Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

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

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

We still have time to mess this up!

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

People are complicated. Love is not.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

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

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Reader Interactions

76Comments

  1. 1.

    Jay C

    Can’t fault the guy’s premise: Democratic candidates in Texas have for so long seemed just like sacrificial lambs goats against the GOP machine, it’s a refreshing change to see even the possibility of one who might be a sacrificial mountain lion instead. I think the likelihood of of Wendy Davis actually winning anything is stil unfortunately slim, but at least it looks like it may be a real fight.

  2. 2.

    mai naem

    Ted Cruz looks like one of those segregationist governors from the 60s. Or at least like one portrayed in a Hollywood movie.

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    With regards to Putin, this video from John Boehner is just plain pathetic. From the TPM description,

    House Republican leaders released a web video attacking President Barack Obama for his willingness to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin to resolve the crisis in Syria but not with the GOP to lift the United States’ debt ceiling.

    Below is the video, released by Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) office Thursday morning, which splices footage of the president and his aides stating their positions on negotiating with Putin and with Republicans.

    Earth to numbskulls: (a) Obama is more open to negotiating with you than with Putin because there’s a non-zero chance that he can reach an agreement with Putin and (b) Man up already and stop whining. It’s what Vlad would do.

  5. 5.

    The Dangerman

    Wall Street Journal. CNN. The Power Brokers are making it pretty clear that there will be extra helpings of shit sandwiches when the deal is eventually done…

    …or, to be more topical to the post, there will be a Lorenna Bobbitt solution for those that cause the shutown.

  7. 7.

    RaflW

    @dmsilev: They desperately want a fight with Obama so that the above-mentioned infighting can stop.

    But why the fuck should Obama even talk to these insurrectionist asshats?

  9. 9.

    Comrade Dread

    Well, Calgary Cruz did sort of shoot down their hail Mary pass by effectively telling them, “I knew this was pointless and you were dumb enough to believe me, so who’s the idiot now?” Then he cackled evilly and pet his white cat.

  10. 10.

    dmsilev

    @The Dangerman: Hell, the fucking Chamber of Commerce is starting to weigh in telling the GOP that a shutdown and/or a default would be a really really stupid thing to cause.

    I think we’ve reached the point in the movie where the mad scientist has lost control of his creation and the monster is about to turn on him.

  11. 11.

    dmsilev

    @Comrade Dread:

    Then he cackled evilly and pet his white cat.

    Wrong type of villain. James Bond villains generally have some sort of nefarious plan. These folks are more like Scooby Doo villains; I’m just waiting for someone to rip the mask off Ted Cruz and reveal that he’s really Old Man Carruthers who lives down by the mill.

  13. 13.

    max

    (b) Man up already and stop whining. It’s what Vlad would do.

    For the first five years or so after 911 Putin threw in with us to go after Al-Qaeda, including cooperating with basing arrangements that could be used to encircle the Russian Federation (should we decide to go all Bunker Cheney). The FSB cooperated with on terrorism, and so on and so forth. The reason was that Putin saw himself as fighting Muslim terrorism, so he was happy to help us since he saw that as helping him. (It would be fair to say he was pretty rough with suspected terrorists and also suspected ‘terrorists’, and we can’t say we were better. We might have been worse.)

    We shit all over him every chance we got.

    So he stopped cooperating and starting acting like an overt asshole (sometimes with just cause) to us, and now everybody (or at least Republicans) has decided they admire him.

    max
    [‘I’m not sure this country could wedge its head further up its ass.’]

  14. 14.

    Amir Khalid

    Almost certainly true, in the figurative sense of course. Was Dana Bash surprised by what the aide said, or by how the aide said it?
    @dmsilev:
    Sorry for the nitpick, but I think you meant to say

    (a) Obama is more open to negotiating with Putin than with you

  15. 15.

    Felonius Monk

    Cruz is proving to be what most of us already knew — A BULLSHIT artist. Or as Molly used to say of another Texas twerp — All hat and no cattle.

  17. 17.

    The Dangerman

    From Erick The Red:

    Suck it up, Lumberjack.

    Cue Monty Python:

    I cut down trees, I skip and jump
    I like to press wildflowers
    I put on women’s clothing
    And hang around in bars

  18. 18.

    Ash Can

    @dmsilev:

    I think we’ve reached the point in the movie where the mad scientist has lost control of his creation and the monster is about to turn on him.

    I think the monster has already turned on the mad scientist and has his hands wrapped around the scientist’s neck. The only thing now is whether the monster succeeds in offing the scientist and then goes on a rampage and destroys 3/4 of the village before he’s finally subdued by the surviving masses, or whether the scientist is saved by the Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street bursting into the lab and ambushing the monster.

  19. 19.

    danielx

    @dmsilev:

    As noted. Putin is an asshole (there’s a shock, a former KGB officer being unpleasant), but is a rational human being. In contrast to House Republicans, who are basically a bunch of kindergarteners with Tourette’s syndrome. If Obama negotiates anything away to these bastards, he ought to just go ahead and quit now.

  23. 23.

    VOR

    I’m no fan of Putin, but at least he is grounded in reality. We don’t have to constantly wonder if the sky is the same color in Putin’s world as our world.

  24. 24.

    kindness

    So House TeaHaddists are more brain dead than Senator Cruz, eh? I didn’t know there was even a contest. But those who elbow their way to the front of that line deserve the trophy they will no doubt receive.

  27. 27.

    shortstop

    Only Putin, or that guy Betty just posted, has big enough balls for the House Republicans

    …as they anonymously run their mouths off.

    We once had a pooch who loved to tell other dogs some shit from behind gates, chairs, dutch doors and other sources of protection. I often think of him while watching the modern GOP’s intraparty skirmishing.

  28. 28.

    shortstop

    @mai naem: I keep saying this here while insisting upon my own now-doubtful pacifism, but the guy has the most punchable face in America. Like an Elmer Gantry and Eddie Haskell mashup.

  30. 30.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @shortstop:

    I keep saying this here while insisting upon my own now-doubtful pacifism, but the guy has the most punchable face in America. Like an Elmer Gantry and Eddie Haskell mashup.

    Yes,.. and he thinks he can run for president?

  32. 32.

    gene108

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    Many think Cruz bears an uncanny resemblance to Sen. McCarthy. Fitting, as he’s equally dangerous and creepy. But I get the idea of a very, very polished segregationist southern governor.

    Nah, Cruz isn’t as dangerous as McCarthy. Everyone basically agreed with McCarthy that Commies had to be purged from America. The House had House UnAmerican Activities Committee spend over a decade blacklisting Hollywood writers, directors and actors to keep us safe from Communism.

    McCarthy just overstepped the leash people expected those in power to use to restrain themselves from going after “good Americans”. McCarthy started talking about Commies in the DoD and Pentagon he was targeting “good Americans” and it bit him in the ass.

    If he stayed to punching labor organizers, teachers and who ever else might’ve been to the left of FDR, in the 1930’s, people would’ve kept applauding him.

    There was no real political blowback, with regards to HUAC’s blacklisting of Hollywood people, in the same way there was for McCarthy.

    EDIT: There are enough people, who think Cruz is nuts that he’s never going to get the sort of power that McCarthy had.

  33. 33.

    gene108

    Also, too I want to punch all the morons, who voted these people into the House. They are to blame for this mess. But save our own necks, we need to save theirs, so they will never fully realize the folly of their faith.

  35. 35.

    BruinKid

    I’m a bit surprised this hasn’t happened before, but two CCW permit holders in Michigan were involved in a case of road rage where they shot and killed each other. It seems that the tailgater is the one to blame; the other fired back to protect his family in the car with him. They didn’t get shot, so in that sense it worked, but he was shot and killed, but not before shooting the road rage guy dead as well.

  36. 36.

    Citizen_X

    “They said nothing is impossible if you fight hard enough…” one senior GOP leadership aide told CNN.

    Well bless your heart. Go git that unicorn, cowboy! Dream the impossible dream!

    Source here.

  38. 38.

    gene108

    @dmsilev:

    Hell, the fucking Chamber of Commerce is starting to weigh in telling the GOP that a shutdown and/or a default would be a really really stupid thing to cause.

    The “funny” thing, now that Obamacare is law, is that businesses have adjusted to it. They’ve had 3-4 years to get ready for it and most of them have adjusted to Obamacare being the new normal.

    The Chamber of Commerce types realize that undoing Obamacare, after businesses spent the last 3-4 years getting ready for it, will just cause more problems for businesses to undo what has been done.

    Defunding / repealing Obamacare now would cause more economic problems for companies, yet the morons, who are the GOP base do not realize this. They keep wanting their Representatives to repeal it.

  39. 39.

    Comrade Dread

    @dmsilev: He does have an end game. Assuming he is actually a true believer, his end game is to get the Federal government to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporate America because Freedom!

    Assuming he’s a charlatan, he is positioning himself as the One True Conservative here to take back America for 2016.

    And either way, a lot of human misery is going to be sown.

  41. 41.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    From Matt Damon to Jane Hamsher to a good number of our own trolls, the belief that “balls” are more important than votes is not limited to the Tea Party.

  42. 42.

    nemesis

    Nothing is impossible!

    Well, damn. Now I believe. Why have I waited so long? At 56 years of age, I will pursue my lifelong dream of playing in the NBA. I want it sooo much. Now I realise its been me holding me back all along.

    On second thought, Ima want real hard to be rich, without having to sweat for it. Gonna happen any day.

    Ill be back in a minute…its Meals on Wheels at the door.

  43. 43.

    Violet

    Wendy Davis said yesterday she’s going to announce in two weeks whether or not she’s running for Governor. Her dad died recently and that delayed her announcement. I sure hope she does.

  44. 44.

    scav

    Pope’s off splodey-heading again.

    NYT

    “It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time,[gays, abortion, . . . ]” the pope told the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a fellow Jesuit and editor in chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit journal whose content is routinely approved by the Vatican. “The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently.

    In contrast to Benedict, who sometimes envisioned a smaller but purer church — a “faithful fragment” — Francis envisions the church as a big tent.

    “This church with which we should be thinking is the home of all, not a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people,” he said. “We must not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our mediocrity.”

  45. 45.

    hoodie

    @gene108: The fear of Obamacare is now mostly for rallying reactionaries under one flag. It has no tie to the content of the program. In a few years, a lot of these corporate types will be down with national health insurance if it means they no longer have to insure workers. Then the battle with shift to taxes.

  47. 47.

    MomSense

    @gene108:

    Also, too I want to punch all the morons, who voted these people into the House. They are to blame for this mess.

    Can we also also too punch the people who stayed home, didn’t vote, and let the morons win?

  49. 49.

    Karen in GA

    Totally OT, but I got the job offer this morning. The HR person said, “I know [Jane Doe] told you during the phone interview that we can’t pay [in the range of what I make now].” Um… no. Jane didn’t mention that at all. I said I’d let her know my decision later today. I just emailed and asked, basically, “Has it been confirmed that $X is as high as the company can go?” Yes, that’s as high as it gets.

    (Sort of on-topic — I don’t have Wendy Davis’ balls, and suck at negotiating.)

    But I just had someone here at my current job make a snide remark about my recent doctor’s appointments (the ones I needed in order to confirm that I don’t have cancer), so I’m probably going to take the pay cut.

    Besides, I can ride my motorcycle there. And it gets me the fuck out of my current job. So while not 100% thrilled, certainly a lot happier than I was, and a lot happier than I thought I’d be at this point two months ago. :)

  52. 52.

    chopper

    @dmsilev:

    my neighborhood coffee place sells an ‘obama blend’. a well-educated, smooth yet bold mixture of african and hawaiian beans, they say.

    so i can blame both!

  58. 58.

    Belafon

    @dmsilev: Maybe Obama needs to threaten Jack Daniels with a cruise missile strike. That might get Boehner to see that it’s in his best interest to negotiate with Obama rather than helping the dictators in his own party who think nothing of trying to kill their constituents.

  59. 59.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    OT: Chuck Todd just introduced the fact that sequestration (and gov’t shutdown, and GOP policies in general) disproportionately hurt the poor by apologizing for ‘what might sound like class politics’. Josh Marshall said years ago that people like Cokie Roberts and Tim Russert (who was still with us) find it crude and embarrassing to mention that politics is more than just a game, that people’s lives are actually affected by votes in Congress. He was right then, and it’s only gotten worse.

    He also called chained CPI a ‘radical’ change in Social Security. I wonder if he even realizes how far he strayed from the Village hymnal.

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne

    @Karen in GA:

    Are there at least other benefits (ie better medical coverage, vacation time, etc.)? Otherwise, I have to admit I would be wary of going down in salary because once you do that, it’s hard to get back up again.

  62. 62.

    lurker dean

    @Karen in GA: Congrats! I took a pay cut to be where I am now and I’m much happier for it. Not having to hate going to work every day is worth a whole lot.

  63. 63.

    Citizen_X

    @scav:

    In contrast to Benedict, who sometimes envisioned a smaller but purer church — a “faithful fragment” — Francis envisions the church as a big tent.

    Yes, Francis’ vision of the church is much more all-encompassing, universal, very, uh, what’s the word? Starts with a “c”…

  64. 64.

    Cassidy

    @MomSense: That is the price we must pay so that people can make comments/ posts on blogs about how much more pure their leftist feelings are than the rat of us. Such is life.

  67. 67.

    Karen in GA

    Thanks, all.

    MomSense, thanks. It’s a thyroid nodule — extremely common, and other tests have already strongly hinted that it’s benign. Biopsy in a couple of weeks, but the doctor made it sound like he just wanted to check thoroughly to be on the safe side.

    Mnemosyne, it’s actually not that big a difference at my lowly support staff level — I think I’m just afraid of having a bad day and then having “and the bastards shafted me on pay!!!11!one!!” in the back of my head to make me feel worse. Frankly, it’s not much of a shafting. The people I’d be surrounded by all day seem a lot better, and the hours are much better — I’ll have something of a life again. (I think I just talked myself into it.)

  68. 68.

    RaflW

    Oh, and this bit of useless mewling from Fix the Debt is exactly why faux-centrism is worse than silence:

    @FixtheDebt
    The debt limit is returning in October. It’s time for Washington to discuss raising it responsibly.

    Oh, it’s time, is it, Bowles and Simpson? What a tiny bleat of irrelevance in the shitstorm that is brewing.

  75. 75.

    Jebediah

    @Karen in GA:

    Glad for both bits of good news! On your way out the door at old job, please give Snide Commenter a one-finger wave from me. People who are waiting to find out about cancer do not need to hear assholish comments.

  76. 76.

    Mnemosyne

    @Karen in GA:

    If the hours are better, then that alone can be worth it. Technically, I’m making slightly less per hour in my current job than I did in my previous one (I think it’s still a dollar or two) and making way less in overtime, but that’s because I’m not having to work until freakin’ 8:00 or 9:00 at night anymore. Having those hours back in my life was definitely worth the “pay cut.”

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