When I get back from various travels, I’m going to read “This Town” and report back to everyone on it. Alex Parenee has a great review:
Leibovich does call out his friends, colleagues and peers for their corruption, even if he usually does so gently. (Though not always gently. Some people, like “Game Change” star Steve Schmidt, get pretty rough treatment.) Part of that gentleness is because these people practice a form of corruption in which the corrupt individual literally cannot understand why anyone wouldn’t consider him or her a stalwart and productive member of society. This is basically an entire society of leeches who have mostly convinced themselves that they earned the blood they’re sucking with their ingenuity or devotion to the public good and that the process of sucking it is somehow beneficial to the country. With some exceptions, of course. There are some Trent Lotts and Haley Barbours (the exceptions are usually Republicans) who are open and unashamed about cashing in. (And for their “refreshing” honesty about their venality they are absolutely beloved by reporters.)
Just Some Fuckhead
Way to stomp on the best Balloon Juice thread ever.
You suck.
c u n d gulag
And you gotta love how many of them unashamedly speak badly about the MSM, or the media – especially ‘insiders” – like they were compete outsiders.
Omnes Omnibus
If one wants to do something to benefit society, one must get power. To get power, one must compromise a bit. Eventually, one can reach a point where the game isn’t worth the candle. The problem is that by that point many have stopped considering the question. Others never cared.
handy
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I dunno, I kinda felt the topic was starting to deflate myself.
Betty Cracker
@handy: I had a sinking feeling about it…
Higgs Boson's Mate
@handy:
Bite me for thinking of an inflate/deflate comment before I did.
Omnes Omnibus
Shining steel tempered the fire
I’ll chop you down like an old dead tree
Comrade Jake
@Just Some Fuckhead: That thread kind of blows.
PeakVT
Senate fossils are now yammering on about filibusters. Slowly and pompously.
ETA: Alexander now going on about the tyranny of the majority being the great danger to democracy. I assume he’s talking about places like Texas.
Comrade Jake
@PeakVT: It’s not going to happen. Certainly not in any meaningful way.
Powerful Senators love their power. Film at eleven.
Just Some Fuckhead
Maybe I was giving it an inflated sense of worth. My apologies.
Ted & Hellen
I don’t know…I think most people bear a grudging respect for those among us who are refreshingly upfront about their motives. Makes perfect sense to me.
NickT
http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/high-school-teacher-turned-democratic-congressman-trolls-rep
I like this Takano fella.
Ted & Hellen
@Comrade Jake:
Not the Democratic ones!
Comrade Jake
@NickT: I saw that on The Twitter earlier today. It’s pretty fucking brilliant.
schrodinger's cat
What is happening to immigration reform? The blog I check for info about that, has suddenly gone private. I am wondering if they were getting bombarded by the antis.
NotMax
“This Town” is a lousy euphemism for “Circle Jerk.”
Comrade Jake
@schrodinger’s cat:
John Boehner.
catclub
@Just Some Fuckhead: You will be receiving my credenzas on how greatest the previous thread is.
NickT
Looks like Harry Reid is playing the nuclear option game pretty effectively:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/07/11/harry-reid-escalates-nuclear-threat-in-a-big-way/
Yertle the Derple has been squealing about this like a sheered piglet, so the situation looks quite promising.
RaflW
GOP voting to eliminate food stamps in ‘revamped’ House farm bill.
The Fox news web story I read said that they’re not sure when a companion bill that would reauth SNAP would come up, nor any certainty that it could pass.
The Faux story in its own voice from nowhere (as in, not a quote but reported as fact) claims that Republicans, while concerned about the ballooning cost and enrollment in the $80 billion-a-year food stamp program, are not by any means eliminating food stamps by taking it out of the farm bill.
So the the renegade, ultra-rightist House GOP is not voting to end foodstamps, even though you report that the companion bill is likely dead? Fuck you, Fox news. Better yet, starve to death you shit-heels.
Punchy
@Betty Cracker: But the whole thread was blowing up!
Omnes Omnibus
@RaflW: It’s for show anyway. A farm bill that ends god stamps won’t pass both houses and be signed into law. Of course, this does not absolve the House GOP of being assholes.
Yatsuno
@NickT: Very very interesting, especially putting Cordray up there. Yertle might have to actually let the process run for once unless he thinks he can talk a few Dems out of it. Yes I’m looking at you Manchin.
NickT
@Punchy:
We were all pumped up about it, that’s for sure.
Citizen_X
@RaflW: Should I believe Fox about the “ballooning cost and enrollment” of the food stamp program, or should I just assume that all the “ballooning” was, oh, about 2008-2011 or so?
I’d make a raft joke about this if I were more motivated.
NickT
@Yatsuno:
It’s a very smart move to make the GOP either confirm the nominees – or invite the nuclear strike they obviously fear.
Cassidy
OT: This weekend, Invicta FC 6 is happening. They’re the female fighting organization and they’re moving up to PPV. The main event is Cris “Cyborg” Santos v. Marloes Coenen for the FW belt. Cyborg won their first match, but was later caught for steroids. She should be clean now and is tested frequently by IFC, but still has a significant amount of muscle mass, Coenen is a Dutch kickboxer and submission wiz and I’m hoping she wins. The card also features Thug Rose Namajunas, Rowdy Bec Hyatt, Joanne Calderwood, Leslie Smith, and Sarah D’Alelio. The whole card looks good, it’s not expensive, and Coenen is stunningly beautiful.
Yatsuno
@Omnes Omnibus: Skipping the typo…
I want them to vote on this. And I want it to pass the House. They need to be shown for what they are and ads sponsoring that vote need to be run in every district with a military base. Soldiers are one of the biggest beneficiaries of food stamps, and they need to know who tried to fuck them over.
NotMax
@Citizen_X
Obvious raft quip is “And I’m gonna hug it, and squeeze it, and call it George.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno: Autocorrect gone wild or divine intervention?
I agree that votes like this are going to kill the GOP. I don’t mind them doing things like this when I know there is virtually no chance of them becoming law.
Poopyman
@NickT: Yeah, caught that on the Facebook machine.
Lurking Canadian
@Citizen_X: Social support programs, for some mysterious reason unknown to science, seem to expand both their client rolls and their total monetary outlay during times of economic distress.
To the Right Kind of Thinker, this is evidence that social support programs cause economic distress, and that the best way back to prosperity is to cut the living shit out of them.
BGinCHI
Doug, this is your most thinly veiled cry for help yet.
divF
Has DougJ ever used “Careful with that axe, Eugene” as a thread title?”
There are cenrtainly enough events discussed here that evoke the rest of the lyrics of that song.
? Martin
We always get the interesting crimes around here.
Gin & Tonic
@Cassidy: Do you have to post this on every goddam thread between now and the weekend, open or not?
Chyron HR
@Cassidy:
Also hydraulic limbs and laser beam eyes.
NickT
@Chyron HR:
Not to mention the titanium exoskeleton.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
Sorry, but it can’t compete with the previous thread, even if the perp is a Saudi princess.
Cassidy
@Gin & Tonic: Do I have to? No. Am I going to? Probably.
@Chyron HR: @NickT: You should watch her fight. She earned the nickname for a reason.
RaflW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Any reverse example where Dems voted to axe a popular/vitally necessary program, even “just for show,” would cause years of howls and attacks from the right.
I’m recommending the same. In some ways, particularly because that bill is just for show.
PeakVT
Ag bill passed, 216-208 with 11 NVs. Not a single Democrat voted for it.
Mnemosyne
@PeakVT:
Don’t forget, this bill eliminated Meals on Wheels in addition to food stamps. IIRC, the vast majority of people who receive MoW are elderly, so I guarantee you that your Republican-voting parents or grandparents know people this bill will affect.
Republicans are literally taking food out of the mouths of children and old people. Nice.
RaflW
@Yatsuno:
This in itself needs to be much more widely known. That we pay sub-survival wages to our troops is horrible.
But the GOP is the “support our troops!” party.
Yatsuno
@PeakVT:Way. To. Go. Nancy. SMASH!! Now hang them with it.
PeakVT
@Mnemosyne: I know. We’ve been talking about it in the past couple of threads.
ranchandsyrup
@Cassidy: You know you should set up an IRL Balloon-Juice MMA tourney. Matchups determined by the commentariat.
NickT
@ranchandsyrup:
Can I have $10 on T&H in the slug race, please?
? Martin
@Roger Moore: I don’t know. Sex with inanimate objects isn’t nearly as fringy as it used to be. Hell, there’s tv shows and documentaries about it now. I think it barely qualifies as a crime (the public aspect of it is all that matters). Who cares if the guy gets off on a raft? Half this board gets off to their computer.
But this is a very low crime area, however the crime we do have is far from typical. It’s a strange place.
NickT
@? Martin:
That’s why they call it a hard drive.
Ed Drone
“I’m going to take a good sharp ax —
Shining steel tempered in the fire.
Chop you down like an old dead tree;
Dirty old town, dirty old town.”
Was that your headline source?
Ed
ranchandsyrup
@NickT: We’ll have to work on the odds first. Standby to stand by.
raven
@Yatsuno: “Soldiers are one of the biggest beneficiaries of food stamps” I don’t think that is even near the case.
“The data do not reveal which military populations use federal assistance to feed themselves and their families. A spokeswoman for the Department of Defense pointed to USDA data from 2011 that found 5,000 food stamp recipients listed their employment status as “active duty military.” That represents a five-fold jump from the previous year, when the USDA found 1,000 active-duty service members getting food stamps.
The defense spokeswoman, Cmdr. Leslie Hull-Ryde, noted that 5,000 is a tiny percentage of the the 44 million Americans getting SNAP benefits”
ranchandsyrup
Harry filed for cloture on Cordray for CFPB
? Martin
Well, I guess we’ll find out soon enough if the nuclear option gets used or not:
That’s quite a lineup. NLRB gets filled. CFPB. EPA. I suspect the GOP will back down.
James E. Powell
I haven’t read This Town, but from the reviews and quotes I have seen, it looks like more of The Village talking about life in The Village. Don’t we already have too much of this?
Cassidy
@ranchandsyrup: Nah. I just try to promote women’s sports as much as I can. I don’t have many pet issues, but I’d like to see the ladies get paid. They earn it.
catclub
@? Martin: “I suspect the GOP will back down.”
Which will be a substantial win for them. They get three years delay in appointments for almost zero cost to them.
ranchandsyrup
@Cassidy: Good on you. Back in the day I used to work for Gina Carano’s dad and spent some time with their family.
? Martin
@catclub:
Yep. I imagine they’ll rationalize it that way as well.
Cassidy
@ranchandsyrup: That’s awesome. If you still have any connection, tell her the internet wants her to lobby to play Wonder Woman. lol
I loved watching her fight and glad she has trasitioned successfully to movies.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@RaflW: When I was in the Navy as an E-5, we received WIC for my wife and first child.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@raven: 5000 isn’t a huge number, but the comparison should be to the number of military people, especially those with children, not to the total SNAP recipients.
peach flavored shampoo
So yesterday the House GOP went Cleek’s Law on light bulbs. True to form, it’s a full-on Cleek’s Law with respect to ceiling fan regulations. No, I’m not making that up.
ranchandsyrup
@Cassidy: No connection any more. It was her grandpa that I worked for (not sure why I put dad above). I just remember her as a polite young lady. Her dad played QB for the USFL team in Pittsburgh (to track this back to our blogging overlord).
Cassidy
@ranchandsyrup: Very cool.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Wow, I may have to read that book, even if it makes me mad and hate the Beltway more than I already do. I’m glad to see he notes this
and even I who already think Tom Brokaw is worse than David Broder am shocked at this
I think it stays creepy even as it gets weirder and sadder.
J.Ty
What a great post title. Dirty old town, indeed.
Mary G
Loved the comments on the original article complaining that any number of these guys are not True Conservatives. They left off Marco Rubio, how far right can you get?
Comrade Mary
You’re nobody till everybody in this town thinks you’re a bastard.
Omnes Omnibus
@Comrade Mary: One of the best songs from one of Elvis’s lesser efforts. That is to say, a fine song indeed.
ETA: I almost got doored for the first time in a long, long time tonight. Is it so fucking hard for someone to look for a bike before opening her damn car door?