Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

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

All your base are belong to Tunch.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

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

You cannot shame the shameless.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

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

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Nothing worth doing is easy.

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

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

Consistently wrong since 2002

Bark louder, little dog.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

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

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

I really should read my own blog.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

The words do not have to be perfect.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / It Smelled Like Springtime, and You Were Just a Boy

Reader Interactions

57Comments

  1. 1.

    eric

    I am seriously in love with the new “Spock” audi web commercial. cudos to that ad exec.

  2. 2.

    Linda Featheringill

    It really is spring time and it looks like I will actually have a garden.

    SOME PEOPLE don’t want to help me establish the garden but I’m sure they’ll help me eat the produce. [Yes, I’m a bitter old broad today.]

    No lilacs around here. That’s a shame.

  3. 3.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @Linda Featheringill: If my wife tried to set up a garden, and then threatened me with “if you don’t help, you don’t get to eat what I grow in it,” I would be like “That’s fine. I’ll even make room in the fridge for your fruits and vegetables.” And she knows I would do that. She decided we needed a water cooler even though we have a fridge with a filtered water dispenser; I have yet to get a drink out of it.

  4. 4.

    Cassidy

    O/T, how the hell is BF given a timeout for “rampant douchebaggery, as our bloghost puts it, but same said bloghost will completely bork the whole blog to let T&H out of the corner to shit everywhere.

  5. 5.

    rikyrah

    Now They Want to Take Away the 8-Hour Day and 40-Hour Week
    Tuesday, 07 May 2013 15:13
    By Dave Johnson, Truthout | News Analysis

    Republicans are trying to pass an “alternative” to overtime pay. This is really about taking away the eight-hour workday and 40-hour workweek. Will weekends be next? What about an “alternative” to paying workers at all?

    House Republicans are pushing a bill that takes away extra pay for overtime, substituting “comp” time instead. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 is the law that brought us the eight-hour workday and the 40-hour workweek. This law does not prohibit employers from requiring workers to work over 40 hours. Instead, it gives employers an incentive to instead pay extra or hire more people, and gives employees a premium if they do have to work longer. (Note that this is also the law that brought us a minimum wage and outlawed child labor.)

    There is proof that overtime pay works: workers like domestic workers and agricultural workers – jobs not covered by the FLSA – are twice as likely to have to work more than 40 hours in a week. And even with this law, Americans already work more hours than in almost any other industrialized country.

    The House will be voting on H.R. 1406, The Working Families Flexibility Act, which lets employers offer “comp time” instead of overtime pay. The problem is that employers will pressure workers to take comp time instead of overtime, which reduces paychecks and gets rid of the incentive to hire more people. Later, the employees will be pressured to not take that comp time, or will have to be “on call,” etcetera.

    It is important to note that the law does not guarantee workers the right to actually use the comp time they get instead of extra pay. Employers can put it off forever. You can’t use this time when you want to, only when the employer decides it is okay.

    This really is a flat-out pay take-away, can’t use it another day.

    http://truth-out.org/news/item/16238-now-they-want-to-take-away-the-8-hour-day-and-40-hour-week

  7. 7.

    jayboat

    John Hiatt is one of the greatest under-appreciated talents of our generation.

  8. 8.

    Suffern ACE

    @rikyrah: when I was hourly, I had a comp time option. Not that I could ever find a free day to take that comp time that my boss would agree to let me have.

  9. 9.

    Mike in NC

    @rikyrah: Republicans believe paying people to work should be entirely optional, just like tipping your waiter or waitress.

  11. 11.

    schrodinger's cat

    Spring has sprung. My allergies are in full bloom along with the flowers. I am going to put in my container garden this weekend. Herbs and tomatoes. Is there anything else that can grow in containers?

  13. 13.

    MikeJ

    @Suffern ACE: Even if you could take your accrued time off, it’s still a loser for working people unless comp time accrues at 1.5hrs/hr.

  14. 14.

    Mike in NC

    The media reaction to Mark Sanford’s election to Congress in SC can only mean they’ll be speculating that he will be the one to beat for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. Watch out Rick Santorum!

  15. 15.

    rikyrah

    State Legislatures
    The Republican Power Grab in North Carolina
    By Melba Newsome

    It’s not often that 250 people pack in to see the city council in Asheville, N.C., in the middle of a workday. Yet there they were on the afternoon of April 3, when the city’s elected officials met with citizens to discuss a plan by the Republican-led General Assembly in Raleigh to take control of the city’s water systems. The lawmakers want to hand it over to a new multi-county board that would be appointed largely by the state legislature. Asheville wouldn’t be compensated for lost revenue from water bills, leaving the city of 84,000 with a $3 million shortfall that would force cuts to city services.

    The mostly Democratic voters in the audience vowed to stop the bill from becoming law. But that’s not likely to happen. For two years, Democrats who run the largest city in Western North Carolina have been losing to Republicans in the Capitol. In 2012, the legislature stripped the city’s control of Asheville Regional Airport and is currently in the process of appropriating the land. Lawmakers created an independent state agency to run the airport, saying it would provide better service. “We can’t find a valid reason for the taking,” says Asheville’s Democratic Mayor Terry Bellamy. “They have accused us of mismanaging money, but they have no data to back that up.” She points out that the city’s bond rating rose from AA to AA+ in 2010. “Every city in the state should be watching what’s happening in Asheville and supporting us,” she says, “because they could be next.”

    Since January, Republicans in the General Assembly have introduced a series of bills that would curtail the ability of Democratic-led cities and urban counties to govern themselves. GOP legislators say Charlotte’s City Council can no longer be trusted to manage Charlotte Douglas International Airport, a major hub. They want an appointed regional authority to run it. “The Charlotte Airport has become a multibillion-dollar effort,” says State Senator Bob Rucho, the bill’s main sponsor. “We’re concerned and want to be sure you have the best minds and most experienced individuals in place to move that forward to get the most economic value derived from it.”

    Rucho has cited a variety of reasons for the takeover. He accused Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx, now President Obama’s nominee for U.S. Transportation secretary, of planning to divert airport revenue to fund pet projects (not true, Foxx says). He said security costs are up and the airport needs new leadership when its longtime director retires.

    State lawmakers also nullified a lease that let Raleigh use state property for a park and enacted changes limiting cities’ ability to annex land. Another bill would take away control of school buildings and construction from the Wake County Board of Education, which oversees schools in Raleigh and surrounding areas, and give it to county commissioners. “No one has come out to say specifically ‘this is political revenge against Democratic strongholds,’ ” says David Swindell, who teaches public policy at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “But these changes amount to an unprecedented attack on the state’s cities, which happen to be home to many of the state’s Democrats.”

    http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-02/the-republican-power-grab-in-north-carolina

  16. 16.

    Suffern ACE

    @Linda Featheringill: there is a book called “wicked plants” that might assist you in planning your garden. Not that I’d recommend poisoning some people, but some people might help if they knew you were planting things that might be used against them in the future. Those people might take an interest in knowing exactly which plants those were.

  17. 17.

    the Conster

    @Mike in NC:

    Every Republican nominee for president has to win SC according to the CW, so did someone forget to tell either Mitt or Newt?

  18. 18.

    Debbie(aussie)

    OT. Is it Mother’s Day this Sunday 12th May. I gAthered that we celebrate iron the same day all over the western world. Father’s Day be different.

  19. 19.

    Punchy

    Saaaaaaaaaaaaay what? Really? Homeschoolers can now play on local school teams?

    So public skools are da ebil, but their sports teams are da bomb?

  28. 28.

    Mark S.

    @Cassidy:

    Who is BF?


    Also

    For reasons still unclear, Italians and Spaniards appear to be less closely related than most Europeans to people elsewhere on the continent.

    Just a weird factoid for your morning.

  29. 29.

    Amir Khalid

    @handsmile:
    As a Liverpool fan, I hate to say it; but Alex Ferguson is better at his job than Niall Ferguson, is far less of a hypocrite, and has brought more happiness to the world.

  33. 33.

    Roger Moore

    @rikyrah:

    “The Charlotte Airport has become a multibillion-dollar effort,” says State Senator Bob Rucho, the bill’s main sponsor. “We’re concerned and want to be sure you we have the best minds and most experienced individuals our cronies in place to move that forward to get the most abscond with the economic value derived from it.”

    FTFY, Mr. Rucho.

  34. 34.

    Roger Moore

    @burnspbesq:

    Is there any reason to believe that that bill or anything like it could pass the Senate?

    No. And there’s no reason at all to think that the President would sign it if it somehow reached his desk. But it’s a good indication of the kind of things the Republicans would like to do if they get back in charge, and hence something that might be nice to use to scare inform voters about the dangers of voting (R).

  35. 35.

    muddy

    There are little drifts of maple flowers all around me. I cough drily and without effect. Still, it’s gorgeous and worth it. Has anyone ever noticed how maple seeds work as a group to germinate? Fascinating. Nature’s wingnut. Actual wingnut, not metaphorical.

  36. 36.

    burnspbesq

    @rikyrah:

    What the Republicans in the N.C. Legislature would really like to do is break up the Wake County school district altogether and return the schools to municipal control. Wake County has run a highly effective intra-district transfer program for a number of years, which has allowed students from Raleigh to attend high-achieving schools in places like Cary and Garner, much to the chagrin of the local racists.

  37. 37.

    Mike in NC

    @Roger Moore: Cronyism is what it’s all about. Recently NC Governor Pat McCrory replaced all five members of the Board of Elections who just happened to be considering an investigation into the source of more than $200K in campaign contributions that McCrory pocketed in 2012. All a coincidence I tell you!

  39. 39.

    burnspbesq

    Former State Department Legal Advisor Harold Koh (who has returned to Yale Law School) gave a rather important speech at the Oxford Union last night. Everyone involved would undoubtedly deny it, but I think this is as close to a statement of the Obama Administration’s intentions with respect to the War on Terra as we’re likely to see any time soon. Well worth reading.

    http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/05/harold-kohs-speech-at-the-oxford-union/

  40. 40.

    Ash

    Flight got canceled due to them needing some piece from France. So now I’ll have to do this all over again tonight!

  41. 41.

    handsmile

    @Amir Khalid:

    And in addition to all those virtues, SAF probably has no fookin’ clue who Andrew Sullivan even is.

    On another matter, have you written here at BJ of your opinions on the Malaysian electoral outcome? As it’s been necessary to be only an occasional lurker hereabouts recently, I did miss any such account. If so, could you kindly provide a thread title or approximate date. Thanks!

  42. 42.

    burnspbesq

    @Ash:

    Flight got canceled due to them needing some piece from France. So now I’ll have to do this all over again tonight!

    Ouch. Wear yourself out today, so that you can fall asleep immediately after takeoff (if not before).

  43. 43.

    PsiFighter37

    @Mike in NC: A recent NYT article informed me that waiters make a minimum wage of barely over $2/hr. That is nuts and not right at all…

  44. 44.

    peach flavored shampoo

    @handsmile: I read “SAF” as Singapore Air Force.

    Also, too I find it amusing that he was knighted for coaching a team, rather than playing for it.

  45. 45.

    ricky

    Ah, spring. A time when the air energizes the South Carolina chapter of the he-man woman-haters club.

    What does a fella have to do to lose in these Southern woman hating states? Drive some young groupie off a bridge
    after a late night beach party?

  46. 46.

    MikeJ

    @Debbie(aussie):

    Is it Mother’s Day this Sunday 12th May. I gAthered that we celebrate iron the same day all over the western world. Father’s Day be different.

    The first mother’s day I spent in England I called my Mom and thoroughly confused her as it was still a month away in the US.

  47. 47.

    Roger Moore

    @PsiFighter +37:

    A recent NYT article informed me that waiters make a minimum wage of barely over $2/hr.

    Depends on where they work. Most states have rules that let employers count some amount of tips against minimum wage, but there are a few states- apparently concentrated here on the Left Coast- that have the same minimum wage for tipped and untipped employees. The Labor Department has the details.

  48. 48.

    BENJAMIN

    @burnspbesq:

    “(1) Disengage from Afghanistan, (2) Close Guantanamo, and (3) Discipline Drones.”

    Of course he’s not speaking for the WH, but it seems like it’s another trial balloon.

    He’s suggesting this has been the plan from outset? Being adaptable, evolutionary, is the way to deal with asymmetrical warfare.

  49. 49.

    drkrick

    @handsmile: Thatcher dead and Sir Alex retired. There’s a guy somewhere in Liverpool with a polished lamp and one more wish. (Stolen from a FB timeline)

  50. 50.

    gene108

    @burnspbesq:

    which has allowed students from Raleigh to attend high-achieving schools in places like Cary and Garner, much to the chagrin of the local racists.

    Huh?

    The highest achieving schools in Wake County are the magnet schools in Raleigh.

    Some New Jersey transplants that got voted onto the school board tried breaking up the unified county system and making it based on municipal control, but that didn’t go over well with residents. They were soon replaced.

    40+ years of a unified county school system is something that isn’t going to be taken apart easily, because Wake Co. residents like having good schools throughout their county and like not having to worry that their little ones education being adversely impacted, if they decide to move from Cary to Fuquay-Varina.

  52. 52.

    ricky

    @burnspbesq:

    Thanks for the link. It was an interesting speech.

    But let me ask. What makes a speech at the Oxford Union
    really important as opposed to only rather important?

  53. 53.

    Amir Khalid

    @handsmile:
    I commented about this yesterday. Basically, I noted that the election went pretty much according to my initial expectations. Barisan continues its slide in popularity at the federal level: its Parliamentary majority is the smallest ever, and of course it has no 2/3 majority; it lost the popular vote for the first time, to Pakatan Rakyat.

    I’m disappointed that Pakatan didn’t win Parliament, since some polls had indicated they had a real chance, but I’d always considered such hopes a bit optimistic. I suspect that where the polls went wrong is that they counted the poplar vote as a mass rather than going constituency by constituency. But like they say, slow and steady wins the race …

  54. 54.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Burns, good to see you bounced back from that totally justified Cole smackdown.

  55. 55.

    burnspbesq

    @ricky:

    But let me ask. What makes a speech at the Oxford Union
    really important as opposed to only rather important?

    Part of it is the enormous respect that people both in and out of government have for Professor Koh. To the extent that the speech is a critique of Administration policy, it’s far more likely to be taken seriously by the Administration than a screed from the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, or a UN Special Rapporteur.

    And part of it has to do with the content. I find it to be a pretty fair catalogue of both the successes and the shortcomings of the first Obama Administration’s handling of these issues. I especially like the call for Obama to veto the FY 2014 NDAA if Congress continues to impede the closure of Guantanamo (I suspect that his suggestion that those prisoners who can’t be released should be transferred to the naval brig in Charleston was intended as a shiv into Lindsey Graham’s ribs).

  57. 57.

    Amir Khalid

    @BENJAMIN:
    Prof Koh is no longer part of the Obama administration. A trial balloon would surely be floated by someone still on the inside.

Comments are closed.