Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Giving up is unforgivable.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

“But what about the lurkers?”

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

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

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

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Reader Interactions

153Comments

  2. 2.

    SiubhanDuinne

    So I understand Laura Ingraham played a clip of John Lewis’ speech at the March on Washington anniversary and cut it off with a gunshot sound effect.

    Stay just that classy, Laura.

  3. 3.

    Ted & Hellen

    Miley Cyrus: Bringing bluenose panty sniffers together from the right AND the left.

    America collectively has deeply warped sexual hangups.

    Discuss.

  4. 4.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SiubhanDuinne: she really is a twisted person. How does a human brain even work that way? But there was that one sign at an anti-war rally in 2004, so both sides

    Conservative radio host and Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham attacked the speakers at the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech, at one point using the sound of a gunshot to cut off a sound bite of civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) — a man whose skull was infamously fractured by a state trooper on “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, AL, in 1965. Ingraham used the speech’s anniversary to race-bait about black-on-white crime statistics and hosted Pat Buchanan to bemoan the idea that minorities face any higher level of adversity in America 50 years later

  6. 6.

    p.a.

    Who are Dem possibilities in 2016 if Hilary and Biden falter? Hate to be an ageist, but I consider the age of both in Jan. 2017 to be a liability

  10. 10.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    How does a human brain even work that way?

    Human brain? Not sure I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt at this point. Really, every time I think these … okay, these people … have gone as far as they can go in awfulness, they up and surprise me.

  11. 11.

    Comrade Jake

    I had to laugh at McMegan’s explanation for why college costs are increasing:

    So on the one hand, we have two inelastic goods with a high perceived need; and on the other hand, you have no way to measure quality of output. The result is that we keep increasing the inputs: the expensive professors and doctors and research and facilities.

    Sigh. There’s plenty of data on faculty salaries: they’re not growing all that quickly. As usual, McMegan never lets the facts get in the way of whatever narrative she’s trying to push.

  12. 12.

    flukebucket

    I just saw the first video claiming that the United States framed Syria with the gassing of citizens. Looks like it is here we go again. Reckon Assad is putting women and children through paper shredders? Has he taken any babies out of incubators and let them die on the floor yet?

  13. 13.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @p.a.: I disagree about age, though Biden’s polls (to the extent they mean anything at this point) are pretty bad. I like him, but he’s run for the top spot three times and never even been a serious contender; I don’t get it, but there ya go. Hillary Clinton will be a year younger than Ronald Reagan or John McCain when they ran, she’s in better health, I think, and from a healthier generation than either of them (didn’t Reagan smoke off camera?) her mother lived well in to her nineties and had all her marbles up to the end, as far as I know. Also, too, the inevitable age jokes will gain her sympathy (as will the equally inevitable fat jokes about Chris Christie, liberal pundits will take one crack from a fringe group to provide ‘balance’ to all the Golden Girls jokes). There are valid reasons to oppose Hillary, but i don’t think age is one of them

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Comrade Jake:

    Well, all those administrators have to blame SOMETHING other than their number and ridiculously high salaries for tuition increases. They are, after all, essentially the CEOs of higher ed. They’re entitled to suck the blood of faculty and students, per Galt’s Law.

  19. 19.

    Alex

    “As humans, yeah, we do have an obligation to give people water, to give people food, to give people health care. But it’s not a right because once you conscript people and say, ‘Oh, it’s a right,’ then really you’re in charge, it’s servitude, you’re in charge of me and I’m supposed to do whatever you tell me to do. . . . It really shouldn’t be seen that way.”

    -Rand Paul, causing you to acknowledge that the idiot libertarian who said taxation was slavery was at least smarter than a US Senator.

    http://prospect.org/article/rights-obligations-and-ignorant-libertarians

  20. 20.

    Teddy's Person

    @Comrade Jake:

    And with many colleges relying more and more on adjuncts rather than full time faculty, their labor costs (for teaching at least) are going down.

  21. 21.

    raven

    @flukebucket: Fuck yea, neocon outfits like Doctors Without Borders are always phonyin up shit to start wars:

    Brussels/New York, August 24, 2013 — Three hospitals in Syria’s Damascus governorate that are supported by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have reported to MSF that they received approximately 3,600 patients displaying neurotoxic symptoms in less than three hours on the morning of Wednesday, August 21, 2013. Of those patients, 355 reportedly died.

    Since 2012, MSF has built a strong and reliable collaboration with medical networks, hospitals and medical points in the Damascus governorate, and has been providing them with drugs, medical equipment and technical support. Due to significant security risks, MSF staff members have not been able to access the facilities.

    “Medical staff working in these facilities provided detailed information to MSF doctors regarding large numbers of patients arriving with symptoms including convulsions, excess saliva, pinpoint pupils, blurred vision and respiratory distress,” said Dr. Bart Janssens, MSF director of operations.
    – See more at: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=7029&cat=press-release&ref=news-index#sthash.Ij3RYL0o.dpuf

  23. 23.

    Comrade Jake

    @Teddy’s Person: Yes, the rise in adjuncts is something that has been widely discussed in higher ed and elsewhere. McMegan is just so incredibly lazy, or ill-informed, or both. Shocking, I know.

  24. 24.

    Roger Moore

    @raven:

    In fairness, the existence of people poisoned with nerve gas doesn’t prove who poisoned them. It’s conceivable, if highly improbable, that Uncle Sam somehow managed to poison those people to frame the Syrian government and provide an excuse to start bombing.

  25. 25.

    Alex

    According to Wookieepedia, an online encyclopedia of the mythology of the Star Wars films, the Jedi Council is “a group of twelve wise and powerful Jedi Masters who were elected to guide the Order” — the Order being, of course, the Jedi Order, an “ancient monastic peacekeeping organization unified by its belief [in] and observance of the Force.” If the fact that the five lawmakers named their group after a piece of Star Wars trivia doesn’t convince you they are nerds, you may be interested to learn that they once posed for a photograph wielding toy lightsabers. (The author’s efforts to obtain this image, which is in the possession of petrified Jordan aides, were unsuccessful — for now.)

    The House’s Jedi Council is unusually secretive. No aides are permitted to attend their meetings. At their June 13 meeting, they decided not to give interviews about the group, amid concerns that doing so could interfere with delicate negotiations, after which they did not provide any assistance for this article. Ryan’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the topic at all. In its first two years, almost no one knew the group existed, and nobody could identify anything it had done. In the last Congress, both Hensarling and Price were part of the House leadership team, and Jordan was RSC chairman; their formal positions of power may have helped obscure any coordination among them.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/356602/jedi-councils-debt-ceiling-plan-jonathan-strong

    Kind of amusing that the House Republicans named their super secret super awesome group that would totally win all the budget battles after one of the most ineffective and useless groups in movie history.

    Seriously, did the Jedi Council do one thing right in the prequels?

  27. 27.

    Comrade Jake

    Reports that Summers will soon be announced as Fed Chair. Commence the professional lefty exploding of heads.

  28. 28.

    scav

    @R-Jud: Having just discovered where I can buy those exact puppies on my very street, two blocks away I am theoretically a boon to you but more likely an annoyance.

  29. 29.

    flukebucket

    @Roger Moore:

    How probable would you think it could be that rebels did it in order to pull the US into this bullshit? Does it really make sense that the government of Syria would do it when standard issue hot lead has been working just fine so far? Why would that government resort to chemical warfare when conventional warfare is working just fine?

  30. 30.

    piratedan

    @Roger Moore: yeah, but what’s our end game in doing so? I just don’t see one that has a tangible usa benefit and this group doesn’t strike me as the kind who pick an intervention just because….Libya, I could see, Syria, ummm no.

  31. 31.

    Trollhattan

    @Ted & Hellen:

    Who?

    California still be on fire. The one getting all the news is only the largest of many, but that said its area probably is equal to the others, combined. Sheesh, it’s a long, hot year and fire season isn’t “over” until the first really big storm from the Pacific, which sometimes doesn’t hit until December. (Leaving out the whole Southern California Santa Ana thing, which has its own set of rules.)

    http://inciweb.org/incident/3660/

  32. 32.

    pamelabrown53

    @flukebucket:
    Chemical weapons are no laughing matter. There’s a reason that that they’re a bog no-no. just google and educate yourself. Actually, it doesn’t matter much if the rebels gained access and are blaming this on Assad. Bottom line is they couldn’t have gained access if they didn’t exist. I’m in favor of the world not only saying “NO” to chemical weapons but making it more than a sternly worded letter.

    In other words, unless our action isn’t solely a reminder that chemical weapons are not acceptable then I see zero reason to intrude.

    Otherwise, it’s just interfering in religious wars. We, in the West have our own experiences with sectarian violence.

  33. 33.

    Cacti

    Is anyone else looking forward to Saturday Night Live’s imminent mockery of Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke?

  34. 34.

    lamh36

    So in response to Miley Cyrus and her “infamous” MTV award performance ABC News has decided to “scientifically investigate” twerking!!!! I kid you not.

    Here is the ABC News blog piece: Twerking: A Scientific Explanation

    Take it away Black twitter:

    screwyoumegn
    Rhythm: the myth, the legend #abcreports

    @brokeymcpoverty
    Is It Scientifically Possible to Smack the Taste out of One’s Mouth? A Roundtable Discussion #ABCReports

    @ArriannaMarie
    “Bills, Bills, Bills”: Was Destiny’s Child making a statement about financial illiteracy in the Black Community? #ABCReports

    @jaybo117
    Do Bands Make Her Dance: An Special On Site Investigation #ABCReports

    @Joe_Schmuck
    “I’ll Knock You Into Next Week” have black mothers invented time travel? Details at 11. #ABCReports

    There are more just follow the hashtag!

  38. 38.

    Eric S.

    I mentioned on a thread yesterday that I have a habanero plant my mother gave me at the beginning of the spring. It is fruiting like wild fire. I probably have 10 or more of the suckers coming in. Any one with suggestions on how to use them? I’m generally cooking for myself. I like spicy food but I’m not really into torture either.

  40. 40.

    scav

    @lamh36: Every network / media outlet’s now pursuing its own sharknado. jumping same is soooo last century, spinning is what they do best now.

  41. 41.

    Roger Moore

    @raven:

    I did say it was highly unlikely. My point was more that Doctors Without Borders could be an innocent dupe. I guess, though, that if you’re that deep into conspiracy theories, you’d be willing to accept that any Western group would be happy to conspire with Obama to set up the Syrian government.

  45. 45.

    Sly

    Getting ready to go to a wake for my cousin’s daughter. For those in the NY/LI area, she’s the 18 year old who was murdered last week in Rockville Center.

  47. 47.

    Cacti

    Per Gallup’s weekly tracking polls, President Obama has retained 68% to 73% favorable ratings among liberals, and an 82% to 87% favorable ratings among liberal democrats since July 29.

    So, when your favorite hair on fire emo prog blogger describes himself/herself and their devotees as “the base” feel free to regard them as entirely full of shit.

    Concerning that approval rating among liberals, if you subtract 73 from 100, you end up with…

    27%.

    Go figure.

  49. 49.

    scav

    @R-Jud: Alas, I think they’d melt on the journey, the critical part today being the two blocks in Chicago between me and the store — actually, add on the 5 blocks to the Post Office. Luckily I’m well used to being a cruel disappointment.

  50. 50.

    JPL

    @raven: The UN convoy was also attacked. That action didn’t appear to be from the government. I wish there was more coverage on which side the sniper supported.

  51. 51.

    JPL

    @raven: The UN convoy was also attacked. That action didn’t appear to be from the government. I wish there was more coverage on which side the sniper supported.

  52. 52.

    gogol's wife

    @Comrade Jake:

    Oh, no, Oh my God.

    I am an Obot, but his educational proposals are terrible and what the heck does he see in Summers? I just do not get it. It’s that Harvard thang that nobody understands who isn’t Harvard.

  53. 53.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @schrodinger’s cat: I’m an O-bot and I think it’s a big mistake. It isn’t just the professional left who oppose Summers, and Obama ought to be shoring up his support. On the substance, I won’t pretend to be qualified to judge, but people I think are say Yellen is at least as qualified as Summers

  55. 55.

    Betty Cracker

    @Comrade Jake: It won’t just be “professional lefty” heads, nor will it be unwarranted if it happens. Summers would be an awful, no-good, heinous, terrible pick, and I hope to Christ those reports are untrue.

  57. 57.

    cckids

    @Alex:

    Seriously, did the Jedi Council do one thing right in the prequels?

    They wanted to ditch that whiny little f*ck Anakin, but Qwi-Gon overruled them.

  58. 58.

    flukebucket

    @raven:

    Okay. There is a sarin gas attack. 3,600 people get sick. Less than 10% of those people actually die. Chemical weapons are about the shittiest weapons on earth to fight a war with. If they were worth a damn they would never have been banned.

    Why, if you were getting your ass kicked would you resort to fighting with a weapon that

    A) is not much worth a damn
    B) will bring the entire global community down on your ass

    I just can’t make it make sense.

  61. 61.

    Trollhattan

    @Bubblegum Tate:

    Confess I won’t be holding my breath. They could reveal Fox has been firing the corporate boilers with Roger Ailes’ aborted babies and MSNBC would still be worserer.

    However, your Gawker link had me discovering this odd yet adorable news story that had me searching in vain for Cole’s name. Seems precisely like something that would happen to him. Because Cole.

    http://gawker.com/sleeping-man-cuddles-with-fox-after-mistaking-it-for-hi-1208439767

  62. 62.

    Cacti

    @Betty Cracker:

    It won’t just be “professional lefty” heads

    Bollocks.

    It will be an “inside baseball” freak out that your average person couldn’t give two shits about.

  65. 65.

    chopper

    @Alex:

    “As humans, yeah, we do have an obligation to give people water, to give people food, to give people health care.”

    and as humans, yeah, we do a pretty shitty job of it on our own. hence the need for something larger to guarantee a certain level of care.

  70. 70.

    chopper

    @Comrade Jake:

    it’s par for the course everywhere. cut full-timers, hire part-timers at lower per-hour costs with no real benefits.

    i’m sure my brother is glad every day he got a full position and then tenure. it’s not easy out there for profs.

  73. 73.

    Cacti

    @efgoldman:

    Seriously, did the Jedi Council do one thing right in the prequels?

    They also propped up the personality cult of the pompous, and highly overrated Yoda, who I don’t think won a single fight in any of the 6 films.

  74. 74.

    Betty Cracker

    @Cacti: “Your average person” doesn’t give a shit about a lot of important things. People who actually give a shit about income inequality and not repeating the mistakes that led to the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression — and I count the president among them (with the usual caveats) — should be disturbed by Summers’ role in same and not be eager to see that particular fox appointed to guard that particular hen house.

  76. 76.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Alex:

    Those asswipes aren’t Jedi. They’re Sith. Through and through.

    Wipe them out. All of them.

  77. 77.

    chopper

    @Alex:

    Seriously, did the Jedi Council do one thing right in the prequels?

    they disbanded and/or died, so they had that goin for them.

  79. 79.

    Cacti

    @Betty Cracker:

    People who actually give a shit about income inequality and not repeating the mistakes that led to the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression

    So, people like the professional left, you mean?

  80. 80.

    Jane2

    @Sly: How horrible for you and your family. A friend was murdered years ago, and it will stay with me forever.

  82. 82.

    Hill Dweller

    @flukebucket: FWIW, I don’t think airstrikes will make much of a difference nor send any sort of message to Assad.

    That said, you’re tying to apply logic to the actions of a madman.

  83. 83.

    cleek

    @flukebucket:
    yeah. it doesn’t make sense.

    weren’t there reports back during the height of the Iraq invasion that the Iraqis had unintentionally fired chemical-filled (or, formerly-filled) artillery shells at the US ? just some leftover shells that had been emptied of their gas, but not their propellant.

    i wonder if someone on the Army side grabbed the wrong kind of shell (or rocket) and fired it, not knowing it was filled with gas.

  84. 84.

    Belafon

    @IowaOldLady: It took a little goading to get him to do it – they do have them rather busy – but it was nice to talk to him.

    Simpson has this interesting thing for the Freshman: When they signed up for their classes, they were required to be in a discussion class, and they could choose from one of four topics. My son chose the distopia group. What they didn’t mention was that this was how the freshmen were organized. When they did all of their freshmen activities on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, they were grouped by their choice. This further grouped people that were somewhat like minded. This class seems to be designed as a “how to be in college” class.

    As a consequence, though, they met their teacher for this class, and they unofficially got their first homework assignment, though they will get it officially in class today. Encouragingly, my son was working on it already. One of the questions was something to the effect of “Write a paragraph about yourself now as if it were written by you 50 years from now.” It’s a lot like the homework my eighth grader received in his english class.

    As for my dealing with it, this morning wasn’t like yesterday. I did have to write a bit in an earlier post here, and for the longest time, thoughts would constantly go back to him, but I didn’t have the breakdown like I did yesterday. This afternoon seems to be better. Progress.

    Thanks for asking.

  85. 85.

    flukebucket

    @Roger Moore:

    She didn’t make up the routine on the spot. The real question is what the person who dreamed the thing up was taking

    Absolutely. Who in the world saw this being rehearsed and thought it was a good idea?

  87. 87.

    Betty Cracker

    @Cacti: Oh, is that the definition now? If so, count me in. I thought it was a derisive term for people who run around hysterically screeching that Obama is worse than Bush, etc.

  89. 89.

    chopper

    @pamelabrown53:

    In other words, unless our action isn’t solely a reminder that chemical weapons are not acceptable then I see zero reason to intrude.

    that’s what i think strikes on solely military targets is meant to convey – if we destroy some bases far out from the fighting, and destroy equipment like fighter jets etc that aren’t being used in this more urban civil war, we wouldn’t be effecting either side’s ability to wage war in this particular conflict.

    so why even do it? i guess to send the message to assad that chemical weapons are a no-no by wrecking things he spent a pretty penny on.

    i dunno. seems kinda stupid. OTOH, it isn’t really horrible either.

  90. 90.

    IowaOldLady

    @Belafon: That grouping is great. Doing something like that supposedly helps retention of first year students because it helps them form friendships and get support from one another. What a smart thing for Simpson to do.

  91. 91.

    PopeRatzo

    This is interesting. Where are all the people who only seem to show up to bring up the name of a certain alliteratively-named journalist when there is an NSA story? Where do they go when they’re not working these pages?

    Do you think they get special notifications on their computers when some progressive blog is talking about the NSA and then deploy as a group? Does a little siren go off in their batcave to tell them there’s a fire to be put out with tales of evil gay people and ego-driven losers? Do they flip a coin to decide if they’re going to accuse anyone who suggests NSA wrongdoing of being either a firebagger or a paultard (and sometimes both)?

    I could give you a list of some of those names, but I bet you know who I’m talking about. They’re not here now, though. They have to go where they’re needed, apparently.

  93. 93.

    chopper

    @Eric S.:

    make hot sauce. habs are really hot, but if you take out the seeds and the inner pith (which is the hottest), it isn’t as bad.

    cook half of them with some onion and carrot. add the rest raw to bring in some of the natural fruitiness of the peppers. add some orange juice, salt and vinegar and blend the shit up and you’ve got some seriously good stuff.

  95. 95.

    flukebucket

    @Hill Dweller:

    FWIW, I don’t think airstrikes will make much of a difference nor send any sort of message to Assad.

    So the purpose of them is to drive up the price of gold and oil?

    That said, you’re tying to apply logic to the actions of a madman.

    Still, I would not fire the first missile until there was irrefutable proof that the Syrian government was behind that attack.

  97. 97.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    people have the oddest way of arguing that talking about Snowald is a distraction and we should focus on the NSA.

  98. 98.

    Betty Cracker

    @Cacti: So income inequality and financial malfeasance that caused / are causing untold misery and human suffering on a massive scale are not widely held concerns? Kindly excuse me for having the temerity to believe that others here share my dumb little pet causes.

  99. 99.

    mai naem

    @Eric S.: Make a salsa with them but you’ll have to use that within a week tops( cilantro/lemon/tomatoes/onion/salt.) Being that its habanero you probably won’t be able to use that many up that way. You can also stick them in the blender with a little water and freeze them in small ice cube trays and use them in soups/curries/stews/stir frys etc. You can also add ginger to some of it and freeze the same way and use it in asian foods. I like really hot food but even I can handle only limited amounts of habaneros. The frozen cubes will keep a long time.

  100. 100.

    ? Martin

    @Comrade Jake: Professor salaries aren’t really the problem. Healthcare costs for employees has a been a HUGE problem. But capital costs are quite high as well. Classrooms and labs cost way more to build now than than they did 5-10 years ago.

    But at the publics, the real reason for the skyrocking costs is the reduction in state subsidies. That amount is declining in quite a few states and every dollar that the taxpayers don’t throw in is a dollar that the student has to replace. Adding to that is because we don’t have a living wage in this country, every dollar in increased costs results in two dollars in increased tuition so that one of those dollars can go back into the financial aid pot. If you are poor, you think you’re seeing the tuition hikes, but financial aid is matching those hikes dollar for dollar, but students don’t quite recognize that. If you’re upper middle class, you’re paying quite a bit more in order to subsidize that poor student.

  101. 101.

    flukebucket

    @Cacti:

    It got people talking, mission accomplished.

    That is what I keep hearing. It is just kind of sad that you have to use a kid that can’t sing or dance
    to do a half assed burlesque dance to get people talking. Well hell. Now that I think about it a kid that can’t sing or dance would be exactly what you wanted to use.

    I give up.

  102. 102.

    Sly

    Appreciate the condolences. I didn’t know her very well, but, needless to say, her family is absolutely distraught. I feel particularly terrible for her husband, who is also 18 (they just got married, and he was stationed in Louisiana as an airman when it happened).

    The media coverage is not helping at all. Local reporters have been trying to score interviews with her immediate kin, and they all want them to just go away. You can’t truly fathom the parasitical nature of tragedy porn until it hits close to home. To make matters worse, already a number of outlets have started calling her “wild child,” because – shock of all shocks – she was 18 and liked to drink with her friends. Perfect fuel for the shallow and heartless to start tut-tutting about bad parenting and, “well, maybe she just brought this on herself.”

    I knew “rape culture” existed as an abstract concept. But its very real to me now.

  103. 103.

    Trollhattan

    @chopper:

    I suppose (not an expert, nosirree) if we follow the typical pattern of the last (can’t count that high) campaigns we first have to take out the anti-air defenses–and Syria supposedly has some pretty sophisticated stuff thanks to our Russian buddies–then their planes, then their command and control and perhaps then, go after their armor and artillery. It’s that last which can have an affect on the ground war, since Assad has been shelling the shit out of anything the rebels hold.

    No idea how hunkered and bunkered everything is, in terms of target hardening and redundancy.

  106. 106.

    Chyron HR

    @Cacti:

    I like the sheer bizarro-worldlyness of the idea that Greenwald’s critics are the ones who mysteriously only show up on this site when someone’s talking about him.

  110. 110.

    Cacti

    @Betty Cracker:

    So income inequality and financial malfeasance that caused / are causing untold misery and human suffering on a massive scale are not widely held concerns? Kindly excuse me for having the temerity to believe that others here share my dumb little pet causes.

    You said they don’t care about “a lot of important things”. A lot has now become two. And the litmus test for people’s concern is whether they want Janet Yellen to be the new fed chair?

    Good grief.

  111. 111.

    cleek

    a friend’s dad makes some delicious habanero jelly. i have no idea how.

    @Chyron HR:
    i like that people come here complaining that people here aren’t complaining about something they complain about too much anyway.

  112. 112.

    Betty Cracker

    @PopeRatzo: Here’s my theory: There are a handful of people here who are genuine “NSA problem denialists,” i.e., people who don’t think there’s a thing in the world to worry about with the NSA.

    And there are a handful of people who erroneously consider a lack of hair-on-fire response to the NSA situation coupled with skepticism to any utterance from the Greenwald-Snowden-Assange troika as proof of membership in the denialist camp.

    I think they’re both wrong, and I wish they’d all shut the fuck up. But I doubt there’s an actual bat cave involved.

  113. 113.

    Belafon

    @IowaOldLady: I’m not sure the kids figured it out yet, but yeah, when I heard what it meant, I thought it was a good idea. Much better than my randomly trying to find people who looked as frightened as I was when I went to college.

  114. 114.

    Chris

    @Alex:

    “As humans, yeah, we do have an obligation to give people water, to give people food, to give people health care. But it’s not a right because once you conscript people and say, ‘Oh, it’s a right,’ then really you’re in charge, it’s servitude, you’re in charge of me and I’m supposed to do whatever you tell me to do. . . . It really shouldn’t be seen that way.”

    Or (apologies if this has been said already), as was once said by the Nazarene hippie that the Pauls of the world pretend to follow while despising everything he stood for, it makes you your brother’s keeper.

    No, you’re right. We have no obligation whatsoever to give people water, food and health care. GOD! That’s as good as saying they have a right to… life! Who do they think they are?

  116. 116.

    Chris

    @Alex:

    Seriously, did the Jedi Council do one thing right in the prequels?

    Narp. That’s pretty much the premise of the prequels. About the only organization more fucked up than that one was the Republic Senate, which was pretty much exactly like the U.S. government in the teabagger age. Maybe they should’ve named themselves after that instead.

  117. 117.

    Kay (not the front-pager)

    Just a hit & run to say, God I love that album! It was a real change from his happy-standard-Motown sound. God is Love was not played much on the radio, so when you heard it you knew you were on the right station, with the right DJ. Which reminds me about listening to Petey Green on WOL Sunday evenings. Was it here that I found a link to a remembrance of the Petey Green TV show that was on in the mid-70’s? I was no longer in DC by then, so I didn’t see it, or even know about it, but damn he was good at real left-wing political analysis.

    I never met Marvin, but my then-fiance’s’ sister, who was a music major at Howard University knew him (and Donnie Hathaway and a bunch of other DC-based soul musicians with DC and Howard U roots). My fiance worked as an usher at the Carter Baron (or was it Barron?) every summer, so I had a good spot just outside where I could hear all the best artists. Sometimes he would even be able to finagle a handshake with one of them for me. There were some great jazz and soul artists that played there in the late sixties…

    Wow! talk about stream of consciousness! They say that the sense of smell is the most evocative of memories, but for me it is music. God is love is more nostalgic for me because it is much less played than What’s Going On, Inner City Blues, etc. Lots of great memories. Thanks for this.

  119. 119.

    scav

    @Belafon: yeah, rather like it. RollCall! How many here would totally somehow end in the dystopian sorting hat lineup! Speaking true, I do somehow think both the parties and the discussions would be better — even when not combined.

  120. 120.

    Betty Cracker

    @Cacti: Gah. No. I expressed concern in general terms about the possible appointment of Summers (didn’t even mention Yellen), and you said the average person wouldn’t give a shit, as if that were some sort of valid rebuttal to any possible objections to Summers.

    I pointed out that people who were concerned about those two specific important things might very well have reservations about the appointment, and then you noted that I forgot to modify “important things” with “to me,” as if any possible objections to Summers had to be based on my personal soapbox. Which isn’t true.

    But I noticed you didn’t express an opinion on the possible Summers appointment yourself. Yay or nay?

  124. 124.

    Kay (not the front-pager)

    @schrodinger’s cat: , @Eric S.:

    You can make hot sauce with them.

    That’s what I was going to suggest. Just be sure you wear gloves while handling those babies. Otherwise your hands (and any part of your body that you happen to touch) will burn for days.

  125. 125.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    The New York Times site has been down for a little while. Wonder what’s up.

  127. 127.

    PopeRatzo

    the litmus test for people’s concern is whether they want Janet Yellen to be the new fed chair?

    I don’t think either of them should be the new chair.

    But certainly Summers, for his leadership in the conspiracy (no other word for what they did) to deregulate the banking systems in countries all over the world, has earned a disqualification from any position of power in the United States monetary system.

    If the memo Greg Palast (“Oh, he’s just Greenwald, with numbers!”) has disclosed has any truth to it (and we don’t have one tiny bit of evidence that it does not) then Larry Summers ranks with Ronald Reagan as the greatest enemies of the middle and working classes over the past half-century. In fact, Reagan didn’t do anywhere near the damage that Summers did with his little “experiment”.

    If you’re one of the unemployed 23% in Spain, or an out-of-work auto worker in Detroit, or a former machinist who’s now a janitor, or someone who hasn’t had a nibble on a job search in the past two years, you have Larry Summers to blame. And Tim Geithner (who was an assistant secretary of the Treasury at the time). If your house is under-water, you have Summers to blame. If you saw your retirement savings shrink by half over the past 6 years, you have Summers to blame. And if you’re a president who keeps putting either of those guys in charge of anything, you’re co-signing the whole goddamn thing.

  128. 128.

    Cacti

    @Betty Cracker:

    No. I expressed concern in general terms about the possible appointment of Summers (didn’t even mention Yellen), and you said the average person wouldn’t give a shit, as if that were some sort of valid rebuttal to any possible objections to Summers.

    No, you suggested that more than professional left would care if Larry Summers was appointed fed chair.

    I don’t much care if it’s Summers or someone else. I just see it becoming the next left-blogger tempest in a teapot that the general public barely knows or cares about.

  129. 129.

    gene108

    @lamh36:

    I’ve seen “twerking”, i.e. bootie shaking on videos, since the MC Hammer days.

    Maybe it takes a star with the celebrity and charisma of Miley Cirus to finally make the dance move go mainstream. Like the Macarena, I look forward to Aunt Sally busting out her “twerk” at the next family get together.

    @Cacti:

    I had know idea, who Robin Thicke was until I read this blog recently. Then I found his video with the nekkid womenz. I don’t really get the lyrics to his song, as I don’t think they are interesting enough to actually pay attention to.

    Romantic lyrics about love and heartache are pretty much dead in contemporary music, I believe, and have been replaced with different ways to say “booty call” as “lyrically” as possible.

    I do think we will soon move to public orgies in music videos, as entertainers strive to find new ways to sex things up to get our attention.

    I mean Tawny Kitaen writhing around on the hood of cars apparently has become boring and mundane.

  130. 130.

    Cacti

    @Ted & Hellen:

    Hello there turd.

    On a scale of 1-10, how disappointed were you to find out that the oldest of the 3 Christopher Lane shooting suspects is a white kid?

  131. 131.

    chopper

    @Cacti:

    you’re a racist. i read what you said about yoda. which means you hate whatever the hell species he is.

  133. 133.

    Cacti

    @chopper:

    you’re a racist. i read what you said about yoda. which means you hate whatever the hell species he is.

    If they’re all as smug as Yoda, then yes I do.

  134. 134.

    Betty Cracker

    @Cacti: Well, I guess we’ll see who cares about it if (FSM forbid) Obama appoints Summers to that post. I find it deeply disturbing that he’s even considering it, and I voted for Obama twice, canvassed for him, raised money for him and continue to generally support him and believe he’s the best president we’ve had in decades.

  136. 136.

    Keith G

    Dougj, you are slipping. 23 years ago today, fellow Texan and home state pride and joy, Stevie Ray Vaughn died in a helicopter crash.

    That is a song to start a thread with.

    (With respects to Marvin whose sound accompanied much of my youth)

  139. 139.

    PurpleGirl

    @raven:

    the metal munching moon mice from frostbite falls

    A truly great reference. Where should we send your internet?

  143. 143.

    Gravenstone

    @Omnes Omnibus: Good musicians should not fly in WI. I invite any and all boy bands, ex-Disney “starlets” and assorted other YouTube “phenoms” to fly early and often in any small aircraft or helicopters their management can book for them.

  145. 145.

    ruemara

    @Betty Cracker: If there was a bat cave + cool gadgets + awesome suit, I could be up for joining one of the camps. Well…temporarily.

    @ Sly. My deepest condolences and I am sorry you’re having this horrific introduction to rape culture. It’s no good when it’s an assault but to see people blaming a victim for her death, wtf? So sorry to you and the rest of her family.

  146. 146.

    gogol's wife

    My husband just caught sight of the picture of Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke in the NYTimes and said, “What’s going on there?” I said, believe me you don’t want to know.

  147. 147.

    mrmike

    Why, if you were getting your ass kicked would you resort to fighting with a weapon that

    A) is not much worth a damn
    B) will bring the entire global community down on your ass

    I just can’t make it make sense.

    Terror. They’re scary, and when you want to subdue a population, that’s important.

  149. 149.

    JPL

    @Belafon: haha.. When we first move to GA from Texas, my youngest thought the trees were sick because they turned all sorts of colors.

  152. 152.

    Ted & Hellen

    @Cacti:

    When will you be acknowledging and apologizing for your anti-white, racist statements on this site?

    You first.

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