I like extreme populist militant rant Cole much better than the old stubborn centrist Obama loyalist Cole.
Cygil
@hamletta: I agree. Obama is far more George HW Bush or John McCain than Reagan. Damn it, he keeps on telling us he’s a moderate republican.
Obama, December 2012.
I’m not actually against moderate republicans. I’ll work with anyone to get change done. I’m against false advertising.
Hoodie
@John Cole: You lost me, you sound like a fucking teabagger with apocalyptic visions. Why all the hate for Burnsie? A good lawyer counsels his client by telling him shit he doesn’t want to hear when he’s being stupid. Everything in your rant is correct, except for the violence. Clive Crook is an asshole, but nothing will change for the better when he’s gutted in the street and, inevitably, the Clive Crooks manage to get away. New boss will be same as the old boss. Who’ll be deciding what blood is shed? A bunch of armed teabaggers? Yeah, that will be righteous. I enjoy a good joke and revenge fantasy as much as the next guy, but violence is serious business and some around here seem to be eager to fantasize about it when the opportunity presents itself. As for Burnsie’s point, you saw what they trotted out to hunt down some kid bombers in Boston, who, by the way, killed an innocent third grader with his political statement about injustice.
raven
@Hoodie: The dude is a schmuck, I don’t give a fuck what his vocation is.
Todd
I’m resigned to being fucked.
My George Wallace 68 voting mother is utterly and completely convinced that t-bone eating young bucks and the tidal wave of browns sweeping up from the Rio Grande is the reason why it costs me so much to insure myself and educate her grandchildren. When I tell her that her beloved party intends to turn my Medicare into a Val-Pack coupon because I’m slightly under 55 (while screwing me on SS), she shouts about people on welfare. I tell her that the problem is the swells in nice suits that market nicely, but she is always ready to give a white conservative another chance, even though I tell her (and she knows for a fact) that none of them have ever done anything which benefitted our family. Of course, my grandmother (who never worked a day in her life, who was always lazy as shit, a greedy and grasping example of the finest of rural Americana) is 97 and has had a huge number of expensive treatments courtesy of Mediare – that, of course doesn’t count as welfare – she’s an old white woman, and is thus entitled. Sigh. Tribe is too strong in her.
It is bad out there in the economy at large. My receipts are noticeably down (35-40%), and everybody in my shop reports the same. The phones ring, but there’s not much money sloshing around.
Hoodie
@raven: Yeah, but on a relative scale of douchebaggery he doesn’t even register. He’s a regular on this blog and isn’t anywhere near as bad as some of the trolls. He didn’t deserve that but, of course, it was the Scotch talking. Cole has a bit of the crazy ass violent Appalachian in him, Scots Irish, maybe? My people, gotta love em.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@RaflW: One of the people behind the Roundup study is a darling of the anti-vaxxers. I’d wait before swallowing that load.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Hoodie: IIRC Cole’s German.
We’ve got the fun of taking our sick cocker to the vet. She’s had a rear end problem for the past week. Though on a happy note, the wife said she got voicemail from her daughter and she got in a nursing program.
So I’ll watch Morning Ho for a few more, and hey happy b-day Mika.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Who has a cigarette to share? Damn that was a fine rant John, damned fine.
Yeah, corporations are rolling in profits and the markets are sailing along nicely while everyone else watches what they have left slowly (and in some case, not so slowly) dwindle away.
And the Republican solution is… MOAR TAX CUTS! That’s right, give the businesses and rich people more of what they have already and somehow it will magically end up in our hands!
Another great Republican solution to a problem is in Wisconsin where they are ready to call cheese a junk food if you try to purchase it while on food stamps.
Wisconsin? Cheese? Junk food?! WTF?!!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@TriassicSands:
Because he’s acting in favor of evidence-based decision making. This is a jurisdictional fight.
Turn it around. How many judges do you trust to rule based on a review of reliable scientific literature?
Linda Featheringill
Wheeee! The Revolution has started!
Well, maybe not.
I agree with Burnsie on this one.
Listen. You guys know I’m a dirty, rotten, Socialist, Marx-loving, trouble-making, no-better-than-I-ought-to-be lady. But I have looked at the history of uprisings and Burnsie is right: When the blood starts to flow, it is mainly proletarian blood. Even Cuba, which had a successful revolution, managed to lop off only a few members of the Upper Crust. Most uprisings end with what Syria is trying to accomplish.
I’m not promoting the idea of passive acceptance of the status quo. I am suggesting that it would be good to be slow to start bleeding. It might be necessary. But don’t be too quick to volunteer.
[And yes, John. I loved your rant. Foolish though it was.]
Baud
@Todd:
Sorry about your ancestry, but you’re not alone. It’s the reason we can’t have nice things.
Todd
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
The interesting part is that the wealthy always chisel their would be courtiers, in particular the artisans and craftsmen they hire to create/install the “over the top” symbols of their success that they use to facilitate and magnify their image in the eyes of their peers.
The courtiers tend to take it without lube, just so they can get future opportunity to fawn and grovel before their betters.
Mezz (fpa Michael2)
@Cacti: “If gates around the palace didn’t save the Tsar from the Bolsheviks, do you really think the gates around your housing development will protect a petit bourgeois courtier like yourself? ”
I think I am learning to love prickly. Outstanding.
The most alarming thing is this: like 75% of the country’s population understands exactly what Cole is saying here: the rich are gaming the system (still) for their benefit, we know it, they know it, but the other 24.5% is so fucking stupid they screw the 75% of us with brains.
Maybe if Palin got elected as senator from Alaska all the Idjuts would move up there and live in her arctic paradise.
NotMax
And now for something completely different.
Todd
@Baud:
It confounds me to watch the twists, swivels and pivots.
Obama enacts the Heritage Foundation version of healthcare reform? It is communist.
Stock market recovers in a structurally sound way as opposed to a bubble? George Soros and the Fed are propping it up to make Obama look good. Plus, crony capitalism.
Osama Bin Laden dead? Obama failed us because he should have been taken alive, to be waterboarded. Besides, Obama didn’t authorize it – it was done behind his back.
Killing off the terror heads with drones, reducing collateral damage and keeping American soldiers out of harms way? Just like Obama – not manly, not destructive enough. Proves he doesn’t love the troops.
Has an intact family with lots of demonstrated affection, is hard working and has a pleasant demeanor? Moochelle, slutty daughters, some guy on the Internet says he’s gay, scary Muslim socialist with plans to enslave white folks.
Says from the beginning he isn’t talking guns? He is coming to take your guns.
BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: I think that’s what Cole is expecting from his 401k.
Keith G
Until we get a president who will tap into that vibe, there will be no change. Had Obama processed the courage and conviction to do this he might have upped his legacy to be considered the most important president in the last 90 years if not 150.
NotMax
@Todd
So sad to hear about the cramped, crabbed world she inhabits.
Perhaps thinking about the admittedly seismic step of limiting her grandkids’ exposure to her, and if feasible explaining to her why, is to be considered.
Baud
@Todd:
Sounds like you should excise politics from your coversations with them. They sound unreachable and it won’t do your mental health any good to keep trying.
Southern Beale
OMFG:
I feel SO MUCH SAFER knowing these yahoos are out there shooting first and asking questions later. Dumbass should be charged.
Todd
@NotMax:
Two are in college, the last one ready to start. She limited herself out long ago anyway – my seriously lazy, grasping grandmother has insisted on needing “help” around the house the last 45 years, and for about the past 25, that has been a nearly daily thing for my mom to do. I refused long ago to get involved, much to Dad’s irritation, figuring I have my own family to raise – besides, as I asked him, “how many people should it take to assist one hateful, anxious, lazy, grasping old woman in taking care of a house and yard which she would have left behind long ago if she actually gave a shit about anything other than her own stupid whims?”
About 15 years ago, I told my mother to throw a yellow pages directory at her and be done with it, but she wouldn’t. Now, she’s focusing all her anger and irritation at people who never did anything to her.
Lavocat
I want to see you as the new SNL guy for Weekend Update.
Sort of a Next Generation Belushi, screaming “FUCK YOU ALL!” all the fucking time.
Did I mention you would have to do the show while rip-roaring drunk?
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: Black, blondie, parti? We loves us some cocker spaniels.
raven
@Keith G: Tell us all about it.
NotMax
@Todd
Not offering advice (and unqualified to do so in any case), but just asking if she has had a chance to take a vacation (even a weekend respite) from what you describe as essentially a 25-year daily on-call, non-paid job.
NotMax
Had a pleasant brush with serenity just a short bit ago.
Coming up on 2 a.m. here, so took the trash down to the street (truck comes by at 5-ish).
Totally still, totally quiet, and a huge gibbous moon hanging low on the horizon, just begging to be stared at for a few minutes.
Schlemizel
shitty day ahead. Kids court date is this morning. After that we have to make a visit to the vet. Came home last night to find the old cat wandering weakly in circles & falling over; vestibular disease. There is no getting over that.
http://www.explosm.net/comics/3157/
raven
@NotMax: Dang. If they haven’t been there there’s no real way to describe it is there?
ericblair
@SG:
I think they believe it, because They’re Smarter Than Everyone Else. Same way with the armchair revolutionaries, who figure chaos and disaster may ruin their begonias, but they’ll be just fine in the New World Order due to their cunning and political insight. Investors knowingly invest into bubbles because they’ll know when to get out before the bubble bursts, and the suckers will be left with the bag. Wingnuts think that cutting spending and benefits only hurts the poor(er) and dark(er) and less deserving, because they themselves are independent upstanding citizens who never took a dime from anyone.
Guess what, It Means You Too.
Todd
@NotMax:
A few times. Each time, she received a ton of shit from my grandmother in the form of “what am I supposed to do if I need you for something”. The worst was about 5 years ago when we took her to Mexico with us (my Dad refused to go, he is not much of a traveler at all, kinda screwed up our plans by making hat choice). My grandmother guilted my mother into tears several times before the trip and she almost didn’t go. We ended up having a nice time, but that was her last real break from the crazy, and I attribute that to some of my mother’s weirdly intractable teatardism.
Hell, if my mother goes to a football game or a play locally she gets criticized for not being instantly available and asked “why would you want to go to that?”
I’ve made up my mind that if we are traveling somewhere when my grandmother passes away, I’m not making any effort to return prior to my scheduled return.
Baud
@ericblair:
What you said.
Keith G
@raven: Sorry mate, but right now I am at my time clocked, no and I mean no benefits, minimum wage plus job, but upon the occasion of having the time to do so I would gladly tell you all about it.
WereBear
In support of my theory that the Tea Party denizens are deeply, secretly, miserable… and they are looking for someone to blame.
In light of the James O’Keefe post a few days back, talking about how “everyone is old,” I do believe the Republicans have gathered all the bitter racist dead-enders together for us.
Practically speaking we need to rouse the non-voters in a big way… we could wipe out the R advantage that way. There’s your non-violent revolution.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Todd: Boy, that sounds familiar.
@Schlemizel: Cats (and dogs, too) can indeed recover. Could be an inner ear infection, too.
Cassidy
@Loviatar, Firebagger: No, because you and people like you are the only ones insisting that Obama presented himself as anything other than a Moderate to Conservative Dem. In the fantasy world you have constructed, Obama pretended to be a liberal, but it’s only a fantasy.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@piratedan:
I have said again and again and again– they are unworthy of their patrimony; they have no faith in the Constitution they profess to love, and they have absolutely no faith in their fellow citizens. These fuckers are Confederates, in word and in deed– not just in their hate and distaste for black and brown people, but in their obvious love and loyalty to The Job Creators ™, today’s planter aristocrats.
These fuckers want an aristocracy… and they want to be the nobles.
Confederate bastards.
HinTN
Having waded through all these comments, all I can say is, “Didn’t anybody here read Heinlein?”
TriassicSands
@hamletta:
This isn’t a constitutional issue, so Congress can do whatever it wants, despite what a court rules on any issue over which they have jurisdiction. And since this isn’t the Supreme Court, it is a decision that is easily overruled by the Appeals Court or the SCOTUS. By allowing the drug to be available over the counter, a precedent is set. If the GOP wants to go against that in the future, they have to take something away from people. That’s harder to do than simply continuing to not let them have it. Future GOP administrations now have Obama to support their position if they choose to follow the same path. Had Obama/Sebelius simply followed the expert advice, by the time the GOP once again controlled the FDA, there would have been years of usage that would almost certainly have shown (as is the case in other countries) that the experts were right.
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Your response leaves me more than confused. I’m bewildered.
The FDA experts recommended the drug be available without a prescription. Sebelius then made the political decision to override the experts. The judge simply deferred to the scientific experts over the political administrator.
It was never necessary for Sebelius to intercede in the first place. Given the mission of the FDA, I mostly* favor following the recommendations of scientific experts. I don’t expect Obama to get the support of any women’s groups on this, at least none who wouldn’t appoint or elect Phyllis Schlafly to be their leader.
This one, since what he did was defer to scientific experts. With obvious exceptions like Scalia, most intelligent judges only have to be able to tell the difference between science and politics. Sebelius’s decision went against her own agencies experts in what was a blatantly political/non-scientific decision. There may be times when politics should overrule science, but this is not, in my opinion, one of them.
Take a look at Wikipedia (Emergency contraceptive availability by country). Given the number of countries that provide the drug over-the-counter without prescription, I’d say the evidence runs against Obama/Sebelius.
It is the job of the FDA, based on expert advice, to make these kinds of decisions. I expect Republicans to step in and go against the science, but I’d hope Democratic administrations would be different.
* I might hesitate if the “experts” are all Republicans.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Schlemizel: Man, that seriously sucks. So sorry to hear it– think I’ll have to give my old cat, the Baron Friedrich von Badkatt, a big hug and squeeze.
Feudalism Now!
We are coming to the point where there will be blood. Yes, it will be 99% blood, but there will be blood. You have a portion of the electorate, say 27%, who are guano loco. They see the end of ‘white Amurika’ and are becoming increasingly unhinged. Demographic changes will increase their paranoia and their ability to fuck it up for the rest of us. I know my patience has worn out for these idiots. I proudly waved my asshole flag in church and told an older parishioner, spouting the ‘Obama is buying up all the guns and ammo nonsense’ , that she couldn’t be that stupid. She was apoplectic. I’m done. I’ve tried to be civil. I’ve tried to be understanding. But we are dealing with pouty nihilists, and I refuse to deal with their nonsense. Screw civility. They are ignorant children throwing a temper tantrum. When the revolution comes, they will all scream ‘I told you so….’
Patrick
@Southern Beale:
Wasn’t there a study that showed that a gun meant to protect somebody’s home was 43 times more likely to harm an innocent person instead? I know right-wingers have demonized the study since it had to do with science, but this incident is yet another sad piece evidence.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@TriassicSands: I thought Sebelius’ decision disagreed with the original recommendation only in maintaining a minimum age. Which made sense to me, as we know that many drugs act differently on children, adolescents, and adults. Safe for adults has been studied. I doubt that safe for under 15 has; most drugs aren’t studied in minors.
If you’ve got studies showing otherwise, give.
This is one judge out of how many? Remember how many judges in the country are elected. Art Pope shelled out a lot of money to get wingnut judges elected here.
I’ve already heard crowing about this from the “Abolish the FDA” nuts. And from people hoping this can be used to shoot down other age restrictions on drugs. Most of those are based on a lack of studies, too. So yes, I think there’s more than just contraception access involved in the decision to appeal.
danimal
I haven’t read the comments, the thread is mostly dead by now anyway, but I just need to say that I read Clive Crook’s piece yesterday. I am a measured, moderate person by most accounts, yet my reaction was almost exactly the same as Cole’s. I really wanted to see his head on a pike. The Clive Crooks’ of the world really need to listen, the rage is still bubbling under the surface and Obama’s cool leadership will not hold back the mob next time.
RaflW
Isn’t that just the program of rank incompetence by folks like Boehner, Dubya, Jindal, etc?
Dennis
How old are your parents? Pretty sure they’ve been paying in their whole working lives, too.
RaflW
@PeakVT:
As I understand it, and I may be mis-understanding it, when the payments back on these bonds start having to happen, that will require current account tax revenue rather than SSI payments in as it works now.
That will mean fewer general revenue dollars (a lot fewer!) for everything else. To keep deficits from exploding there will have to be general revenue tax increases. And those tax increases 20 years from now must be opposed now. No new taxes. Ever. Or so the Grover has declared it.
Morzer
There’s nothing wrong with Clive Crook that forced public ingestion of molten gold wouldn’t fix.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Morzer: Give the whinging fucker a crown.
Oh, where’s the Khal Drogo when we need him?
Morzer
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
Well, I am a conservative kinda chap, so I am going with the traditional down the gullet molten gold approach in the style of Founding Father Genghis Khan. Fussy modern innovations just ain’t my style.
The Moar You Know
Age 13. 34 solid years of payments.
I will get nothing.
But I will remember who stole my life’s earnings from me and mine, and an old man who doesn’t have long to live might do something unpleasant.
PeakVT
@RaflW: That’s right; the general fund (the rest of government) will have to raise taxes, cut spending, and/or borrow more to cover the redemptions. Or the obligation could be legislated away by reducing benefits, either then or now.
terraformer
Ahh, it’s righteous rants such as this that heartens me, and keeps hope alive. If at least from a distance, in front of my computer.
Morzer
This story about Lincoln Chafee’s interesting decision (which he can’t, apparently, explain) to dishonor pension obligations while bailing out Kurt Schilling’s investors says quite a bit about how our ruling elites think:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-01/chafee-s-confusion-about-moral-obligation.html
Violet
Very late to the thread, but wanted to say, Fuck Yeah, John. Love your righteous rants and you are right on, brother.
SG
@PeakVT: Isn’t that what I said in the first place at <a href="https://balloon-juice.com/2013/05/02/open-thread-1619/#comment-4406736"?
Anna in PDX
I read this and thought “how nice, Cole has posted a May Day rant” then noticed it was today not yesterday that he posted it. Well done anyhow. Every day is May Day until the rich are quaking in fear of our righteous wrath. :)
Anna in PDX
@The Moar You Know: I’m coming up on 30 years of payment into the SS system – oh yeah there were two years overseas that I had a local economy job and no FICA so I guess it’s only 28 – and I have about 25 years left before I can possibly retire – SS better the hell be there when I am 67. Why do you think you’ll get nothing?
Howard Beale IV
When it comes to heads on a pike, nothing beats Vir Cotto.
Beauzeaux
I’m collecting Social Security so I’d appreciate it if you kids would put off the coming collapse of civilization until I’m gone. I figure I have no more than ten years and I’m not sure I even want all of that.
Paid into SS starting in 1958 and into Medicare from the very beginning. I don’t use Medicare because I prudently moved to Canada a few years back.
I really truly hope for SS & Medicare be there for everyone. (Medicare should be expanded to the whole population.) But if you can’t stop the despoilers and barbarians, I hope you can at least slow them down.
Brantl
@burnspbesq: burnsesq, all douche, all the time.
mainmati
I come to this thread way late. Grew up in Pittsburgh and had paying jobs from 10 years old (paper route, regular; snow shoveling, lawn mowing, periodic). I have been paying into Social Security since I was 17. I think I understand where Cole comes from in terms of family background (working class but he went into military, I went into Peace Corps in a dangerous environment).
Clive F*cking Crooks is just another Brit class-whanker.