Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

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

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The words do not have to be perfect.

This fight is for everything.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

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82Comments

  2. 2.

    Elizabelle

    Whocoodanode?

    Burglars recently took seven guns from a restaurant in Virginia whose owner has drawn attention for his advocacy of the right to bear arms — and to carry guns into his establishment.

    The burglary took place Nov. 23 at the Cajun Experience in Leesburg, town police said. About 12:45 a.m., they said, two people forced their way inside, broke into a padlocked closet and stole seven long guns described as rifles and shotguns.

    “It’s just my luck,” owner Bryan Crosswhite said Saturday night. “We don’t keep guns there” routinely, he added. He said the guns were left there overnight after a hunting trip as a matter of convenience and were to be taken to a friend’s house in Virginia, where they are usually kept.

    … The restaurant drew attention after Crosswhite began offering a discount to diners for every weapon carried.

    A Nov. 20 posting on the restaurant’s Facebook page read: “Today we celebrate the 2nd Amendment! Stop in for Open Carry Wednesday and get 10% off for exercising” the right to bear arms.

    I’ll take fries with that sidearm.

    Leesburg is in northern Northern Virginia; not too far from Dulles Airport.

  3. 3.

    some guy

    demonstrations in London, Brussels, Haifa, jerusalem, Gaza, and elsewhere against the latest round of ethnic cleansing in Israel. In America, not so much.

  6. 6.

    rda909

    So the web site, which is a small component of the total Obamacare package and needed significant alterations because of t-bagger Republican governors purposely trying to tank it, is running quite well a full month before any of the actual plans take effect? The Administration built in a 3 month buffer period specifically to be able to work out kinks, and it’s seems that plan is working out really well. Yet, the LIBRUL MEDIA has Republicans and many Democrats calling the Obama Administration “incompetent” for making a sound plan and executing it well?!? Given all this, President Obama and his team should be receiving nothing but praise from anyone who calls themselves a Democrat/liberal/progressive. Thank you, Obamacare team!

  9. 9.

    c u n d gulag

    Condolences to the family and friends of the people who died in that Metro-North crash.
    And I hope those injured, recover quickly.

    I don’t know why, but I’ve always hated that station – which is usually only on the local. But at that hour of the morning, and late at night/very early in the morning, almost all of the trains are local.

    That station literally translates into “Spit at the Devil” – also, as “Spouting Devil,” or as “Spewing Devil,” or “Spinning Devil.”
    A lot of people have drowned in that part of the Harlem River, due to its wildly irregular and unpredictable tidal currents.

  12. 12.

    Davis X. Machina

    @jaded: From the people who still tell us the GOP is the part of fiscal probity, and that Dems are weak on defense? Sucker bet.

  13. 13.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @rda909: For God’s sake. You should hear yourself.

    The thing was a disaster, and it’s getting fixed. Good for them.

    Ask Barack Obama if a month ago he felt like the plan for the Web site was “sound” and “working really well”, he’d be the first to laugh in your face.

    The Wingnuts and too many “centrist” Villagers want to make this into “The ACA is dooooomed!” which is ridiculous, but going to the other extreme, “This was the plan! See, he wanted this to happen, because….” is just as silly.

    Being generally supportive of Obama especially when it’s warranted seems like a good thing, but sycophantic twisting of reality into Mobius strips is another thing. Gets old quick.

  14. 14.

    smedley the uncertain

    Healthcare.gov may be fixed but the GOP poison still has to be undone.
    The Koch Beer and Pizza bribery, and slick(sick) ads over come; and the true nature of the cancelled policies exposed. Publicize the fact that better alternatives to many cancelled policies were offered by the insurers because of ACA . C’mon librul press…

  15. 15.

    Amir Khalid

    @Elizabelle:
    That story suggests the theft was an inside job, by someone who knew the guns had been put in that closet. Someone in Crosswhite’s hunting party, possibly. It was plainly not Crosswhite’s bad luck. He should have taken those guns back to his friend’s home.

  16. 16.

    c u n d gulag

    @smedley the uncertain:
    For every college kid and young adult who is so stupid that he/she decides NOT to get easily affordable health insurance (providing they’re not still on their parent’s plan) after they graduate, the Koch’s ought to put their names in for an award:
    The “Darwin Award.”

  17. 17.

    Hawes

    There will always be someone who will struggle with the website, because there are people out there who can fuck up a wet dream. But an ounce of anecdote is apparently worth a pound of data.

  18. 18.

    rda909

    @Bill E Pilgrim: It’s “silly” to suggest they built in a 3-month ramp up period specifically to work out problems before everything takes effect? Huh? That’s exactly what they did and said they were doing all along, or in other words, The Plan.

    President Obama himself talked about this plan a lot in the lead up to the launch. As if often the case, the media creates these negative-toward-Obama storylines and hammers them incessantly into the public discourse so that it seems “common knowledge,” which apparently has worked on you. Obama sometimes feels the need to respond and defuse the media created nonsense, which he did with this and his taking responsibility, but the end result will be exactly what he wanted all along. And also as usual, Republicans in DC and in red states are doing all they can to sabotage it, and the Obamacare site is still going to come out on top. Given all these facts, it’s perfectly reasonable to compliment the Obamacare team on a job well done.

  19. 19.

    Splitting Image

    “It’s too early to pronounce the website a success, just because they appear to have fixed the problems in five weeks. You have to give it at least five months.” – Charles Krauthammer.

  20. 20.

    JohnK

    @rda909: The Democrats blowing a 6 point lead and now lagging behind the republicans on the generic congressional ballot while the president’s approval sinks to an all time low reveals a most ingenious 3-month continuous improvement plan! And that apology that the President gave in that press conference for the bad roll out, all just fiddle sticks.

  22. 22.

    dmsilev

    @rda909: You are being silly. Seriously. If they intended a soft launch, which is what you’re proposing, they would have come up with some way of phasing in the people eligible to use the site. By last name, or by birth day, or something, and then ramp up the eligible fraction as the glitches were worked out and capacity expanded. Instead they went fully live immediately, and crashed the thing hard.

    Yes the problems were fixable and appear to have been fixed, but nobody is going to believe “this was all part of our plan”.

  25. 25.

    Robert Sneddon

    We had a bad incident in Glasgow here in Scotland when a police helicopter crashed into a crowded riverside pub on Friday night. Eight dead, at least fourteen critically injured. It could have been a lot worse, there was no explosion or fire involving the helicopter’s fuel tanks.

  26. 26.

    PurpleGirl

    Spuyten Duyvil is a weird station: It’s at the river level and below street level. To my knowledge there is no elevator/escalator at the station and you have to walk up a long staircase to get to street level. I passed through the station many times when I went to Peekskill.

    I hope any person injured gets better real soon and I’ll prayer for the people who died.

  27. 27.

    Botsplainer

    Well THAT was disgusting. One of my neighbors is leaving the useless chunks of his deer kill in his yard. The dog split for a minute while we were playing and brought back a rotting, sinew trailing knee, which I had to wrestle him for.

  29. 29.

    GregB

    Why didn’t those guns act as a deterrent against their own theft? They are magical tools ya know.

    It reminded me of when that county in New York released the names and addresses of gun permit holders and the gun folks all freaked out because they said it made those homes a target for gun theft.

    Yet the same folks always, always argue that the mere presence of guns is such a deterrent that criminals will avoid such dwellings which is why they have those douchy ‘this house protected by Smith-Wesson’ signs.

  31. 31.

    rda909

    @JohnK: Yes, it’s all Obama/Democrats’ fault the media lies constantly, literally 24/7, about their accomplishments, in a coordinated effort to suppress support for liberal politicians…(cough)

    Of course they’ve been doing this for years though, and President Obama knows how to overcome this nonsense, which he’s done many times now, and once the hundreds of thousands of families already signed up with better health coverage, with millions more to come starting in January, the media’s silly reindeer games will lose their steam yet again. Are you going to help improve the situation, or continue to do the media’s bidding with your condescension and negativity about President Obama and the Democrats, you know, the people who ushered in the biggest changes to our healthcare system in generations?

  34. 34.

    JohnK

    @rda909: Actually, I would really prefer the nation move on with things like immigration reform, the economy, jobs, infrastructure, green energy, poverty, election reform and so on but unfortunately that is not going to happen as long as the republicans have anything to say about it. By all means, lets be positive but let us also be realistic.

  35. 35.

    Steeplejack

    @p.a.:

    This does not appear to be an actual Krauthammer quote. (I can’t find it on the Google.) It seems to be someone’s (Splitting Image?) mashup of an actual Krauthammer quote on the search for WMDs in Iraq. That is what is referenced at the hyperlink.

    Krauthammer says enough bullshit that you don’t have to make up quotes for him. If this is an actual quote, I’d love to see a link to it.

  36. 36.

    agrippa

    @rda909:

    It is not exactly the end of the world. Fatuous people in the media want to pretend that it is. Why they are doing that is no business of mine. Of course, I do not panic easily; nor, do I feign panic.
    The real world is full of ‘new stuff’ that does not launch dead solid perfect. You are prepared to deal with the inevitable problems. Which will occur.

  37. 37.

    rda909

    @dmsilev: Site launches. Period for fixes. Simultaneously Medicaid expands tremendously. New insurance plans active January 1st. Exactly on schedule. Obamacare overall = biggest changes to healthcare system perhaps ever, when looked at in total. Yes, thank you Obama Administration. Why is this so hard to understand for so many “liberals?”

  38. 38.

    Ash Can

    @Elizabelle: The genius advertises his restaurant as a haven for firearms, then blames it on luck when he gets staked out and ripped off. It’s a wonder he’s able to dress and feed himself.

  41. 41.

    AxelFoley

    @jaded:

    @rda909:

    And how much do you want to bet that the narrative from the media will STILL be that it doesn’t work?

    I got five on it.

    OT, just read this morning about the passing of Paul Walker yesterday. Man, he seemed like he was just a cool, laid back dude. Peaceful Journey to him and prayers to his daughter, family and loved ones.

  42. 42.

    Violet

    @JohnK:

    I would really prefer the nation move on with things like immigration reform

    Check out the President and Michelle meeting with protestors who are fasting in support of immigration reform. He met them in their tent. Here’s a more in depth write up from Fox Latino.

  44. 44.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    About 12:45 a.m., they said, two people forced their way inside, broke into a padlocked closet and stole seven long guns described as rifles and shotguns.

    Nice work, jackhole. You and your padlocked closet just put seven firearms in the hands of criminals.
    I suppose the only answer to this is more guns on the street and no background checks?

  50. 50.

    the fake fake al

    But why does the NYT insist they are also “saving” Obama’s Presidency, as if one more 404 error and he’s toast? I know passing ACA, saving the US econ, green-lighting SEALs to kill OBL, nuke deal with Iran are mere trifles, but come NYT, half the time your website don’t work either.

  52. 52.

    MikeJ

    @Alison: A ten year old computer ought to be able to run a web browser just fine. The ten year old never updated browser would be a bigger problem than the hardware, but web sites should be usable, even if ugly beyond belief, on crap browsers.

  55. 55.

    jonas

    @PurpleGirl: That’s exactly right — it’s at the base of the big bluff below Riverdale and underneath the Henry Hudson bridge — it’s quite a hike up to the main road and I can see how difficult it might be to get rescue vehicles and equipment to clear the wreckage down there.

  56. 56.

    gbear

    @Ash Can: I’m wondering if he just made up that excuse to give the impression that he didn’t keep guns at the restaurant all the time. It’s quite a ‘coincidence’.

  57. 57.

    dmsilev

    @rda909: The ACA as a whole is doing well, and will result in real improvements in the life of many people. The launch of the federal insurance exchange website was a disaster, which took several weeks worth of work to recover from.

    These are not contradictory statements.

  59. 59.

    Another Holocene Human

    And it looks like a whole heaping load of operator error. I just can’t take this shit sometimes. I’m just so angry and sad right now.

  60. 60.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @dmsilev:

    Well, put but it makes a bad lede. The MSM and the GOP would have us condemn the whole brand new house because the front door sticks when it rains.

  61. 61.

    Another Holocene Human

    @rda909: Meh, there were missteps. Like Sebelius making a decision not to let people browse plans without going through signup first. They made a workaround but that would have really softened the blow on day one.

    And whoever shepherded the gov’t side of the project did some usability things great–like using plain English–but some other things, like making it clear where you were in the process and where to click next to continue, really horribly. Other gov’t websites, like IRS, Dept of Ed, etc, do this well, so I don’t see why I should excuse this.

    Blame Obama? Not really, I mean where was he during that critical last month? Dealing with some immature brats called Republican legislators who had shut down the government. I’m sure that there’s stuff that could and should have been done during September except for that fiasco.

  62. 62.

    Another Holocene Human

    @gbear: Or maybe the joint was being cased. AND he’s full of excuses. Not necessarily contradictory statements here.

    He’s lucky he didn’t get strongarmed transporting cash out of the till to the bank at night in his car. People have been killed for less.

  63. 63.

    Another Holocene Human

    @rda909: Don’t be an idiot. Bad code that made the initial attempts at setting up usernames and passwords actually have to be trashed was NOT in the motherfucking plan!

  64. 64.

    Botsplainer

    @aimai:

    Guess you should have let him have it? :)

    I’d have genuinely loved the puddles of soggy poop everywhere.

  66. 66.

    jonas

    @rda909:

    making a sound plan and executing it well?!?

    Oy. Set down the coffee there for a sec, buddy. Look, you’re not being some PUMA firebagger, or a crypto-teabagger for admitting that the administration really f-ed up the rollout of the ACA. They did. There was no excuse for it. If they knew there were so many bugs in it, they should have delayed it. But they didn’t. Same with the promising people “they could keep their health plan.” But then they just blithely assumed insurance companies were going to play along with that? That was hugely naive at best, disingenuous at worst. These were bad own-goals that caused Obama to needlessly burn up a lot of political capital going forward. Yes, the MSM, in typical fashion, ran with all the right-wing memes in their breathless obituaries for Obamacare, but you go to war with the media you have, not the media you wish you had.

    But that’s the difference (or should be) between Democrats and GOP loyalists who just mindlessly repeat whatever mantra Fox or Limbaugh has drilled into their head that day. Remember what it means to be “reality based.” If the ACA website is up and running and getting people enrolled, fantastic. Glad the administration stepped up and got it fixed. Still doesn’t excuse the FUBAR situation two months ago, tho.

  67. 67.

    gogol's wife

    @dmsilev:

    What drives me crazy are headlines like the one on the Times this morning. “Inside the Race To Rescue a Health Site, and Obama” It’s all about Obama! It’s not about getting millions of people health insurance! What is wrong with them? Don’t they want the government to work to help people? Why is it always about one man (whom they irrationally hate)?

  68. 68.

    Anoniminous

    @JohnK:

    Rasmussen polls are not trustworthy. So forget any polling accumulation that includes ’em.

    At this point the best guess – and nobody can do anything but guess – is to look at the race you’re interested in and take the 2010 results and subtract 1% from the GOP total due to actuarial reasons, i.e., they croaked. If one is feeling optimistic subtract 2%.

  69. 69.

    bemused

    @Botsplainer:

    We have a close neighbor that has done that more than once. It’s irresistible to dogs who can smell a carcass a mile away. Not fun to clean up dogs that have had the runs from eating that crap. I can’t understand the laziness of hunters who will just leave a deer carcass practically in their yard or worse, right next to their garage right into March. I guess laziness takes precedence over the possibility they may have to clean up a mess in their own yards from neighbor’s dogs, wolves or bears out of hibernation, other scavengers getting into it.

  70. 70.

    Anoniminous

    @gogol’s wife:

    Because our News Mediums are gradations of Celebrity Gossip.

    ACA was a huge major roll-out and them things take time to shake-out. Partially due to the Computer Industry’s habit of letting the customer do the alpha and beta test Quality Control and Quality Assurance. Partially due to the Insurance Companies abysmal IT infrastructure and programming; friends make a really good living maintaining and expanding COBOL code from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. (Something like working in a salt mine, but without the joie de vivre that implies.) Partially due to the lack of data standards and data formats in the Insurance Industry.

    For our MSM to actually discuss ACA they would need to interview Database and other techy-type professionals and that ain’t good TV.

  71. 71.

    liberal

    @rda909:

    Obamacare overall = biggest changes to healthcare system perhaps ever, when looked at in total.

    LOL. Compared to the establishment of Medicare, for example?

  72. 72.

    Yatsuno

    @liberal: To be honest, it’s more comprehensive than Medicare in terms of population affected. The fact that Johnson wanted it to be the primary health insurer for universal coverage got derailed by Nixon and a hostile Congress. But that was the intention from its creation.

  74. 74.

    Hal

    Yes the rollout was fucked up and the resulting mess has been a disadvantage to Obama and dems. But do dems have to ride the fuck ups into the sunset? Being reality based is great but Christ, move the fuck on. People are stuck on the coulda woulda shoulda. Let me know what the ballots say mid summer or what Obama’s ratings are in 6 months. I feel like we’ve been down this road before. It’s not the first time the end of Obama story line had been pushed ad nauseum by the media. Why buy into it now?

  76. 76.

    JR in WV

    @bemused:

    We pretty much cut way back on the kibble for the dogs this time of year – they don’t eat much of it for eating the bambi bits.

    The one dog won’t go too far from the house, she got lost one night for a couple of days, was really worried when she finally found her way home. So she doesn’t get as much deer as the older dog. I’ve never really noticed any digestive upset, some farts is all. But we don’t have any lawn, the woods pretty much run right up to the house.

    But saving on DF AND getting rid of some of the deer, which are really so prolific they’ve become a pest, that’s OK by me…

  78. 78.

    bemused

    @JR in WV:

    I’m fine with deer hunting as long as hunters properly dispose of what they aren’t eating. And don’t get me started on people who toss bags of fish guts out of their vehicles into the ditch which of course, one of our dogs found. Our dogs are monitored when they are with us in the yard but it only takes a whiff of lovely rotting stuff and they make a beeline to it. Then we have to clean it up and get rid of it.

  79. 79.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @liberal:

    So no actual answer from the Schleprocks of the left, just more insistence that we’re doomed, DOOOOMMMMEEEDD!!1!

    I’m still waiting for Obama’s cuts to Social Security that you guys promised were totally going to happen any day now. Yep, any day now. Just gotta wait, because DOOOOMMMMM is totally going to happen. Soon. No, really. Any day. Just around the corner, like airstrikes in Syria.

  80. 80.

    Amir Khalid

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):
    Thanks for the recommend. Will be seeing it this week. Although I’m actually a big Les Mis addict rather than a musicals fan. (I’m a fan of it in two languages, English and German.)

  81. 81.

    andy

    @Hawes: That’s a bit harsh, most especially since a lot of internet speeds in the country, especially rural connections, can be slow. It would have been smarter to go with something a little more compact, like an old Geocities page but without the sparkly gifs.

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