Via valued commenter Askew, that hopey-changey thing is workin’ out pretty good today:
1. Colorado, Washington get OK from feds on marijuana
2. Federal Tax System Will Recognize Married Gay Couples Even If Their States Do Not
3. HHS Extends Medicare Benefits To Married Gay Couples
Plus the executive order on guns. Not a bad day’s work. Thanks, Obama!
[X-posted at Rumproast]
LanceThruster
Hooray for the good guys(and gals)!
cleek
if you listen closely, you can hear the grinding of firebagger teeth as they struggle try to find the ways in which this proves Obama really is the worst President ever.
MikeJ
Where’s my pony, goddammit? I will not accept this insult! I still don’t have a pony!
dmsilev
@cleek: I have faith that within about 20 comments, we will find out exactly the ways in which Obama has failed us again.
Hunter Gathers
@cleek: I’m sure one of them will show up soon enough to complain about Obots and how he should be impeached over BENGHAZI !, I mean the NSA.
Belafon
@cleek: He didn’t do these. The IRS and HHS did these. They are independent of Obama.
Ignore that it was entirely Obama’s fault when the HHS wouldn’t allow minors access to Plan B. (And no, this is not to reargue that point; it’s to point out that the HHS was under him when the news is bad.)
Belafon
@MikeJ: Move to Colorado. Maybe you can imagine you have one.
? Martin
There better be bacon on those pizzas. And not baked bacon.
Baud
Jesus. Obama is about to bomb Canada.
? Martin
@cleek:
All of those things should have happened 5 years ago because Gitmo and Donnie McClurkin.
BruceFromOhio
@dmsilev: but but DRONEZ. Larry Summers. Spartacus, you fucking obots.
Chris
IT’S A TRAP!
ranchandsyrup
Who’s gonna be the first firebagger or fauxbagger to misunderstand how executive orders work and when they can be used?
dmsilev
@ranchandsyrup: Look at the previous thread. T&H got there already. I know, shocker, right?
Patricia Kayden
Good for President Obama.
Just don’t bomb Syria. Won’t accomplish anything.
feebog
Number 2 on the hit parade above is especially important. It is exactly what Scalia warned about in his dissent. Good to see it rubbed in his big fat face.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
FTFY.
ranchandsyrup
@dmsilev: Holy Schnikes! Such is the privilege of being the sponsored troll at teh Juice.
I’d better go re-pie him.
Alexandra
@cleek:
For a start, they’re completely convinced that he has destroyed the economy. Made things much worse since Jan 2009. No amount of factual evidence will convince them otherwise… and many of them are wringing their hands, still warning of hyperinflation. When you put the actual numbers in front of them, they then pivot to ‘have you been to the grocery store lately?
p.s. Loving Ms Cracker’s artwork as always.
piratedan
@Baud: well yeah, all the dronz are either fighting fires or on their way to Syria, you have to make do with the tools you have….
Yatsuno
@Belafon:He lives in WA. We gots our own impure air rulz up heah.
hoodie
It’s all a diversion to invade Syria. Well played, black Hitler!
chopper
@MikeJ:
if you find the right kind of weed, you’ll see ponies all right.
Jebediah
@ranchandsyrup:
I do not care to speculate where my blood pressure would be without the pie filter.
? Martin
Capacity to learn! They haz it.
(Sort of, a little bit, but not enough to actually change. Actually what’s so stunning is this idiot couldn’t figure this out as a basic exercise in mental logic, that we need to literally demonstrate every policy issue in the first person.)
Jeremy
Here is a link about FACTA and offshore tax havens. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/14/us-usa-tax-fatca-idUSBRE97D17U20130814
Not that many liberal blogs have mentioned this law that was signed in 2010. Just like the large amount of clean energy projects/ developments that have gone on since 2009.
Hawes
There’s pepperoni on one of those pizzas. Meat is MURDER!
patroclus
And New Mexico (not to mention the entire UK) went pro-gay just a couple of days ago (at least in Bernalillo County), which makes it 15 U.S. jurisdictions that now allow us to marry whom we love.
But as the firebaggers will undoubtedly point out, Eugene Robinson’s speech at the first inaugural wasn’t given the same prominence as Rick Warren, so there’s that…
ranchandsyrup
@Jebediah: Yeah I tried for a long time not to use it and I respect people that don’t use it and believe that every commenter can have redemptive moments. For me, bad faith is bad faith.
Gene108
@cleek:
Ike sent the NG to Little Rock, same thing Obama’s done to uphold SCOTUS ruling on DOMA.
raven
90 minutes till kickoff!
Rosalita
@Patricia Kayden:
This.
Jeremy
@patroclus: LOL ! I really can’t understand the attacks on the President about him being an enemy to the gay community from the wingnuts on the left when he has done so much for that community in a short period of time.
different-church-lady
Three out of four of those are things I have been repeatedly assured Obama would never allow to happen because he hates gays and is at war with pot.
@cleek: Don’t be silly: today’s events will never even register on their consciousness.
lamh36
It was a total GOP “blackout” as it was, including the ONE AND ONLY AFRICAN AMERICA SENATOR in the GOP Tim Scott.
Drudge had been flagging this as Scott not being invited, then after it was confirmed that not only was he invited, but he declined and in fact chose to decline cause he was instead was gonna be in South Carolina.
Tim Scott Didn’t Speak At MLK Event Because He Declined Invitation To Attend
GregB
Hey did you hear that Fox News didn’t allow the only Black Republican in Congress to appear on their network the day of the 50th anniversary for the March on Washington?
Jeremy
I will also say that I like Eisenhower republicans and I think we would be better off today if they were in charge of the Republican party like they were before Reagan. Republicans then were progressive on a number of issues, fiscally conservative, and reasonable when it came to foreign policy.
zombie rotten mcdonald
heyyyyyy…I’m visiting Colorado in September. When does the sale start again?
Betty Cracker
@raven: Cocks peck ‘Heels to pieces. Dawgs hike a leg on Clemson. Ole Miss spanks Vandy. And the gott-damn Gators better chomp Toledo. I fear this is going to be a brutal season for mah big lizards…
Betty Cracker
@lamh36: You mean someone actually did a little reporting on that? Imagine!
geg6
@cleek:
Oh, they’ll find a way. They are nothing if not persistent in their hatred of Obummer. In exactly the same way that all my Teabagger acquaintances are.
mdblanche
Why hasn’t Obama used the bully pulpit for the past 25 hours?
@BruceFromOhio: Remember a year or two ago when everybody was certain Obama was going to appoint Larry Summers head of the World Bank in some sort of corrupt bargain and then he appointed some guy nobody in the blogosphere had ever heard of? Good times.
Quicksand
@cleek:
I hear Obama rinses his raw chicken in the kitchen sink.
Baud
OT: Rock-ribbed is a great name for a condom.
askew
Thanks for the h/t Betty! Excellent news to celebrate today.
Apparently, the WH released new energy efficiency rules as well. I can’t read the link b/c I’ve exceeded my free 20 articles from WP this month.
@? Martin:
Talk about a blast from the past. I forgot about the McClurkin scandal. So many disappointments to be outraged over that it is hard to remember all of them.
I think that guy ended up being a progressive too after all the fuss.
Roger Moore
@Jeremy:
He didn’t do everything they expected the moment he was in office. In particular, I think they were expecting him to write executive orders effectively nullifying DADT and DOMA. When he didn’t, they fell back on the default belief that he was just after their votes and didn’t actually care about their concerns. Unfortunately, that kind of early impression is often more important than the reality. I’m sure that they’ll realize just how much of a friend to the LGBT community he was about 30 minutes after he’s left office, and the next Democratic president will be compared unfavorably to him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@cleek: Nah, rquires no effort at all for them. Everything Obama has done is wrong and stupid and throwing un under the bus.
Kinda like O’Reilly and his little friends will never admit that they were, at best, uninformed about Republicans being invited to the ceremony.
Warren Terra
@Baud:
I was just in Canada. The US was bombing Canada. (actually, they were very nice about it, and offered to loan the Canadian Coast Guard the use of one of their monitoring aircraft when there was a report there might be a boat on fire)
KG
Let me channel my inner firebagger:
1. they’re still shutting down medical dispensaries around the country, bait and switch!
2. took too long and isn’t retroactive, therefore, worse than Bush
3. see #2
4. executive orders are meaningless, it’ll be overturned in 2017 by President CruzPalinRubioChristie
and for my inner wingnut:
1. he’s not enforcing federal laws, impeach the bastard!
2. he’s ignoring federalism, impeach the bastard!
3. ew, the gheys! impeach the bastard
4. he’s trying to take our guns (yes, “ours” asshole, we incorporated to get a better tax rate, so FYIGM), impeach the bastard!
spacewalrus
@cleek: One, they won’t give him any credit for any of this because they can’t give him credit for anything (this is the gang that was more critical of the president that ended DADT than the president who signed it into law, for example). Two, I don’t think it will be long before all of this is framed (they love to frame) as distractions from Syria/NSA (we won’t talk about the fking irony of that painter fleeing Russia for asylum in France). Three, in the end none of it’s PERFECT and, therefore, should be totally scuppered. Or some variation. Remember, this is the gang that thinks no immigration reform is a win-win, that killing Obamacare was a good idea, and that we can’t trust the government because it’s spying on all of us, all of the time.
What exactly, beside saying the appropriate leftwing bullshit, makes them any different from Teabaggers??? Because I see the same temperament.
Warren Terra
@askew:
This is why Google invented incognito browsing. Well, this is the safe-for-work reason.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Rosalita: that’s how I’m replying to all my fundraising and “issue” emails from OFA and the White House
chopper
@cleek:
luckily obamacare covers treatment for TMJ.
lamh36
Maine candidate questioned by Secret Service after posting Obama photo labelled ‘shoot the ni**er’
Bobby Thomson
Good stuff. Unfortunately, new regulations can and would be written in a Republican administration, but that creates another reason for some people to vote.
Eric U.
@Warren Terra: firefox has incognito browsing now too.
MikeJ
@askew:
Noscript not only keeps flash ads from playing, it lets you ignore nonsense like “20 articles per month”.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Apparently, big powwow on Syria tonight. News indicating momentum on action may be slowing. We shall see.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I’m re-posting this from yesterday – a little help is needed:
Any drug testing experts here? I’ve been interviewing for a job and on my final interview they told me that I would need to go through a background check and drug test. The problem for me is that it’s a hair drug test. I’ve only smoked a small amount of marijuana in the last 3 months (since Memorial Day), 4th of July weekend, and it was a few bowls of mid to low grade stuff at that. My hair is always kept short and I’ve had it cut at least 3 times since the last time I smoked. I have a fast metabolism and exercise semi-regularly. From what I can find on the internet it says that it’s detectable in the hair up to 90 days. How likely is it that I will test positive? I know they can test body hair as well but I also keep my underarms and manly regions trimmed and neat. My legs are not hairy at all – in fact, hair doesn’t even grow on the outsides of my shins on either legs.
NotMax
Short notice heads-up on one a great one.
On TCM today (Thursday) 10:45 p.m. Eastern time – “I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang” – stark, compelling drama; adaptation of the autobiography “I Am a Fugitive From a Georgia Chain Gang!”
Roger Moore
@askew:
On commercial refrigerators and walk-in cold storage. They’re predicting around $1billion/year in savings over the long term. Efficiency is at least as big a win for greenhouse gas emissions as renewable energy is, at least in the short-term. I can’t wait until they decide compact fluorescent lights are too inefficient and mandate LEDs instead. The wingnuts will be screaming just as hard about losing their beloved twist bulbs as they have been about incandescents.
Baud
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Cover up the marijuana traces with some meth.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I don’t have a lot of use for the “save our credibility” reason for bombing. Why should nutty old John McCain be the one who decides what “action” is? Let’s say going to the UN and making a moral case for Russia to quit sheltering a dictator gassing his own people? Call for a Swiss/Russian/Qatari/Turk group to monitor Syria’s stockpile or something. Give Putin a way to play the hero and leave his friend in place.
and my own hunch here is that Bashar Assad didn’t make that decision. I know he was the second son, and there’s a third, and Bashar would just as soon be retired in a villa next to Clooney’s, or a nice Crimean dacha.
David Hunt
@Jeremy:
Bill Clinton used to say during his administration that the Republican in Congress were the Reagan Republicans and that the Democrats in Congress were the Eisenhower Republicans.
These days, I think we’re reduced to wishing the Democrats in Congress were the Eisenhower Republicans
different-church-lady
@Quicksand:
Wait… where else are you supposed to rinse it?
Baud
@Roger Moore:
I hope they call it low flow LEDs just to piss off the wingnuts.
MikeJ
@Yatsuno:
BC Bud from the north, Humboldt County’s finest from the south. I’m pretty sure we’re better set for enjoyment in Washington than Colorado is.
OT: I was going to go hiking at Mt St Helen’s today, but it got rained out. I’ll go in a few days when it’s clear. So I decided to run errands today, get some stuff done on a planned down day. Went to the mailbox store to send some stuff, parking space is next to a car with a “I’ll take the MORMON over the MORON” sticker on it. Its windows were rolled down, and it was pelting down rain. Not standard Seattle mist, but actual honest to god rain. And that person was calling somebody else a moron?
Baud
@David Hunt:
Actually, I’m just wishing the Democrats were in the majority in the House.
Gene108
@Baud:
Good.
I will never forgive them for the ransacking of Washington, DC and burning down the White House, whilst blaming it in the British in our text books.
SiubhanDuinne
@askew:
Here you are, sir. My pleasure.
MikeJ
@Baud:
Even if dealing with “conservative” Democrats makes it hard to pass good laws, the mere fact of having the majority means we have to listen to less nonsense like the Obamacare repeal being brought up for the 45th time.
Gene108
@David Hunt:
I agree Eisenhower Republicans spent over a year pushing for universal healthcare after Truman failed to get it.
Amir Khalid
@different-church-lady:
There was this article in Slate or somewhere: rinsing a chicken doesn’t make it any cleaner, and any water splashed out of the sink may actually spread germs from the chicken around your kitchen.
Betty Cracker
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: My brother used to face this problem fairly regularly. I’ve heard that if you soak your hair in vinegar, dye it an opposite color (light if it’s dark, vice-versa, etc.), then dye it back to your normal color in a few days, it improves your odds. But I have no idea if that would actually work.
Personally, the idea that people who aren’t in public safety-type jobs (airline pilots, railroad engineers, etc.), get tested for drugs makes me madder than NSA metadata collection. I’ve had to piss in a cup a time or two (for copywriting and editing jobs! The public danger is that I would make a fucking typo!), and I think it’s degrading as hell and unconstitutional to boot. Best of luck to you.
SiubhanDuinne
@Quicksand:
That chicken ain’t gonna rinse itself.
Lurking Canadian
@Alexandra: There are firebaggers worried about hyperinflation? Isn’t that reserved for the goldbug, Ayn Rand crowd?
Roger Moore
@Baud:
This. The House was not a problem when Pelosi was speaker; she ran a very tight ship.
different-church-lady
@Lurking Canadian:
You say To-MAY-toe…
? Martin
@askew:
Holy shit – that guy is a public health star. Rather than grab some shit banker, Obama grabbed a guy who set up actual, working clinics in Haiti and places like that. He’s not a monitary policy guy, but rather a ‘this money will actually go to help people’ guy. He wasn’t just a good pick, he was a radically good pick.
By comparison, GWBs first pick for the World Bank was Paul Fucking Wolfowitz, who went there to impose Republican social policy on Africa of all fucking places.
Quicksand
@different-church-lady:
You’re not! Don’t miss the animation, heh.
Meanwhile, back in the reality-based community, see Ruhlman.
Sad_Dem
OT, but I just saw a news story that Donald Rumsfeld has said that Obama has yet to justify an attack on Syria. The real news, however, is that Donald Rumsfeld has not yet been dragged to Hell by winged demons.
? Martin
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Tell them you got your last haircut in either Colorado or Washington.
Roger Moore
@Lurking Canadian:
As people keep saying, there isn’t nearly as much difference between the two as they pretend there is. There aren’t a huge number, but there are enough total loons who are so out there it’s impossible to tell if they’re on the left or the right, and they cause a lot of cross-polination of crazy between the two extremist wings. That’s why the loony right is getting taken over by anti-vax nonsense, even though it started as a delusion of the extreme left.
Marc
@Roger Moore:
This will be true of most of the far left. Obama will become the greatest president in living memory on January 21, 2017, and nothing at all like whatever liberal traitor succeeds him.
@KG:
Who they will do their damndest to elect, whether they know it or not.
different-church-lady
@Amir Khalid: Well, that makes a lot more sense. I mean, I never cook whole chickens, but my understanding-via-osmosis was that you were supposed to pat the thing dry anyway.
Jebediah
@ranchandsyrup:
Yeah, that was me, too, but eventually I gave up. I almost thought there might be some redemption coming when I saw some not-jerky comments in (I think) one of the recent Tunch posts, but it seems I was wrong.
And there isn’t anybody else in my pie filter. I’m not trying to hide comments I might disagree with, but as you say bad faith is bad faith.
Cygil
At the same time, Obama steps up federal harrassment of marijuana clinics. He just can’t decide which side of the aisle he’s playing, as usual.
different-church-lady
@Marc: You guys don’t pay enough attention to how emoprogs think: Clinton is still the most horrible thing that ever happened. When there’s another democratic president, they’ll all concurrently be the most horrible thing that ever happened.
To an emoprog, every president is horrible. The only ranking that occurs is that the current president is the most horrible.
Marc
One of the most misguided comments I saw today (I know, I know, but bear with me) described Obama’s speech yesterday as “a sort of passing the torch as this president forges on rather grimly through the muck, not achieving his potential for want of a progressive force to goad him.”
I would have said “for want of a progressive force to show up at the fucking polls in 2010,” but you know, different strokes.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Baud: You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.
Marc
@different-church-lady: I would have thought so too, but I have some progressive friends and colleagues who still praise the Clintons and maintain Hillary would have been a better president. (Some of them are diehard Clintonistas, but some are diehard progressives who are just looking for any stick to beat the insufficiently perfect Obama with. Should Hillary become president they will, I guaran-fucking-tee, start comparing her tenure unfavorably to all the good things Obama has done.)
Now, if you’d said I don’t understand how they think, well, spot on. But I think Jonathan Chait outlined the problem pretty well–in which every Democratic president is a disappointment to liberals until the moment he leaves office–in this piece.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Betty Cracker: Thanks Betty. I think I’m just going to hope they clip hair from my head and that the concentration is low enough that it won’t be an issue.
And, btw, I’m interviewing for an administrative director position in a finance office. I think they’re afraid I might get all gooped up on gop and do wild things with the Powerpoint presentations. It’s ridiculous.
lamh36
So I was wondering why I kept seeing Michael Jackson video’s today, and then the Google told me that today woulda been MJs 55th birthday.
So who knows all the words to “We Are The World” and who can tell who’s singing without seeing the video? (raises hands….) ME!!!
We Are The World
http://youtu.be/M9BNoNFKCBI
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Marc: as I’ve said, if Hillary is elected I’m gonna start reading Eschaton threads again to watch the PUMAs and Naderites, who have spent last five years united in righteous loathing of the Baronald Hudubya Quisling Oboldwater, turn on each other.
ETA: and if Jeebus loves me, Hillary will stiff Ed Rendell, and I will laugh and buy a good bottle of French champagne to wash down my spite with
PopeRatzo
I’m totally on-board with any kind of illegal war now that pot’s OK. And NSA spying, well, they’re just trying to keep us all safe. Also, when you think about it, whistleblowers are kind of dicks, aren’t they?
Prez knows that to fuck the Left, first you get them high.
? Martin
@Cygil:
Are they? I know here in CA, one of the undercurrents to all of this is that cities that don’t like the clinics that are allowed by state law routinely call the FBI and DEA and ask them to intervene. What are the feds to do? Ignore a request from a local government reporting a federal crime? Side with the state that allows this but didn’t erect any meaningful way to regulate these clinics?
This is a legitimate conflict and I think the feds feel compelled to respond to these requests when they are brought up, even though I think it’s pretty clear they aren’t looking to do so. I based that on the complete irregularity of how they target the clinics. They’ll go into every clinic in one city and leave all of the ones in the neighboring city alone.
And we know that the cities are doing this. They try to keep it a secret, but they often fail. The major of the neighboring city – an owner of one of the largest bars in town (competitor to the clinics to some degree) – went to the marijuana community in support of their presence in order to court votes, and then secretly had the city council go to the DEA to shut down all of the clinics. A few weeks after the shutdown it was revealed that the city council did this at the mayors request and hid the action from the public record (which is illegal here).
But cities all over the state are doing this. And other cities aren’t. And so here you have this patchwork of where clinics get shut down and where they don’t. I’m sure the same is happening in WA and CO and other states.
? Martin
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
That’s not what they’re afraid of, but federal law doesn’t allow them to do what they want to do.
Jeremy
@PopeRatzo: And this comment is a perfect example of the nothing is ever good mentality of the left wingnuts.
Davis X. Machina
They didn’t mean it, though….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jeremy: You don’t get it. If the people only heard Dennis, everything would be different!
Mr Stagger Lee
@MikeJ: That celebration on South Tacoma Way is from the Head Shops, I mean medical marijuana dispensaries. So many Green Crosses. Oh one minor firebagger ache, what about the supposed ban on armored cars to carry dispensary cash from these shops that DailyKos was breathlessly plugging a few days ago?
Yatsuno
@MikeJ: Heh. And I’m hypersensitive to it. I r doing it rong.
Drove in that on my way to work. Kinda glad I went up Aurora since the freeway was totally insane. And sounds like a lost idiot from Bellevue made it across the lake again.
Chris
@Marc:
The right wing will go through a muted version of that whenever the next Democrat is in office – just as the memory of Clinton is now favorably compared to the horror of Obama, Obama will be invoked as “well, at least [insert reasons here why he wasn’t such a bad guy compared to the current Antichrist].”
Jeremy
@Marc: I’ve said this as well. Some progressives and Clintonites said that if Hillary was president a public option would have been included in the ACA. I laughed because we all know the Clintons failed to get a vote on their employer mandate managed care plan or any other plan. It’s not like she would have got a public option through under the same circumstances.
It’s going to be funny watching them complain about lack of action / compromises if Hillary becomes President.
Marc
@Jeremy: I got that routine too. Because if there’s one thing the Clintons are known for, it’s sticking it out through a tough policy fight.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Amir Khalid:
That’s why my wife uses the washing machine to clean chicken. Set on delicate, of course. It’s kinda noisy in the dryer but quieter than if we toss a sheet of Bounce in with it.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@PopeRatzo:
Dude, you’re already high. Granted, model glue isn’t weed but you seem to be doing just fine on it.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
Peroxide!! Strip all the color and everything else. I have never done such a thing myself but had to deal with a situation where a parent had to have regular testing in order to have visitation. We had to specify the chemical treatments she could not have as they could create a false negative. There are some other chemical processes that work well too.
Liberty60
See its stuff like today’s developments that make me able to say Obama might be wrong on foreign policy, but still overall the best President we have had in a generation.
And easily the best choice of any living politician.
I don’t know why its so hard to hold both thoughts simultaneously.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Patricia Kayden:
Someone was talking about ending the sequester and stopping a government shut down. Yes, purely incidental to this Syrian issue – beyond illustrating to the Republicans why there needs to be a budget
lojasmo
@zombie rotten mcdonald:
January 1
lojasmo
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Shave and nair. Demand a blood test. Fuck the man.
bago
@lojasmo: So rock the full Brittany on both floors? Not gonna complain.