Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

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

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

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

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93Comments

  5. 5.

    Corner Stone

    @Doug Milhous J: O, really?
    Not as sick of it as I am, I can guarantee you. It’s entered into the hall of fame for tribal marking here. Anyone who uses it has clearly indicated where on the spectrum they are.

  6. 6.

    Corner Stone

    @? Martin: Martin, shouldn’t you be firing some poor girl for not cutting it, or possibly working on 1200 words to convince us all the C-CPI isn’t really a cut, but more…just slower?

  9. 9.

    Cacti

    State medical examiner describes Zimmerman’s post-altercation injuries as “very insignificant” and “not life threatening”. Disputes characterization of having head slammed repeatedly into concrete: “To me, the word slam implies great force”.

  10. 10.

    Amir Khalid

    @Corner Stone:
    Hmm. If a fast food chain sold Nothing Burgers, what would it be called? What else would it sell? Whom would it have for a mascot?

  14. 14.

    Violet

    Heard Wendy Davis interviewed on the radio today–Diane Rehm’s show I think. She was followed by some other people including some forced birther woman. I was thinking during the interviews that we need to reclaim the word “life” and the phrases “pro life” and “pro family.”

    Nowhere in the interviews did I hear any discussion about what happens after all these unwanted babies are born. The Republicans have cut funding of everything from food stamps to education to foster care. They are NOT pro life. They are pro controlling women but don’t give a damn what happens after the baby is born.

    Why doesn’t anyone call them on it? Why do they get to own the phrase “pro life”. They’re not pro life at all. If they were, they’d put their money where their mouth is. They’re anti-life and anti-family. The need to be made to own it.

  17. 17.

    lamh35

    Doug J, my brutha from amother mutha, you had me at the Soul Train line…lol. You cool peeps…lol.

    So apparently, Paula Deen’s accuser released a statement. Seems Paula Deen’s lawyers are now trying to use the SCOTUS Prop 8 decision to say that because the accuser is a White woman, that her lawsuit is without merit because basically cause she’s white, that means the woman cannot be affected by the racial language and attitudes that contributed to the hostile environment at Deen’s restaurant.

    Paula Deen’s Accuser: “This Lawsuit Has Never Been About the N-Word”

    “I may be a white woman, but I could no longer tolerate her abuse of power as a business owner, nor her condonation of Mr. Hiers’ despicable behavior on a day-to-day basis,” Jackson’s statement continued. “I am what I am, and I am a human being that cares about all races, and that is why I feel it is important to be the voice for those who are too afraid to use theirs.”

  18. 18.

    Amir Khalid

    @Cacti:
    So basically all Zimmerman had on his head were minor scratches — and not, say, a concussion and deep gashes as one should expect from repeated and forceful impact against a concrete paving slab reportedly claimed by him. I wonder if the commenter at #7 is taking note.

  19. 19.

    JoyceH

    I was in the fitness center at my local Y a few days ago, doing my cardio and my weights and my floor stretches. Call Me Maybe comes on, and one of the macho-muscly gym regular guys says to another – ‘this is the best workout song ever‘.

    So there’s that.

  20. 20.

    Socoolsofresh

    So student loan interest rates double while bankers loan interest rates remain the same. Your government at work.

  22. 22.

    Amir Khalid

    @Keith:
    I remember them. I think that’s why they went out of business in Malaysia 20 years ago and never came back.

  25. 25.

    ranchandsyrup

    Today’s fave FB interaction–

    Wingnut: I like Marco Rubio but not the way he speaks. It sounds like he has golf balls in his mouth.
    Me: Oh, he’s had white balls in his mouth a bunch of times.

    Fin.

  26. 26.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    I got a $15 gift from Amazon a few weeks ago and didn’t know what the hell to do with it. I woud up downloading some songs from Itunes. This was one of them. lol. The only MJ song I have out of about 1,000 songs.

  27. 27.

    Steve in the ATL

    We were at a wedding last year and my kids were dying to leave. I told them we had to stay until someone did something embarrassing. The DJ played “Thriller” and one of the groomsmen did all the moves from the video, alone on the dance floor. As we stood watching in horror, my daughter turned to me and said, “Say your goodbyes; I’ll be waiting in the car.”

  28. 28.

    Cacti

    @Amir Khalid:

    Despite the all important narrative, the inconsistencies are piling up:

    My head was slammed repeatedly on the concrete and I feared for my life vs. Injuries were “very insignificant” and “not life threatening”

    I was following him vs. I wasn’t following him

    He jumped out of the bushes vs. No bushes in the area

    He was circling my truck vs. I don’t know what direction he came from

    I was screaming for help vs. His hands were smothering me and I couldn’t breathe

    He pinned my arms down vs. I was able to wrestle my gun away from him

    I’m sure one of George’s version of events was true though, and he had to dispatch that dangerous negro buck for walking suspiciously in a hooded sweatshirt.

  29. 29.

    Shakezula

    I’m sorry, this has been blowing my mind, so sharesies!

    Last August, the Supreme Court issued an order saying that Koster’s May 2012 request to set execution dates was premature until questions on the use of propofol in executions are settled. Koster said, however, that waiting until federal litigation is complete may prevent the State from administering capital punishment at all, noting that the Missouri Department of Corrections’ supply of propofol is limited, and much of its remaining supply will expire by next spring.

    The question: Whether use of Propofol for executions constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

  30. 30.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @Socoolsofresh: I believe government worked exactly the way one party expected it to: Republicans. What are you going to do about it?

  31. 31.

    liberal

    @Corner Stone:

    …or possibly working on 1200 words to convince us all the C-CPI isn’t really a cut…

    Oh, jeesus, lol. You remember that too? Or has he been pushing that again recently?

  32. 32.

    catclub

    @Socoolsofresh: By some accounts, $800B of the QE money (maybe $1.4Tr?) is sitting in the Federal Reserve as excess reserves of the banks — rather than being loaned out to business, because the Fed decided to pay interest on it.

    Velocity of money falls toward zero.

  34. 34.

    burnspbesq

    @Socoolsofresh:

    So student loan interest rates double while bankers loan interest rates remain the same.

    One of these is not like the other. But I’m willing to bet that if I gave you a week to explain why not, you couldn’t do it.

  35. 35.

    UniversalSalvation_Dude (fka RaflW)

    @Violet:
    I’ve (unfortunately) been thinking about this today, particularly via Kay’s thread earlier. Why do these folks push for a total abortion ban, including no exception for the life of the mother?

    One answer I can think of is: the unborn are innocent, but also unsaved. Those who are born can receive the message of Salvation and then either accept it and be granted everlasting life (after this one……….) or refuse it and burn in hell.

    As someone on an earlier thread today said, the real obsessives believe that babies who die before receiving their savior are indeed damned to hell.

    I personally find that so evil and bizarre as to be insane. But anyway, the Christianist fringe that is driving the anti-abortion bus I speculate would rather save the souls of the babies than the lives of their mothers.

    I can’t make sense of it. But it holds together, in a religion-crazed sort of way.

  36. 36.

    Cacti

    Also too, best prosecution question of the day on re-direct of Det. Serino after his testimony on cross that he saw convenience store security footage w/ Trayvon Martin wearing (cue ominous music) a hooded sweatshirt!

    Prosecution: “Are you saying it’s illegal in Seminole County for someone to wear a hoodie at night?”

  37. 37.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @burnspbesq: Warren tied the two together by trying to get a bill through that would make student loan rates the same as rates given to banks. In Bush logic, not having the bank rates go up is the same as student loan rates quadrupling, or something.

  40. 40.

    Socoolsofresh

    @burnspbesq: Why not? Elizabeth Warren recently wanted to introduce a bill that tied these rates together. You can bet how that went. But oh, please explain away. Maybe you know some law that could get Elizabeth Warren charged for suggesting that.

  43. 43.

    Amir Khalid

    @Cacti:
    Which leads me to think the prosecution team isn’t as incompetent as some here are fearing (or hoping, as the case may be).

  44. 44.

    Trollhattan

    Pedarest music will liven up many a party.

    In other news, WTF Canada? Or put differently, good policing.

    SURREY, British Columbia —
    Police in Canada have arrested and charged a man and woman with terrorism for attempting to leave pressure cooker bombs at British Columbia’s provincial legislature on Canada Day, when thousands of people were expected to be there.

    John Stewart Nuttall and Amanda Marie Korody were inspired by al-Qaida ideology but were self-radicalized, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner James Malizia said Tuesday. He called it a domestic threat without international connections.

    Malizia told a news conference there was no evidence or indication to suggest a connection to the deadly Boston Marathon bombings in April, which used bombs made from pressure cookers.

    RCMP Supt. Wayne Rideout said the public was never at risk, and the threat was detected early.

    Nuttall and Korody were arrested Monday, the same day that thousands attended the Canada Day celebrations at the provincial legislature in the provincial capital of Victoria. Police said the pair targeted the celebrations, but the bombs were found outside the legislature before the crowds gathered.

  46. 46.

    mdblanche

    @PeakVT:

    “I’m making the minimum wage plus 50 cents,” notes Ms. Simon. “I definitely can find another job.”

    Historically 10+% unemployment doesn’t spur worker activism, it inhibits it. It’s when attitudes like this become common that you start to see things happen.

  47. 47.

    Violet

    @UniversalSalvation_Dude (fka RaflW): I think Belafon (formerly anonevent) is right and the underlying issue is they want to control women. You are also right, but your analysis is the methodology they use–the wacked out reasoning they use to convince people, especially women, to go along with what they are doing.

    To me it seems like the underlying issue is they want to control women because they are terrified of women’s power in having the babies. They can’t deal with that fear so they have to control the women so they control that power. That’s the underlying issue. It’s fear. Men’s fear of women.

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    @UniversalSalvation_Dude (fka RaflW):

    As someone on an earlier thread today said, the real obsessives believe that babies who die before receiving their savior are indeed damned to hell.

    If so, that would be another example of fundamentalist Protestants adopting some of the wackier tenets of pre-Vatican II Catholicism, where the souls of infants who die without being baptized end up in Limbo.

    Come on, guys, didn’t you fight, like, 300 years of wars to be free of the Catholic Church, and now you’re adopting weird-ass beliefs that even the Catholics have officially dropped as being too bizarre?

  51. 51.

    ruemara

    @Keith: Shut your mouth, heathen.

    @UniversalSalvation_Dude (fka RaflW): Think ensouled before birth and therefore alive in the sense of sentient. Needing to be saved is a not so much thing. They tend to agree that there’s a level of understanding that is inherent in salvation ergo you can be an innocent if you’re mentally incompetent because you can’t understand the nature of sin and salvation. One of the few times fundamentalism’s god is compassionate and unsmitey. The belief stems from verses stating that God knew [prophet’s name here] in the womb and you in the womb. The absolute minute the sperm hits the egg, you are ensouled, full human and MUST be carried to term. The reason why they can’t frame the debate like that is because how do you legislate the concept of a soul? Throw in the biological concept of viability and you have a lot of reasons why ensoulment is not immediate and that’s a lot of dogma down the drain.

  52. 52.

    MikeJ

    @UniversalSalvation_Dude (fka RaflW):

    As someone on an earlier thread today said, the real obsessives believe that babies who die before receiving their savior are indeed damned to hell.

    As someone who grew up surrounded by fundegelicals, I’ve never met one of them that believes that. Which doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but it would make them a small splinter group of the fundegelical splinter group. Even in Left Behind all the kids under 12 (when they start thinking about sex) get killed called up to heaven to be with God in the Rapture. They’re considered pure.

  53. 53.

    Trollhattan

    @ranchandsyrup:

    True story. A buddy was working late and took a walk past Capitol Park. He passed a cordoned-off area and out of a trailer popped Phil Hartman with a couple other guys. My friend called, “Hey, I know you, you’re Troy McClure!” Hartman responded, “My friends call me Phil.” My buddy–that rare person never at a loss for words–replied, “My friends call me TinyE” and struck an Elvis pose.

    Which was accurate, because I’d nicknamed him TinyE at work a few years earlier (based on the Nick Cage SNL character), and he answers to it even today.

    Don’t know what film thy might have been shooting, as Hartman’s filmography is a busy one. Like many, I was crushed after his death.

  54. 54.

    ranchandsyrup

    @Trollhattan: I’m jealous. Would have loved to meet him. I’m gonna speculate that it was when they were filming CB4 and Phil played the dude running for office whose son gets into gangsta rap and then makes it the cornerstone of his campaign to take down the band.

  55. 55.

    Mnemosyne

    @ruemara:

    Think ensouled before birth and therefore alive in the sense of sentient.

    So, basically people who think Look Who’s Talking was a documentary?

  56. 56.

    mdblanche

    @ranchandsyrup: Comparing Ryan to Troy McClure? Surely a fan of such movies as “Today We Kill, Tomorrow We Die” and “Gladys the Groovy Mule” doesn’t believe those rumors.

    I miss Phil Hartman too.

  57. 57.

    khead

    If y’all are gonna trash old trends, then I’m going to have a drink.

    khead +0

  63. 63.

    liberal

    @Violet:
    I’m guessing that a lot of people would like to produce ads that would really crush the forced birthers, but stations wouldn’t run them.

  66. 66.

    Violet

    @liberal: At this point the media is less relevant. Look what happened when the Texas Tribune was the only one who covered Wendy Davis’s filibuster. Twitter went crazy. The YouTube video had thousands of people watching. The old media was nowhere at the time. But they covered it in the morning. First half hour on the morning “news” shows. The viral social media numbers forced their hand.

    Produce the ads. Go out via social media and YouTube. Make it viral and grassroots. The ads need to be made. Reclaim the word. Hold the wingnuts accountable for what they say. If they’re “pro life”, why do they cut funding for helping those babies after they’re born? What about hungry kids? How’s that “pro life”? Make then own it.

    The conversation around abortion needs to change from “pro life” and “pro choice”. Everyone is instinctively pro life. It’s the human condition to be pro life. The wingnuts took that phrase and applied it to abortion–very smart branding. Sounds great. “Pro choice” is much weaker because you have to know what they’re talking about to know what kind of choice. Paper or plastic? Chocolate or vanilla? Abortion or not? It’s not a robust brand.

    Now tarring them with “forced birth” is much stronger. So’s taking back the “pro life” brand. Make them own what they’re saying or at least muddy the waters so people start wondering what “pro life” really means and whose side is that, and what do they really stand for.

  70. 70.

    Violet

    @ranchandsyrup: I think that’s weak. Anti-choice of what? You don’t get to decide soup or salad? Anti choice of what school your kid attends? Anti choice of banks? What does it mean?

    Call it what it is: Forced birth. That’s what they’re demanding. That a woman that for whatever reason does not want to continue her pregnancy be required by law to continue the pregnancy until the baby is born or the fetus dies. Even if it’s going to cause her terrible health problems or kill her. That’s what they want. Forced birth.

    The ads need to be brutal–line up women in pens and compare them to cattle being inseminated and giving birth. Hell, show how we’re more compassionate to animals with birthing problems, ectopic pregnancies happen in the animal world too. Show how many women die in developing countries due to pregnancy complications and then illustrate how far we’ve come and what they want us to go back to. Take a page out of the anti-smoking ads with the dead people on the ground. Make them own what they want–dead women, women in chains, women who aren’t allowed to think for themselves. Make them play defense for a change.

  71. 71.

    burnspbesq

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):

    Warren tied the two together by trying to get a bill through that would make student loan rates the same as rates given to banks.

    FWIW, I’m not opposed to subsidizing student-loan interest rates. I don’t see any reason why they should be more than the rate on the one-year T-bill on the date the money is disbursed. That’s way lower than any realistic calcualtion based on default risk and duration risk would suggest, but I’m totally OK with that. We all benefit from an educated population, and we should all be willing to pay for it.

    What frosts me is the hairbrained notion that there is some interest rate that is “given” to banks by the all-seeing, all-knowing Godbama.

  75. 75.

    Violet

    @burnspbesq: Anti-woman is what it is, but that’s not specific enough to the abortion issue. Anti-woman can be anything from lack of equal pay to not enough maternity leave to lack of property rights to disparate medical care to abortion rights. It’s more an umbrella for what they’re doing on all levels to women (the War on Women), but it’s not specific enough to this issue. Not if you want to have impact.

  76. 76.

    mai naem

    Well, I thought maybe somebody would talk about this song. Anyhow, I was living in the UK when Off the Wall came out. It was a Saturday morning when my older sister and I were watching one of those kiddie variety shows. They had Michael Jackson on as a guest. I remember my sister and I turning to each other and doing like a double take -“Was that really Michael Jackson and what the hell happened to him?” This was when he first started his plastic surgery crap and he actually would have looked good if he had stopped at that point. He was noticeably lighter skinned(but not “white) and had had a nose job but looked normal.

  79. 79.

    ranchandsyrup

    @Violet: @burnspbesq: Burnsy’s suggestion is better. I appreciate your response, Violet. For me it shines a light on the “liberty” crowd eliminating choice when they demand the ability to choose for themselves. You’re right, forced birther packs more of a punch.

  80. 80.

    mai naem

    @Violet: I did hear either Cecile Richards, Wendy Davis or some Texan woman who was on with Richards talk about lack of post natal care/assistance. PPP had a poll out where they put in the SA mayor Castro brother against Perry and Perry beats him 50-43. Perry beats Davis 53/39. I personally don’t think that’s bad considering that Davis is probably not known by half of the Texas population and it’s pretty damn good for Castro. I’d like to see her run for Senate though. And I think if Hillary runs in 16 and there’s a Texas Senate seat, Davis should run for it.

  81. 81.

    Violet

    @ranchandsyrup: I think words are important in this issue and the “Pro Life” crowd has owned that phrase for far too long. There are plenty of sides to being “pro life” and the Democrats and others on the pro-woman side don’t seem to understand that they can benefit by challenging them on that phrase. Make them own what they mean when they say that.

    Forced birth is harsh, but that’s exactly what it is. That’s what happened in Ireland when that poor woman died. They were required to make her continue to be pregnant until either she died or the fetus’s heartbeat stopped. That’s the reality of forced birth and what they want women to go through. And then the unwanted babies? Who cares? Make them own it.

  82. 82.

    Violet

    @mai naem: I hope Perry runs for Governor again because Texans are sick of him and that means the Dems have a better chance of beating him. 2014 is a midterm year and so any Dem in the Governor’s race will have a harder time than in the Presidential election year. Needs to be a name person with some support. Castro has said he doesn’t want to leave his job as Mayor until his term is over. Don’t know if he still feels that way, but that’s after the Governor’s race, I believe.

    I hope they both run for bigger offices. The Democrats need some stars like that to bring out voters in Texas.

  84. 84.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @mai naem:

    And I think if Hillary runs in 16 and there’s a Texas Senate seat, Davis should run for it.

    I think that she should run whether HRC runs or not.

  85. 85.

    liberal

    @Violet:
    My “dream” ad is a nice, white, upper middle class family, parents crying because their daughter is being forced to bear her rapists child.

    Or another family where the daughter dies because of some complication that could only be resolved through an abortion.

  86. 86.

    Rob in Buffalo

    Administration apparently announced that the “play or pay” penalty, a key provision of the Affordable Care Act, will be delayed one year (until 1/1/2015).

  87. 87.

    liberal

    @burnspbesq:
    A much better way to do it would be to just subsidize tuition, and use loans much less.

    Because there’s no indentured servitude (good thing), a “free market” will underinvest in education because the asset cannot be capitalized (again, barring indentured servitude). Best way around that is to just have the state directly subsidize it, like in the good old days.

  88. 88.

    liberal

    @Southern Beale:
    Hmm…while a grad student, a nasty pro-life group called “Women exploited by abortion” came to give a lecture. The local pro-life clowns (mostly undergrads) put up all these annoying posters. Some people were so offended they tore them down. Among my friends there were mutterings about the civil liberties principle about not tearing down others’ posters. So, we created “Men Exploited by Masturb*tion” (trying to elude spam filter here). Idea behind it was the old homunculus model of a little person in each sperm. In which case every time some bops the balogne, a veritable holocaust ensues.

    We registered as a student group and got access to the same prominent poster boards the pro-lifers did. Boy that really really pissed off the administration.

  89. 89.

    Violet

    @ranchandsyrup: Good! Glad to know there are more people who are willing to help rebrand the self-proclaimed pro-lifers as forced birthers. I’ve seen it used here and there, but I think people are too timid. Using it can get people thinking about what it is that the wingnuts actually want.

    “Pro life” just sounds nice and family friendly–who isn’t pro life? And “pro choice” is weak and vague. And “pro abortion” isn’t helpful at all. Who is pro abortion? I’m not–not in the sense that “pro abortion” sounds, which is like we want everyone to go out and get one today. It’s an invasive medical procedure. I’d much rather women have proper birth control available so they never need an abortion because they never get pregnant when they don’t want to.

    But you know what? Life is messy. Things happen, and even when people want a baby it doesn’t always work out–like ectopic or other pregnancies with difficulties and complications. I want abortion to be readily available to anyone who needs it. I want it to be safe. But I also want women to have access to birth control so they don’t have get pregnant when they don’t want to. That’s pro woman. The forced birth brigade is anything but.

  91. 91.

    Violet

    @liberal: Yep. Those would be my dream ads too. Would be gutsy for the families to do it, though. They’d get crucified. Would have to be white, middle class families. Best if the girl was blonde and an excellent student.

  92. 92.

    Plantsmantx

    @Amir Khalid:
    I thought that was obvious from the beginning. How can somebody have the back of their head bashed against concrete repeatedly, and come out of it without a discernible bump on their head?

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