So, ummm, hey- what’s going on in Syria? Three weeks ago 75% of the blogosphere was ready to invade.
/snicker
This post is in: Open Threads
So, ummm, hey- what’s going on in Syria? Three weeks ago 75% of the blogosphere was ready to invade.
/snicker
Comments are closed.
Omnes Omnibus
Nice try.
dollared
I think Syria was going to be John McCain’s Gettysburg. Or something like that.
Mike in NC
Syria was the worst foreign crisis in the past 50 years, but then it suddenly wasn’t. Just another day for our worthless 24/7 Village press. After the “debt crisis” turns out to be more insipid bullshit they’ll be flogging the “War on Christmas” again just in time for Bill O’Reilly’s next book. Maggots.
Ash Can
I dunno. You tell us.
different-church-lady
Cole… COLE… 3 weeks ago Obama said, “We’re in no hurry” and 3/4th of the blogsphere said WARMONGER!!1!
Two can play at this game, you know.
Mike E
Snickers?! Where?!
/snackish
rikyrah
After the MSM couldn’t get their war ratings with Syria, they have been mad ever since.
different-church-lady
@Omnes Omnibus: That.
Florence
It’s getting hard to ignore that the “Death to America” crowd is now running the show over here.
gwangung
And the other 75% were ready to rend their clothes in agony over Obama’s war mongering ways (snicker).
I don’t believe Putin put together this initiative on his own. And I think this President, more than most, has a wider array of tactics than most people appreciate—and it’s broader than what most politicians have.
MikeJ
We got everything we wanted, thanks to some dick swinging and Noble prizing.
lamh36
Under U.N. eye, destruction of Syrian chemical weapons begins
Suffern ACE
It’s not too late for him to follow the sage advice from the dean.
It might be our way out of the crises.
RaflW
You know the GOP is distracted when the weekend raid in Libya didn’t unleash 24hour Benghazi fever on Fox and in Darryl Issa’s committee circus
jl
@Suffern ACE:
” Here is where Obama is likely to prevail. With strong Republican support in Congress ”
I didn’t know Broder was so heavy into drugs.
Snap! Get some strong Republican support! Why didn’t Obama think of that?
” I am not suggesting, of course, that the president incite a war to get reelected. ”
Like even the support Obama could get in foreign policy, like Grandaddy Wargrumps and Graham, they’d peel off as soon as ‘incite a war’ fell off the menu.
Haven’t seen much of Broder recently, didn’t know he’d gone nuts.
GregB
I wonder if David Broder is helping herd pigs off of cliffs in hell in order to make room for Michelle Bachmann’s tea-party express bus?
I really think there must be mass lead poisoning or something because this nation is full of fucking certified nutbags.
David Koch
#44
Omnes Omnibus
So I rather like the new original programming that the Esquire network has produced so far. And they are doing Burn Notice reruns during some of their open time slots.
cathyx
Libya? I’m in the middle of Dancing With the Stars and Valerie Harper’s partner is so cute and has an accent that melts me.
Hill Dweller
Jon Stewart was brutal to Sibelius during their interview. She didn’t do herself any favors, but he was railing against the individual mandate, the one year exemption for business, and a market based approach to health care. It was far more hostile than his O’Reilly interview last week.
Marc
@different-church-lady: Well, three weeks ago Obama was AS BAD AS BUSH HE SOLD US OUT!
Right?
? Martin
@gwangung:
We know he didn’t. He and Obama wanted to do this a year ago – they discussed it at the G20 meeting in 2012 according to the Russians.
J.Ty
@Hill Dweller: The worst part was, he wasn’t really wrong, so to speak, but he also sounded like somebody who had forgotten how to count to 60.
priscianus jr
I’ll tell you what happened to Syria. We started talking to Iran.
jl
@jl: Sorry, confused Broder with Gergen. I don’t watch these people regularly enough to keep them straight. So, OK, now I know why I haven’t seen Broder in a while.
Narcissus
@Hill Dweller: Jon Stewart really, really wants to be a village cool kid
Punchy
TPM has a bit from so no-name GOP House clown from some no-name district that is now saying no debt increase without either defunding or delaying the ACA. Period. So apparently we really are going to jump over the cliff.
Cant wait to see the looks on all the wrinklies when their SS check suddenly doesnt show up.
sharculese
Sorry for an OT comment from a non-regular, but I couldn’t figure out how to work the front-pager contacts and I know this place is known for doing call-your-Congressman blegs.
I’m a DC local right now I’ve got a housemate who’s interning on the Hill for one of the Republicans who is on record as supporting a clean CR. (I have his permission to post this but not saying which Congressman to preserve his anonymity.) The good news is he said the flood of calls has changed from last week, when it was all teabaggers calling his boss a traitor to mostly being support for a clean CR, and he says the mood in the office seems like the Congressman is ready to get this over with. BUT he only got like four or five calls all day that pressed the issue of the discharge petition, which seems like a missed opportunity to me.
I don’t know what the protocol here is, but if there was ever a time for calling your Congressman and letting him know how you feel, especially if he or she is a Republican you suspect wants to make this go away, this seems like the time.
Comrade Mary
My Canadian Concerta, cold dead hands, etc.
JordanRules
@Hill Dweller: Personal power dynamics are intersting – like where they show deference and the like. It’s clear as day Stewart could never do what Colbert did at the Correspondence Dinner. It’s still too much of a game to him.
FlipYrWhig
@Hill Dweller: the little harrumphing lecture about why it couldn’t have been single payer, whine whine sniff sniff pout pout strut strut, was particularly choice.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
To paraphrase something I saw today: why do people say they “hate” to say “I told you so”? It’s, like, the best thing ever when I get to do that!
For those keeping score when it comes to predicting the success or otherwise of US actions in Iraq, Libya, and Syria since 2003:
Mnemosyne: 3
John G Cole: 0
Omnes Omnibus
@JordanRules: @FlipYrWhig: You would have been better served watching Burn Notice reruns with me.
David Koch
Is this the same Jon Stewart who exploits
slaveintern labor?Bill E Pilgrim
Don’t mention the war.
FlipYrWhig
@J.Ty: But I don’t think he was right. He wasn’t understanding that the “it” that employers got to delay isn’t the same thing as the “it” that individuals didn’t get to delay.
JGabriel
Deleted & reposted by author, due to moderation — used too many links.
Suffern ACE
@jl: lol. All those bald, serious pundits are kind of interchangeable.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
Looks like we’ve got a new Syrian Wingnut Meme:
TPM:
US News & World Report via DKos:
They’re making an organized effort to smear the President with an accusation of arming Al Qaida.
These people are evil.
? Martin
@priscianus jr: According to the NYT, Iran is really, really economically fucked right now. Their only out is to have the sanctions dropped. That’s not going to happen while they support Syria.
NotMax
@Mike in NC
It’ll be Palin this time, as her war on Xmas screed comes out later this year.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill E Pilgrim: I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it all right.
askew
You and your fellow glibetarians were having the vapors because Obama was determined to start a new war and he was just like Bush. Turns out you were all wrong and yet no apology. Funny how that happens. Wrong on Libya and wrong on Syria and no apology and no credit to Obama for accomplishing two things presidents have been trying to do for decades, rid the world of Qaddafi and get Syria to acknowledge and destroy their chemical weapons arsenal.
Hill Dweller
Even before the interview, the Team Incompetence vs Team Nihilism bit was nothing more than false equivalence. In Stewart’s view some technical fuckups in the first week of the Obamacare sign up period is the equivalent of the crazy shit the Republicans have been doing.
eta: The wingnuts will be linking the Sibelius interview all week. The cynic in me thinks that was the goal.
JordanRules
@Omnes Omnibus: Indeed. I can always use a Sam-inspired chuckle.
Seems like a wierd thing to focused on right now too. That’s the debate you want to have on your show right now Jon? Really?
MattR
@Hill Dweller: Jon was pretty rough, but it was also quite sad that she didn’t have a good answer for why the business requirements were being delayed. If I understand correctly, the issue is that Obamacare created new reporting requirements for large employers that were more complex than their current systems could handle. So they had to delay that piece to make sure it could be done right. And there has to be a good way to work in a shot at the Republicans for refusing to help iron out these types of issues.
In other words, Obama is recognizing Republican complaints that this law can have huge negative effects on the economy and the administration is doing its best to minimize the impacts it has on businesses. For some reason, the party that is supposed to represent the business owner objects to these efforts. It is almost like they want the law to fail or something :(
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@? Martin:
I’m guessing that the various diplomatic moves behind the scenes by Clinton and Kerry were more appealing to the Iranians than Reagan’s Bible-and-cake “diplomacy.”
askew
@Hill Dweller:
That’s because Stewart is a libertarian and Dem politicians have bought into the media narrative that he’s a liberal and don’t prep for his interviews. Stewart practically french kissed McCain last time he was on the show, while ripping Obama a new asshole for not being able to get Republicans to change their tone. Bunch of BS.
Jeff Spender
@Hill Dweller: I haven’t watched the Daily Show in years. Literally. Jon Stewart’s schtick got old, fast. I used to think he was good at calling out the bullshit, but I think he’s too much of a contrarian to stay honest about it.
FlipYrWhig
@Hill Dweller: he uses the VA claims backlog as his perspective on everything Obama-related.
Omnes Omnibus
@JordanRules: Yeah, Sam is the best thing in the show – even though Fiona is hot.
Bill E Pilgrim
@JGabriel: That woman is certifiably insane.
Don’t tell me that religion isn’t often part and parcel of insanity.
“Man found in small cabin ranting about beings from the sky controlling all of us” – what a sad, deluded nutcase.
“Woman from Minnesota rants about “end times” — Let’s elect her to office and put her on FOX News every night.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): You mean the dick swinging and gaffes?
@Bill E Pilgrim: Miley Cyrus’s portrayal of her on SNL was more rational than the real thing.
Jeff Spender
@askew:
I remember this. It’s as if they think Papa Obama can take away the Republican’s Nintendo privileges and get them to stay still for the family photo.
Suffern ACE
@MattR: the difference between businesses that are already covering their employees, even if not compliant with all techinical requirements and those who are aren’t and people without coverage at all is kind of a big difference that people want to run together.
Carolinus
@Hill Dweller:
I haven’t watched it yet, but if this Mediate summary is correct, he’s behaving like he prepared for this interview by searching through the Daily Caller archives:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/stewart-grills-sebelius-on-obamacare-level-of-incompetence-thats-larger-than-what-it-should-be/
The moronic conflating of the employer mandate & the individual mandate, pushing corporate anecdotes about reducing part time hours when there’s no evidence of a macro trend in the data, etc. I guess I’ll just have to watch it, but if the description is accurate Stewart is back on my sh%tlist, and I’m done w/ his show for a while (again).
askew
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Obama was right on all three of those as well, yet the liberal blogosphere and the liberal punditry still acts like they are smarter than him and that he is a failure for not doing what they want. Chris Hayes and Maddow have yet to apologize or acknowledge their dumbfuckery and CT during both Libya and Syria. I expect Cole to never apologize or admit he was a dumbfuck, but Hayes and Maddow should know better.
FlipYrWhig
@askew: well, this was a bit different, in that I think Sebelius was there to stick to the good news, and Stewart, to his credit, has moments where he doesn’t let his guests do that. Stewart’s downside, though, is that he thinks he’s much, much smarter than everybody else he deals with, so when something sticks with him — here it was “why delay one mandate and not the other?” — he thinks it must be The Big Issue. After all, it’s important to him, and he’s wicked smart, so it must be equally important to everyone!
Omnes Omnibus
@askew:
That is unfair. He has done it before. His judgment might not be great but he sure as fuck is willing to do mea culpas.
FlipYrWhig
@Carolinus: Very accurate. The part about “lying” at the end was really pretty stunning.
Hill Dweller
@MattR:
That’s exactly right. These corporations have multiple companies handling different aspects of their insurance plans, making it very difficult to streamline the process.
I can’t understand why Sibelius, who is doing multiple interviews, didn’t anticipate the question. Again, she did herself no favors.
I also don’t understand why Stewart didn’t know the explanation. He blamed it on lobbyists.
At the end of the show, before the Moment of Zen, he literally called Sibelius a liar. I can’t believe how hostile he was to her.
MattR
@Suffern ACE: Well, yes and no. They are definitely different issues that have different complications and require different solutions. But if you start from a point of “fairness”, then I do see a legitimate complaint that an individual with a substandard plan has to upgrade now to comply with the mandate but a large company that offers a substandard plan has an extra year to comply with their mandate.
@Hill Dweller: I turned it off as soon as the first part of the interview ended. It felt like a “who’s on first” parody (without the comedy) where they were both completely talking past the other and Jon was getting more and more frustrated that he couldn’t get a straight answer because he wasn’t understanding her responses.
JGabriel
sharculese:
Something like this should probably be emailed to Tim F., who’s usually Balloon Juice’s de facto “whip up the troops” voice. He’s not around all that frequently though, so you also might want to include mistermix, DougJ., and Anne Laurie, since they occasionally do posts to encourage people to contact their reps too.
May as well include Cole too, just for the hell of it. I mean, it is his blog ‘n’ all.
J.Ty
@FlipYrWhig: OK, for that part he was wrong, and the employer mandate is possibly a bad idea to boot. He was right that it’s kind of an insane policy (and it is better than the status quo! But markets don’t efficiently distribute healthcare no matter how you slice it). But he seemed to fault Obama for not instituting Canada or something.
Tiny Tim
LIbya is a success in that our involvement didn’t grow and it’s off the news. I’m not sure it did much for Libya.
? Martin
@MattR:
I think that was the excuse (it’s a legitimate excuse). I think the real reason is that the employer mandate isn’t the greatest policy. It has a lot of negative incentives. It’s not clear how many of those incentives would play out, but employers really are better off shifting full to part time workers and outsource low-income workers.
askew
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, he certainly hasn’t manned up to his dumbfuckery on Syria yet and he has been wrong on Greenwald/Snowden for months now with no admittance of mistake.
Except from all accounts he was feeding her a bunch of BS rightwing gossip as fact and wouldn’t let Sebelius explain why he was wrong. That is the same BS he pulled during Obama’s last interview. Stewart thinks he is a lot smarter than he actually is. He has very little understanding of policy and frequently gets stuff wrong and won’t let Democratic guests correct his errors. He does give his Republican guests plenty of time and courtesy to answer questions though.
Redshift
@FlipYrWhig: And not understanding that the “employers are cutting hours to get under the 30 hour requirement” is wingnut BS and not fact, and going on about people who don’t have much extra money having to buy insurance (when in fact they’ll get subsidies.) I had to fast-forward. Sebelius seemed to have better answers for those, though.
dww44
@sharculese: I called mine this afternoon, but will call back tomorrow and ask for his support of the clean CR. I did, however, say that we needed no shenanigans with the debt ceiling. Of course, I didn’t speak with my rep directly, but with a staffer. Phone was picked up on the first ring, the staffer didn’t seem harrassed, so figure that no one in this really red district is calling in.
Omnes Omnibus
@askew: Give him a few years.
? Martin
This episode of South Park where the Canadians go on strike until they can get internet money is as perfect an expression of the current GOP as I’ve seen – and it came out before Obama got elected.
FlipYrWhig
@Carolinus: actually the thing that account overlooks was his exasperated speechifying about how the whole thing should have been single-payer in the first place. Which Sebelius rebutted by mentioning that the opposition was fierce to the market solution, so something more dramatic would have met with an even worse reaction. To which he said that accommodating crazy people is why we’re in the mess we are and have you guys learned that lesson yet.
Which of course completely overlooks that it was the Landrieu/Lieberman/Lincoln Democrats who wanted to go only this far, not anything having to do with crazy Republicans, but, you know, the same people who were up in arms about the inevitable Syrian quagmire never admit that either.
JGabriel
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Yep, only it looks like it’s not just Bachmann pushing the latest bullshit. That’s a little worrisome, particularly with respect to stochastic terrorism if all the far-right extremists on Fox News, etc., start pushing that meme.
JGabriel
@dww44:
Not just the clean CR, you want to ask him/her to support the discharge petition too.
Carolinus
@Redshift:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-08/is-obamacare-forcing-you-to-work-part-time-.html
Citizen_X
@J.Ty:
That was one of the worst parts, when Stewart launched into his “why not single-payer?” reverie. I felt like asking, “What the fuck? Were you in a coma when all this was getting hashed out?”
FlipYrWhig
@Redshift: She still could have said that anyone who _did_ lose their employer-provided insurance might well find themselves, yes, paying more per month, but in exchange for MUCH BETTER INSURANCE.
dww44
@Hill Dweller: I didn’t see the Stewart interview, but I did see the Maddow one. Why can’t people in positions like that of Sibelieus be more direct and more assertive.? Admit to the faults with the program , but be clear about what is being done to correct them. She really hasn’t helped the cause at all, and while I think she’s probably had the toughest and most unrewarding job of any cabinet level appointee, she really could be better at the PR.
Alison
@askew:
Whitedudeitis.
He also seems to think that the whole process of governing is or should be much easier than it really is. The way he bemoans procedures and realities and such, it’s like he thinks it’s not more complicated than a group of people trying to decide where to go for lunch. It’s ridiculous and clueless, yet he clings on to his point of view no matter what, like he thinks the stoners cheering in his audience are proof he’s right.
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen_X: Stewart is doing a TV show on the Comedy Network. His job requires him to produce good TV and nothing beyond that.*
*Good TV in this context is TV that draws eyeballs.
J.Ty
And it would’ve been a PERFECT opportunity for Sebelius to blame the program’s flaws on Republican intransigence–unwillingness to edit out even obviously shitty parts, etc.
JordanRules
@askew: Mmm hmm, Jon thinking he’s smarter than everybody…if the libertarian shoe fits.
Omnes Omnibus
@dww44:
Because being a PR flack is only a small part of their job.
LAC
Don’t know what you are snickering about, Cole. thought you were going to give yourself a nosebleed screaming about “Iraq war two: electric boogaloo”. Or was it “fuck you fuckers!”
askew
@Alison:
That’s it in a nutshell and whenever anyone dares to call him out on his fact free BS, he and his fans fall back on “he’s only a comedian” and it’s not his job to tell the truth. Pathetic.
Carolinus
@dww44:
I’d guess she was blindsided by the hostility and couldn’t decide whether or not it would just make things worse to get into a pitched fight w/ an unhinged “liberal” icon with a dedicated following. (I still haven’t watched the interview).
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): lolwut
Is that what you call what you do – predicting? You may want to look up that word. It means something else.
Omnes Omnibus
@LAC: The snicker was because he was trying to provoke a blog-fight. Treat it as an open thread.
AnotherBruce
@different-church-lady: kinda funny how you turned Cole’s observation into a criticism of Obama. Not really that funny, but it’s a tell, gotcha.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@AnotherBruce: These idiots can turn a ham sandwich into an unfair attack on Obama.
Bill E Pilgrim
@JGabriel: Well at least it’s not like, oh you know, Justices of the United States Supreme Court are also fanatic religious extremist right wing nutcases, because then we’d really be in trouble.
Omnes Omnibus
@AnotherBruce: Quoi?
dww44
@JGabriel: Yep, thanks, that ‘s what I meant to say.
pseudonymous in nc
Thought experiment: what happens if John Oliver, who, of course, spent all but the last half-dozen years in the UK, is running that interview?
Alison
@askew: OMG I haaaate when he pulls the “I’m just a comedian” card. Because dude? You can’t have it both ways! If you’re just “a comedian” then why in the fuck should cabinet members think you know one fucking thing about politics, policy, law, etc and why should they listen to your bullshit? If they *should* listen to you and if you want your views to be listened to and respected, if you want to claim some sort of serious knowledge that people need to bow down before and also produce essay-length answers to all your whiny questions, then you are not just a comedian, you’re a pundit or whatever.
He’s such a damn hypocrite. It sucks because when he’s good, he can still be really good. When he calls out GOPers for anti-gay shit or hating on the poors, he can be really biting still. But those glimmers are few and far between, and mostly we just get his own little personal lovefest with his brain.
xian
@askew: and talk to Iran for the first time in 34 years.
Bill E Pilgrim
@AnotherBruce: Yeah funny, that.
JordanRules
Why is Stewart even trying to attempt a revisionist history argument at all? The shit is over and we can’t get the imperfect starter law started because of literal traitors in our midst. What the fuck was his point? And why the fuck was it filled with so much hostility?
Shit seems real sketchy or cowardly. Or both.
askew
@Alison:
The bad has outweighed the good with him for years now. Having Oliver at the helm this summer was such a breath of fresh air. Oliver doesn’t think he’s the smartest person in the room 100% of the time and actually cares about policy and how it affects people.
Suzanne
@Alison:
Thank you. JStew rolls around in his race and gender privilege like anyone else. Restore sanity, my ass. Cal a spade a spade.
I am thinking of forming a new band so I can call it “Strident & Shrill”.
Redshift
@askew: Speaking of which, there was an infuriating story on NPR this evening, where they started analyzing this weekend’s counterterrorism missions through the lens of “something the president can do without involving Congress,” and then presenting as fact the idea that we have been “weakened” by the Syria/chemical weapons outcome, then an official from a Republican administration to say “oh, that’s definitely true,” and then some BS about how not-good it is for us that we only have the Secretary of State at the Asia/Pacific meetings instead of the president. Grrr…
Bill E Pilgrim
@JGabriel:
That suddenly sounds oddly medical, like something a doctor would order. Set up a clean CR and a discharge petition for this patient please, stat.
askew
@xian:
Yep, can’t forget that important FP move. I am just waiting for the Maddows/Mitchells/Stewarts to give credit to any Iran-US nuclear deal to Hillary or the nearest white person or they’ll just ignore it and pick on Obama for some petty BS instead of giving him credit for a major accomplishment.
dww44
@Carolinus: Well, anecdotaly, I can confirm that at least one company is doing that. The company which owns, and operates the gas pumps in front of Wal-Mart in this area (don’t know if they’ve got them nation-wide) recently cut full time workers back to part-time. Nice clerk at the nearby one is beside herself with worry, because the cut back from 35 plus hours to 25 hours has really hit her hard. She’s 3 children on Medicaid and Snap (wonder what will happen there?) but has no health coverage for herself. And, as she said today, how could she possibly afford any?
Plus the company is directly blaming Obamacare and she’s also been told that if she doesn’t go out and buy health care, which she can’t afford, they will zap her withholding $1000.00 upfront in the new year. I told her I’d do some research on this.
Alison
@Suzanne: Ugh, the fucking rally. Big old pile of fail.
Carolinus
@pseudonymous in nc:
I really miss Oliver hosting. He was such a massive improvement though-out his stint behind the desk.
AnotherBruce
@askew: Strawman, it was dipshits like you who were ready to start a war in Syria.
Omnes Omnibus
@dww44: The ACA isn’t causing it. It is something they wanted to do for a while and they are using the ACA as an scapegoat for political reasons.
patroclus
Three weeks ago, John was skeptical that a chemical weapons attack had even happened and was comparing the situation to WarGames the movie. Now, after a stunning diplomatic breakthrough, Syria has ratified the Chemical Weapons conventions and is in the process of submitting its chemical weapons to international control. All this after 75% of the blogosphere was calling for a diplomatic resolution to the rather obvious chemical weapons attack notwithstanding John’s equally stunning blatant inaccuracy (with nary an apology or correction).
/snicker indeedy
askew
@Redshift:
The media just can’t stand to give Obama credit for anything. In the left, right and center media, Obama can do no right. I am amazed his approval ratings are as high as they are since he gets almost no positive press and his communications team sucks donkey balls.
Speaking of communication team failures, Sebelius should have been better prepared for a hostile interview on both Maddow and Stewart. Both like nothing more than to prove their “independence” by ripping apart an Obama admin person.
Anne Laurie
@sharculese: Thanks for the advice! As others have said, TimF is our local expert on phone-blasting and whipping-in, but I just front-paged your comment in the new post up top.
MattR
@dww44: It doesn’t surprise me that a company would mislead about the reason for cutting hours, but they can’t be so brazen as to try and steal $1000 from each of their employees, can they?
Hill Dweller
@Omnes Omnibus: Stewart loves to hide behind the “I’m just a comedian” excuse when pressed, but he obviously takes himself far more seriously.
Stewart also takes “balance” seriously. Over the last few years, he has shoehorned more unfunny bits about Dems into the show, and they almost always fall flat. It’s actually hurting his show.
Colbert, who has had the better show for years, is finally starting to get the recognition he deserves, in large part due to Stewart’s show being noticeably mediocre, even to the award voters(who are the last people to get a clue).
dww44
@Omnes Omnibus: Maybe so, but that’s awfully hard to get folks to see. Plus it’s just plain criminal that they are actually hurting people this badly. And, she’s hurting.
xian
@Tiny Tim: maybe ask the people gadhaffi was set on massacring?
Suffern ACE
@dww44: I think you need to explain what zap her withholding means.
FlipYrWhig
@MattR: I don’t see how they can stop providing benefits and then also say their workers need to absorb both fewer hours and less pay. If the company isn’t providing a share of employee health insurance anymore, they should be already pocketing that money. They aren’t owed anything. What am I missing? Just gratuitous cruelty?
Omnes Omnibus
@AnotherBruce: Come the fuck on. Would the current chemical weapons disposal process be under way without the threat of force?
@Hill Dweller: I never bought the deification of Stewart. As a result, I don’t feel betrayed by him. I like when he nails people who deserve it, but I don’t see him as an ally – he is someone whose interests sometimes coincide with my own.
Redshift
@dww44:
Because it’s heavily subsidized. At that level of income, I’d be surprised if she pays much of anything, though if it’s a state that has refused Medicaid expansion, it’s hard to predict.
And her employer is saying they’re going to withhold $1000 if she doesn’t get health insurance? That’s complete BS, and probably illegal. Yes, she’ll be required to have coverage under the ACA, but if her employers are wingnut assholes who are cutting hours to avoid the employer mandate (which doesn’t take effect for another year anyway), then they have absolutely nothing to do with requiring her to get coverage or withholding money for it. The whole description of the situation smells very wrong. (I don’t mean either you or she are describing it wrong, just that it sounds like the wingnut employers are trying to pull a fast one and screw her over even further.)
JGabriel
@Bill E Pilgrim: Kudos. That one got a good out loud laugh from me. If I still had a cat, she’d have been startled.
Carolinus
@MattR:
My company did it too. It wasn’t long after the ACA passed. Management on a massive company-wide call blamed the ACA’s Cadillac Plan Tax on them implementing a big cut in the quality of our healthcare benefits. I knew right off the top of my head it was total BS, since that doesn’t get implemented till 2018, but I never had the guts to say anything.
FlipYrWhig
@Suffern ACE: it sounds like it means taking more money out of her paycheck. But that makes no sense as an effect of the company refusing to continue to provide a benefit. It would be a wash if they gave a raise! Not that they would, but it’s not just robbing peter to pay Paul, it’s robbing peter and robbing Paul and just cackling about it.
MattR
@FlipYrWhig: Assholes being assholes.
Got a letter in the mail today from HR about Obamacare. Was pretty straightforward other than saying that if an employee chooses to purchase insurance through the exchange, they MAY lose their employer contribution. Seems like they should be willing to make it, but I believe it would become taxable income unless they went through the process of creating a Health Reimbursement Account (which I would not expect them to do when they already provide pretty good insurance – probably between gold and silver).
I have not been able to get on the federal website to see my options in NJ, but using my mom’s address in NY I was able to see gold level plans in the 450-500 range which is quite comparable to the ~170 I pay with a ~300 contribution from my company.
Redshift
@askew: What the hell do you have against Maddow? Her interview with Sebelius was anything but hostile, other than fairly mild questions that it seems like they could have been a bit better prepared. And she’s been pretty glowing in her stories about the initiatives with Iran, not “trying to give credit to the nearest white person.” It’s fine if you don’t like her, but you shouldn’t just make up stuff you assume she must be doing and pretend like she actually did it.
Suffern ACE
@Redshift: are employers required to withhold the fine for the IRS? It sounds to me that these employers might in fact be charging their employees for penalties they (the employers) might face for not offering insurance.
Hill Dweller
@Omnes Omnibus:
The Daily Show was truly great back in the day.
Stewart is a lot like Lorne Michaels, in that everything depends on the talent surrounding him. Back when Colbert and Carrell were correspondents, and Ben Karlin was producer, the show was on auto-pilot. There was so much talent, Stewart didn’t have nearly the workload and/or responsibility.
As the quality of the corespondents and producers began to decline, and the show took on more of Stewart’s voice, it suffered. Now it’s more mediocre than good; and Stewart has become insufferable.
Another Holocene Human
@dww44: Isn’t that illegal? I mean, she files the W4 with them and they’re supposed to follow it.
The fine’s only $95 in 2015 and ONLY if she has affordable insurance available. Sounds like she’s well below poverty line so… no.
Another Holocene Human
@Suffern ACE: That’s illegal.
MattR
@Another Holocene Human: And what is she going to do, pay for a lawyer? She can’t afford health insurance. At least that is probably what the company is thinking if they are in fact going to try and withhold money under the guise of an Obamacare penalty.
Suffern ACE
@Another Holocene Human: yep. It seems that $1,000 is quite a steep withholding penalty for a 95 fine.
But then this employer is going to have to hire more workers unless it plans to be open fewer hours.
MattR
@Suffern ACE: Silly rabbit. They will now schedule 3 workers and expect them to do 4 workers worth of work.
(EDIT: I watched my father have to deal with that as Pataki kept cutting funding for mental health care facilities)
AnotherBruce
@Omnes Omnibus: Probably not, but that’s not the argument I was making. There are a lot of people here that assume if you’re not in total agreement with the President at every step of the process, you must be acting in bad faith. As it is I have a lot of good faith in Obama, and sure enough he made the right decision. That does not necessarily make my point of view that a military action would have been a mistake wrong.
It’s kind of hard for a lot of people here to understand that Cole’s post had nothing to do with Obama.
Suffern ACE
@MattR: and the shelves won’t get stocked. I think it was violet who reported that a friend at a Koch company was also losing coverage and getting hours cut. But the kochs aren’t in businesses where you can do that and not lose revenue.
MattR
@Suffern ACE: Sadly the Koch’s have shown that they are willing to lose millions of dollars to try and make a political point.
It would not surprise me if all these business cutting hours eventually have to add employees to make up the slack, but I would also bet that they first try to find ways to “increase productivity” so they can get away with staffing fewer people per shift.
? Martin
@dww44: Yeah, in aggregate we may not see a ton of this stuff, but individually you’ll see it – it’ll hurt specific people. The adverse incentives in the employer mandate pretty much guarantee that.
Of course, it doesn’t take much for wingnuts to whip out their inner asshole, either.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Suffern ACE:
That’s what it sounds like to me, too, and if so, it’s hella illegal.
dww44, I think this lady’s going to need a labor lawyer — even an anonymous call to either HHS or the fraud line for the Justice Dept would help. It sounds like her employer may be stepping over the line from assholish to criminal.
Chris
@Mike in NC:
More like
1) what was supposed to be a Glorious War, the third one in this still young century, suddenly turned into all-out diplomacy. Wars are cool – shit blows up, flags are waved, action movies are based off it. Diplomacy is boring and for nerds. It’s not good television.
2) what was supposed to be Obama’s Iraq, Obama’s Katrina, Obama’s Watergate and Obama’s Iran-contra, overnight turned into his biggest diplomatic victory to date. Now, they could’ve switched gears and praised him for actually using his head for something besides a hat rack. But that would’ve meant changing the all-knowing Narrative, and you know how they feel about that.
3) something juicier came up (that last part, at least, it’s harder to fault them for).
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
Wait, let me guess — I was right for the wrong reasons, so it doesn’t count. Isn’t that how the tune went with Iraq when the war-floggers realized the DFH’s had been right all along?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): How dare you question our “Thought Leader”, who manages to lead our thoughts without thinking.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@BillinGlendaleCA:
It seems like he’s only a Thought Leader part-time, though. Did Cole cut his hours?
JordanRules
@AnotherBruce: What was the /snicker if not eluding to his own previous posts which were certainly about Obama?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I blame Obama and his Obamacare.
Omnes Omnibus
@AnotherBruce: Jesus Christ. This post should not be taken out of the context of previous posts on this blog. WTF do you think the “/snicker” was intended to mean?
cckids
@dww44: I know companies are doing it, just not sure how factual it is that it is because of Obamacare. My daughter worked at an AMC theater till August; they cut everyone’s hours starting last February to 28 or less, and told them it was because of Obamacare.
Which was obviously crap.
cckids
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Depending on her state, she could also try the state Labor Relations Board ( I think thats what it’s called). Ours here in NV was very helpful to my daughter trying to get a missed check replaced.
AxelFoley
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Pwn’d
AxelFoley
@askew:
It’s wash, rinse, repeat with these muhfuckas, askew.
Liquid
So you’re telling me there’s no truth to the rumors that Syria will deploy their Panzer-Lehr Division to assault Bastogne.
AxelFoley
@AnotherBruce:
Looks like we got AnotherAsshole here.
Cassidy
3 weeks ago Obama was history’s greatest monster and worse than Bush. Now he’s a big, swingin’ dick hero. Emoprogs and drunks are never happy.
@askew: Yup, Cole, mix, and AL got real quiet on this topic suddenly. Well, Cole and mix got quiet. AL copy and pasted….quieter?
A Humble Lurker
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
Yep, ham sandwiches. Ham sandwiches like ‘swinging his dick’ to ‘win another Nobel Prize’. But only ’cause those are some mighty easy ham sandwiches to transmogrify.
Sebelius is a notoriously bad interview giver from what I’ve seen of her, but even so…ugh. And I was starting to like the show again when Jon seemed to actually realize how crazy the crazies are. It’s like what some of y’all said; if he could count to sixty, he wouldn’t need some of those questions answered.
SRW1
I don’t think Obama’s red line approach was smart politics, on the contrary. However, as things turned out, that is way counterbalanced by the fact that he recognized an opportunity in the offer of the Syrians/Russians and seized it. All hail to that kind of adapting.
PS, Mr Cole: Trolling at its crudest.
Betty Cracker
@Redshift: Remember Al Franken’s awesome explanation about the difference between how liberals and conservatives love America?
Well, there’s something similar at work among people who support Obama but occasionally disagree with him or are concerned he might screw up and people who think Obama can do no wrong.
LAC
@patroclus: that is exactly why this isn’t just some little ole open thread. But proceed, Cole.
LAC
@Betty Cracker: oh please, your “concern” is usually based on a set of assumptions that rarely pan out. You guys were wrong about Syria. You projected and were wrong. See how easy that is?
Betty Cracker
@LAC: When Kerry was running around making the case for bombing Syria immediately, I said I thought an attack was imminent and that I was against it. Pretty much everyone else thought an attack was imminent too. Everyone who did, including me, was wrong about that. I’ve already said so in other threads. I’ll say it again: I was wrong to assume that an attack was imminent.
What I won’t say I was wrong about — because I don’t believe I was wrong about it — was that it would be a mistake to bomb Syria. I still think it would be a mistake to bomb Syria, and I’m glad a diplomatic solution is now being pursued. The administration — which I support in most things! — deserves tons of credit for remaining agile and open to various options. What a vast improvement over the last one!
What I find a little hard to stomach is the “My Obama, Right or Wrong” peeps crawling out of the woodwork to crow about how right they were all along when they were just as wrong as the rest of us about the possibility of a US attack. I was informed back when Kerry was making the case for bombing that anyone who didn’t support bombing was objectively pro-genocide and indifferent to the suffering of Syrian civilians. When I suggested that doubling down on diplomacy would be a better option, I was called naive and informed that all diplomatic options had been exhausted. Those people were wrong then, and they’re still full of shit.
But if it makes y’all feel better to imagine that staunch Democrats and Obama supporters like the Balloon Juice crew are embittered PUMA cat ladies who hate the president we all voted for twice and worked our asses off to help elect, have at it. Purity isn’t just a firebagger / teabagger virtue.
Chyron HR
@Betty Cracker:
Obviously the fact that Obama demonstrably didn’t do anything “wrong” with regards to Syria is a coincidence and a gaffe and for these reasons and more doesn’t count so shut up, Obots.
Morbo
@xian: Pffft, they don’t count.
some guy
I remember the good old days, all the way back 4 weeks ago, when the BJ Center Right Fight Club members here refused to even consider that Al Qaeda was part of the Syrian opposition, much less dominated it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker:
(Emphasis added) The thing is, BC, it very quickly became apparent that the war threats were being made simultaneously with ongoing diplomatic efforts. It wasn’t that an attack was being planned and then, at the last minute, a diplomatic solution popped up. The people who annoyed me during this were those who simply assumed that the administration was “dick swinging” and that Kerry was nuts and committing gaffes – one of which just coincidentally matched – the end result playing out on the ground right now. That is, the people who have trouble recognizing competence in the administration or differentiating it from the previous administration. Yeah, I was though attacks were imminent too. I also thought that attacks would have been a mistake. I still think they would have been a mistake. OTOH a credible threat of attacks coupled with pressure on Assad from his benefactor, well, shit, that seems to have been a good plan.
Betty Cracker
@Chyron HR: In my opinion, Obama has done a couple of things wrong in Syria — I thought it was a mistake to draw a “red line,” which sucked the US into an unpredictable situation where we had to put our money where our mouth was. I’m very glad it worked out the way it did, and I give Kerry and Obama all sorts of credit for that, but I don’t grant them the omniscience some of you apparently do — that they absolutely foresaw everything that happened and played everyone in the international community like a violin. They were savvy and flexible, which is something we haven’t seen in too long, but I’m not sure it was a gamble worth taking.
I also think it’s a mistake to give Assad’s opponents anything more lethal than a pellet gun. To the extent the administration follows up on its promises to provide lethal assistance, I believe it’s a mistake. I think the admin has misgivings about it too, which is why they’ve dragged their feet on shipping arms to the rebels. But these are issues reasonable people can disagree on, or at least, they should be able to.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ll just be all Broderish and say BOTH sides annoy me — those who honestly don’t think there’s a difference between Obama and Bush, and those who don’t recognize any daylight between Obama and God.
Morbo
@some guy: I remember the good old days when it was the pro-war folks who constantly used Al Qaeda as the boogeyman. Seeing the anti-war folks call the USAF Al-Qaeda’s air force was a welcome change of pace.
Cacti
Syria is Iraq! Obama is Bush! Boots on the ground! Mission creep!
As I recall, that was the front page circle jerk being led by John Cole, and furiously fapped to by mistermix, Betty Cracker, and Anne Laurie.
dww44
@MattR: Yes, good point. Hopefully I can ascertain exactly what she was told by her employer, if indeed came from them. I will post a response when I get it.
dww44
@Suffern ACE: Well, I will try to get to the bottom of that. Have to catch her when she’s on duty. Here’s the thing, people like this are consumed with the day to day effort of working and barely making a living. They are vulnerable to all sorts of misinformation.
dww44
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): You may be right. I live in a red state, one which declined the medicaid expansion and the huge charity hospital in the megalopolis is going to lose millions because of it. When I can find some easily digestible info on line I am going to share it with her, Will determine how much of what she told me is hearsay or what the employer has said. No questions that her employer cut her from full time to part -ime and blamed it on Obamacare.
Original Lee
@pseudonymous in nc: I fell in love with John Oliver this summer, and I don’t care who knows it.