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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

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Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

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

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

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The frogs are rarely mistaken.

So many bastards, so little time.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

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Bark louder, little dog.

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You are here: Home / Notes from Last Night’s Putsch

Notes from Last Night’s Putsch

by $8 blue check mistermix|  January 29, 201410:18 am| 188 Comments

This post is in: Teabagger Stupidity

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On floor of house waitin on "Kommandant-In-Chef"… the Socialistic dictator who's been feeding US a line or is it "A-Lying?"

— Randy Weber (@TXRandy14) January 29, 2014

1st Release of Obama speech reads like dictates from a King. All orders he will do to bypass Congress #LawLess

— Cong. Tim Huelskamp (@CongHuelskamp) January 29, 2014


Nutpicking has gotten easy over the last few years–just check out the Twitter feeds of Teanderthal Members of Congress. Randy Weber is Ron Paul’s replacement. Huelskamp is from Kansas and had a little tantrum on Maddow last night. Simple challenge for you in the comments: top those two.

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Previous Post: « Taking a Hatchet to healthcare (Pt. 1)
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Reader Interactions

188Comments

  1. 1.

    Mustang Bobby

    January 29, 2014 at 10:22 am

    You know who also gave a speech in front of a packed house of legislators who applauded him a lot? Yeah, you know who I’m talking about.

  2. 2.

    schrodinger's cat

    January 29, 2014 at 10:22 am

    How many of the GOP reps are certifiable?

  3. 3.

    MattF

    January 29, 2014 at 10:23 am

    Well, Nutsmax says that Dick Morris and Allen West ‘respond’ to Obama. Definitely not clicking that link.

  4. 4.

    Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937

    January 29, 2014 at 10:33 am

    @MattF: All of them, Katie?

  5. 5.

    Poopyman

    January 29, 2014 at 10:34 am

    @MattF: Well then how about one of the following:

    Allen West, Dick Morris: Obama Set Off ‘Liar Light’

    Boehner: Obama’s Threats Don’t Mean Much

    Cruz: ‘Lawlessness’ Marks Imperial Presidency

    Weak tea.

  6. 6.

    dp

    January 29, 2014 at 10:34 am

    Sadly, there is a significant portion of the population that will watch that video to see Huelskamp pwning RM.

  7. 7.

    C.V. Danes

    January 29, 2014 at 10:35 am

    Congress may not care if the people get so fed up that the pitchforks come out, but I think Obama still does. Not sure how effective he will be, or if he will actually follow through, but at least he realizes that the government needs to be seen accomplishing something so as to maintain some sense of legitimacy.

  8. 8.

    SatanicPanic

    January 29, 2014 at 10:37 am

    I slept in and missed the directives, what’re we doing today? Looting Republican businesses? Herding Tea Partiers in to ghettos?

  9. 9.

    Glocksman

    January 29, 2014 at 10:37 am

    @Mustang Bobby:

    He’s been heard from..

    Adolf responds..

  10. 10.

    RSR

    January 29, 2014 at 10:38 am

    In the same vein, an article I read last night about Dems taking control of the VA Senate and installing their own chairs of comittees and other majority party norms were called a ‘power grab’ by the state GOP.

    Winning elections is now a power grab to Republicans.

    The best part is that the ‘power grab’ was simply changing rules that the Republicans has instituted in 2012. “Republicans contended that the structure established in 2012 was supposed to last for the full, four-year term.”

    Then win the effing elections, assholes.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/democrats-seize-control-of-va-senate/2014/01/28/94b92664-8823-11e3-a5bd-844629433ba3_story.html

  11. 11.

    dmsilev

    January 29, 2014 at 10:38 am

    @Poopyman: Is the Liar Light like the Bat Signal?

  12. 12.

    gnomedad

    January 29, 2014 at 10:38 am

    Why aren’t the NewsMax wingers turning $1000 into $49,000 instead of whining about Obama?

  13. 13.

    Bubblegum Tate

    January 29, 2014 at 10:39 am

    @Poopyman:

    Yeah, I’m pretty sure your more advanced forms of lichen could’ve predicted the responses even before the speech:

    Liar!
    Acting like a dictator!
    Divisive!
    BENGHAZIIIIIIIIIIIIII!

  14. 14.

    Certified Mutant Enemy

    January 29, 2014 at 10:41 am

    Teanderthal

    How dare you insult neanderthals!

  15. 15.

    Ash Can

    January 29, 2014 at 10:42 am

    @schrodinger’s cat: Their heads exploded when Obama was first elected, and the only way they could cope was to construct an elaborate alternate reality for themselves, in which Obama is actually what they say he is. When the speak, they give the rest of us glimpses into this alternate world of theirs. It’s why I say, in all seriousness, that years ago these people would be at home, undergoing treatment with medication and/or therapy for psychosis, limited to light and not-too-taxing work, and sure as hell not put in the public arena, in any kind of position of responsibility or authority.

  16. 16.

    dmsilev

    January 29, 2014 at 10:42 am

    As far as overheated reactions go, how about Lindsey Graham:

    “The world is literally about to blow up,” Graham said, saying he completely disagrees with Obama on Iran policy.

    Someone should explain to Graham that (a) Earth is not Krypton and (b) Superman is fiction.

  17. 17.

    Bubblegum Tate

    January 29, 2014 at 10:42 am

    @SatanicPanic:

    Well, there’s this shameless bit of nutpicking:

    please head [sic] the fact that it took, IIRC, approximate 13 ~ 30% of the foundling nation to overthrow the greatest fighting force in the world at the time. They made the same mistake you do now. I am willing to give my life for the nation I love while you do not even, apparently, love the nation (in its original context) that has harbored you. I have the skill set to survive, train, teach others on my side while your can barely bloviate heavily while driving out of JFK.

    I would prefer to die for the right side (by anyone’s definition) than to survive on the wrong side of history. That, apparently, is not your choice.

    So I guess we’re starting up Operation Make Them Cry “Wolverines!” and Let Slip The Derp of Rebellion now.

  18. 18.

    scav

    January 29, 2014 at 10:43 am

    @RSR: Elections shouldn’t have consequences! Horrors!

  19. 19.

    Gin & Tonic

    January 29, 2014 at 10:48 am

    @dmsilev: And what “literally” literally means.

  20. 20.

    KG

    January 29, 2014 at 10:49 am

    @Bubblegum Tate: WTFITS?

  21. 21.

    MikeJ

    January 29, 2014 at 10:49 am

    @C.V. Danes:

    but at least he realizes that the government needs to be seen accomplishing something so as to maintain some sense of legitimacy.

    The Republicans realise this too. That’s why they want to stop it.

  22. 22.

    kindness

    January 29, 2014 at 10:50 am

    I get that these Righties are playing to their base but I resent that the media isn’t calling them out on each and every abomination. I can only conclude that the folks who own the media (and many of the actual talking heads) agree with the TeaHaddists.

    When Hillary is elected she better double the Secret Service.

  23. 23.

    Ash Can

    January 29, 2014 at 10:51 am

    @scav: Scratch a Republican, and you’ll find under the thin veneer of patriotism someone who despises democracy, and sees it as nothing more than a device to be rigged however necessary to ensure permanent, unchallenged power.

  24. 24.

    Roger Moore

    January 29, 2014 at 10:53 am

    @scav:
    It’s not that elections shouldn’t have consequences. It’s that the consequences should always be the Republicans getting their way.

  25. 25.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 29, 2014 at 10:53 am

    @Bubblegum Tate:

    Whose deathless prose is that? Do you have a link, please?

  26. 26.

    Rob in CT

    January 29, 2014 at 10:56 am

    OT…

    From Krugthulu:

    According to Forbes, in 2012 the top 40 hedge fund managers and traders took home a combined $16.7 billion.

    Now look at those supposedly overpaid government employees. According to the BLS, the median high school teacher earns $55,050 per year.

    So, those 40 hedge fund guys made as much as 300,000, that’s three hundred thousand, school teachers — almost a third of all high school teachers in America.

    OK, teachers get benefits, so their total compensation cost is higher than their wage, so maybe it’s only 200,000.

    Of course, he produces this in blog form, once he’s had time to think about it and research a bit. On Teevee, his response appears to have been weaker.

  27. 27.

    RSA

    January 29, 2014 at 10:57 am

    On floor of house waitin on “Kommandant-In-Chef”… the Socialistic dictator who’s been feeding US a line or is it “A-Lying?”

    I wish facility with our native language were at least a nominal requirement for being elected to Congress.

  28. 28.

    NonyNony

    January 29, 2014 at 10:57 am

    Nutpicking has gotten easy over the last few years–just check out the Twitter feeds of Teanderthal Members of Congress.

    I thought “nutpicking” was about finding small groups of Internet comments that say outrageous and extreme things that the person doing the nutpicking wants to attribute to the general population of member of group X, but are in fact a minor subset of group X.

    Is it really “nutpicking” if the majority of the Republican House caucus and quite a few of their Senators are saying it? That’s more “actual example of the group’s POV” than it is “nutpicking”, isn’t it?

    I mean, if I were saying that the NRA was an extremist organization and I linked to comments on a story about a school shooting made by a nut who claimed to be in the NRA and thought that the solution to school shootings was to arm the teachers, that would be nutpicking. If I link to where Wayne LaPierre, President of the NRA, suggests the same thing, that’s not nutpicking, that’s actual evidence.

  29. 29.

    GregB

    January 29, 2014 at 10:58 am

    The world is about to blow up.

    -Lyndsey Graham(R-Alderaan)

  30. 30.

    Bubblegum Tate

    January 29, 2014 at 10:58 am

    @KG:

    Wingnut blog comment from yesterday. He is SO READY to go Red Dawn on our asses, y’all!

  31. 31.

    Bubblegum Tate

    January 29, 2014 at 11:00 am

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Nutpicked wingnut blog commenter. Here it is in its natural habitat.

  32. 32.

    gnomedad

    January 29, 2014 at 11:00 am

    @dmsilev:

    Someone should explain to Graham that (a) Earth is not Krypton and (b) Superman is fiction.

    We’d better send him far away from Earth in a rocket just in case.

  33. 33.

    MikeJ

    January 29, 2014 at 11:07 am

    @RSA:

    I wish facility with our native language were at least a nominal requirement for being elected to Congress.

    I don’t like the idea of requiring a specific language. I just wish they were fluent in one. It needn’t be English, but just give me something that isn’t gibberish to start with so I can get a translation.

  34. 34.

    scav

    January 29, 2014 at 11:07 am

    @Roger Moore: Reminds everyone of their definition of Bipartisan, right?

  35. 35.

    dmsilev

    January 29, 2014 at 11:09 am

    @gnomedad: The Phantom Zone is probably available. As a bonus, we wouldn’t be able to communicate with him.

  36. 36.

    Elizabelle

    January 29, 2014 at 11:10 am

    @Rob in CT:

    Of course, he produces this in blog form, once he’s had time to think about it and research a bit. On Teevee, his response appears to have been weaker.

    Yeah, and that highlights a great problem between TV “journalism” and what used to be called “the pencil press” — which had more space and time to explain a complicated situation.

    Another problem is people getting too much of their news from TV/cable and not reading a good newspaper for context, which is crucial.

    Thank FSM for K-Thug’s excellent blog, but it does not get as much exposure as two minutes on CNN.

    You can’t always displace the stuff that people “learn” while TV gawking, which is disproved the following day, but viewer already “knows it.”

    Newt Gingrich probably got away with some of his “Senator Tom Coburn is losing his cancer doctor” skeer anecdote last night, even though Dr. Krugman refuted it on the spot: “That’s a garbage story. [That’s already been disproved.]”

    Some outlets will broadcast Gingrich’s claim and clip out Krugman’s within five seconds rebuttal.

  37. 37.

    Ben Cisco

    January 29, 2014 at 11:12 am

    @kindness:

    I get that these Righties are playing to their base but I resent that the media isn’t calling them out on each and every abomination. I can only conclude that the folks who own the media (and many of the actual talking heads) agree with the TeaHaddists.

    Agreed. And nothing, not even lowered ratings, will sway them. They are all Baghdad Bob now.

  38. 38.

    GRANDPA john

    January 29, 2014 at 11:16 am

    @RSR: something we have been wanting to see, Democrats with balls. Listening to the reps whining about how mean the Dems were to them is a pure rhapsody since all that was happening was that the Dems were simply returning the same type of behavior they had been receiving. what goes around comes around.

  39. 39.

    Roger Moore

    January 29, 2014 at 11:18 am

    @MikeJ:

    I just wish they were fluent in one.

    Stewardess! I speak jive wingnut.

  40. 40.

    MattF

    January 29, 2014 at 11:21 am

    @GRANDPA john: And don’t forget that Va. Republicans largely brought this down on themselves by running Cooch and Cwazy-wazy Jackson for state-wide office. I have no sympathy for them, but I can see why they’re unhappy.

  41. 41.

    Mandalay

    January 29, 2014 at 11:21 am

    @RSR: Your link explains just what motivated the Democrats in their power grab in Va…

    Democrats assured their colleagues across the aisle that they were not playing partisan hardball. They said giving the rules chairman the new veto power over bills would keep the GOP-dominated House from hijacking Senate bills — as in 2011, when the House took a Senate measure on hospital infection control and turned it into legislation mandating new building codes on abortion clinics. They said the authority to kill such bills would be wielded judiciously — and rarely.

    Having the Democrats as a benevolent dictator is a bit icky, but the Republicans only have themselves to blame.

  42. 42.

    GRANDPA john

    January 29, 2014 at 11:21 am

    @dmsilev: Lindsey is stroking his base. he is being primaried this year.

  43. 43.

    Mustang Bobby

    January 29, 2014 at 11:22 am

    @dmsilev: @dmsilev:

    Someone should explain to Graham that (a) Earth is not Krypton and (b) Superman is fiction.

    And Lindsey is bummed because there’s no muscle bunny running around in a Speedo.

  44. 44.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 29, 2014 at 11:23 am

    @Bubblegum Tate:

    Good grief. How did you find tha– ?

    Never mind, I don’t want to know.

    (Thanks, anyhow, for providing the link.)

  45. 45.

    Roger Moore

    January 29, 2014 at 11:26 am

    @GRANDPA john:

    Lindsey is stroking his base.

    Is that what they’re calling it these days?

  46. 46.

    rikyrah

    January 29, 2014 at 11:32 am

    For Christie, Politics Team Kept a Focus on Two Races
    By KATE ZERNIKE and DAVID W. CHENJAN. 29, 2014

    His campaign called them “the Top 100,” the swing towns that Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey wanted to win as he prepared for a re-election campaign. Capturing these towns, sometimes referred to as mini-Ohios or mini-Floridas, would validate the governor’s argument that he would be the most broadly appealing Republican choice for president in 2016.

    Staff members in the governor’s office created tabbed and color-coded dossiers on the mayors of each town — who their friends and enemies were, the policies and projects that were dear to them — that were bound in notebooks for the governor to review in his S.U.V. between events.

    Long after most of the State House had been shuttered for the night, Mr. Christie’s aides worked on spreadsheets, documenting calls and meetings with key players in the towns — one Republican called it “political Moneyball” — as the governor tried to win endorsements and friends.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/nyregion/for-christie-politics-team-kept-a-focus-on-two-bids.html?hp&_r=0

  47. 47.

    Liberty60

    January 29, 2014 at 11:32 am

    @Ash Can:

    Exactly- Since Obama won’t cooperate by being the blah they want him to be, they invent various guises for him, depending on the need of the moment-

    Obama is a weak lame duck who is an all powerful dictator.
    A pansy in mom jeans who is a Chicago thug.
    A naïve innocent against Putin who is a cunning conspirator outwitting the MSM.

    And so on.

  48. 48.

    Gin & Tonic

    January 29, 2014 at 11:33 am

    @Roger Moore: That right there is imagery none of us need.

  49. 49.

    KG

    January 29, 2014 at 11:34 am

    @Bubblegum Tate: why do I suspect the ones that talk most about being willing to die for their cause would be the first to run from a battle field?

  50. 50.

    GregB

    January 29, 2014 at 11:38 am

    @Liberty60:

    All perfectly logical to the degenerating minds of contemporary Republicans.

  51. 51.

    tazj

    January 29, 2014 at 11:38 am

    As usual the analysis from most of the media is atrocious. I briefly turned on ABC last night and they highlighted the president’s proposals from last year’s SOTU that didn’t come to fruition. There’s nothing wrong with that in and of itself, the truth is there’s no new immigration reform or gun control laws. I just resent the framing and the context of the reporting. There’s no explanation as to why these laws didn’t pass, like examining why Congress has been so obstructive. They do very little to hold their feet to the fire. Their tone seemed to be that since nothing happened last year, who cares what the president has to say, like it’s a joke that nothings happening.

    The AP article fact checking the speech was awful as well. Just because raising the minimum wage for federal contractors doesn’t involve many people, that doesn’t mean that action is a fiction. Well, the “real” reason highway improvements aren’t being done isn’t some regulation the president can change but the fact that “We don’t have the money”, according to one CEO. OK, but why don’t we have the money? We actually do, but the House won’t dare pass any transportation bill that might spend money and create jobs.

    There are real things that Congress can do to improve the economy and make life better for people, these things aren’t unknowable. Didn’t federal employment actually increase in all recent recessions? Yet, in this one, employment has decreased by about 700,000?

  52. 52.

    Patrick

    January 29, 2014 at 11:39 am

    It amazes me that someone can get elected to the US Congress without having the faintest idea what the words “Socialism” or ” Dictator” means. Yet, Randy Weber is in the US Congress. His voters must not have anything beyond an 3rd grade level education.

  53. 53.

    CaseyL

    January 29, 2014 at 11:43 am

    The Volokh Conspiracy has been one of the two conservative blogs I visit (the other being Daniel Larison over at TAC) because the commentors are generally capable of expressing themselves in something resembling actual conversational English.

    Perhaps I need to amend that now: VC was one of two conservative blogs I visit.

    Since VC made the big time and moved to the Washington Post, its regular commentors have been augmented, or supplanted, by the moronic, borderline incoherent, crazy-town wingnuts common to on-line newspaper blogs. It’s kind of funny, because they’re saying pretty much the same the old blog regulars did – just in a more, um, straightforward and emphatic manner.

    Their reaction to Obama raising the minimum wage for federal contractors is priceless, in a “Welcome to the Monkey House” way.

  54. 54.

    srv

    January 29, 2014 at 11:44 am

    So boring. I wonder what the Snowman thought of the SotU.

    Glenn Greenwald ‏@ggreenwald 2h

    Best part of Snowden’s winning Nobel Peace Prize would be watching US threaten arrest if he went to Oslo to accept

    Wackjobs Sen. Wyden and Heinrich accuse the NSA of decieving the public today. Where do they find crazies like that?

  55. 55.

    ? Martin

    January 29, 2014 at 11:46 am

    @NonyNony:

    Is it really “nutpicking” if the majority of the Republican House caucus and quite a few of their Senators are saying it? That’s more “actual example of the group’s POV” than it is “nutpicking”, isn’t it?

    This. When it’s an elected official, it becomes a representative position of his/her electorate. That’s the whole point – they are there to represent us. This is policy, not some lunatic fringe.

  56. 56.

    Botsplainer

    January 29, 2014 at 11:47 am

    OT-

    http://gawker.com/the-south-cannot-handle-snow-1511312819

    As much as four inches of snow fell over parts of the South today, leaving a wake of destruction in its path — thousands of flights were canceled, Georgia is currently in a state of emergency, and students are stranded in schools across multiple states.

    This is what happens when you elect people to run the state government on platforms of tax cuts, gutting government services and getting rid of government service workers. This goes double for electing those sort of people to suburban/exurban government in counties surrounding cities.

    There are solutions to this; they involve rainy day funds, contractual arrangements for prepositioning assets on inclement weather forecasts with providers and governments in other states that aren’t affected by a particular weather pattern at the time and relatively inexpensive brine tankers.

    Of course, to the typical modern day southern Teanderthal, planning ahead and cooperating with other governments sounds like socialism and is bad. It is clearly much better to have people bootstrap themselves out of a ditch in 15 degree weather, to shut down the world’s busiest airport and disrupt global air travel for days (that won’t cost much), and ruggedly individualize themselves into coping without maintenance medication for various illnesses.

  57. 57.

    Cacti

    January 29, 2014 at 11:47 am

    @CaseyL:

    The Volokh Conspiracy has been one of the two conservative blogs I visit (the other being Daniel Larison over at TAC) because the commentors are generally capable of expressing themselves in something resembling actual conversational English

    I figured VC’s comments section would turn into a typical Wapo sewer once the move was made. I wouldn’t be surprised if much of the thoughtful law nerd commentariat got turned off by it and drifted away.

  58. 58.

    raven

    January 29, 2014 at 11:49 am

    @Botsplainer: None of that means shit it terms of what happened in Georgia with this storm.

  59. 59.

    Cacti

    January 29, 2014 at 11:53 am

    @srv:

    Best part of Snowden’s winning Nobel Peace Prize would be watching US threaten arrest if he went to Oslo to accept

    Rush Limbaugh is a former nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize too.

    It’s quite the elite group.

  60. 60.

    Cervantes

    January 29, 2014 at 11:53 am

    @Patrick:

    Yet, Randy Weber is in the US Congress. His voters must not have anything beyond an 3rd grade level education.

    It used to be Ron Paul’s district.

  61. 61.

    catclub

    January 29, 2014 at 11:55 am

    @GRANDPA john: ” Lindsey is stroking his base”

    That just sounds wrong.

  62. 62.

    raven

    January 29, 2014 at 11:55 am

    It took less than 10 minutes for the Atlanta interstates to go from total green to red.

  63. 63.

    Patrick

    January 29, 2014 at 11:57 am

    @Cervantes:

    Say no more…

  64. 64.

    gnomedad

    January 29, 2014 at 11:59 am

    @Patrick:

    It amazes me that someone can get elected to the US Congress without having the faintest idea what the words “Socialism” or ” Dictator” means. Yet, Randy Weber is in the US Congress. His voters must not have anything beyond an 3rd grade level education.

    He doesn’t care what they mean, and neither does his base. They’re just wingnut Mad-Libs.

  65. 65.

    mak

    January 29, 2014 at 12:00 pm

    @dp: @dp: Whew – you had me scared there for a minute. Before watching the vid, I though that perhaps Huelskamp had perhaps bullied or otherwise eloquently filibustered his way to a strong appearance on Maddow, as some of the more committed and deaf-to-other-opinions baggers have done from time to time (see, e.g., Ted Cruz). Thankfully, I didn’t see that, but instead saw (actually, heard – the video wasn’t working) a guy fumbling over his words and sounding nervous and confused, albeit committed to his talking points. Still, I’ll give him points just for showing up on Maddow – very few Rs have the stones to do so. With any luck, you’re right, and more baggers will think it safe to go on her show.

  66. 66.

    Botsplainer

    January 29, 2014 at 12:01 pm

    @raven:

    None of that means shit it terms of what happened in Georgia with this storm.

    Brine trucks are wonderful things. They lay down tracks of salt water a day or two ahead, and the heat generated from rolling tires does the rest. May not be perfect coverage, but it buys time at the onset of an event, is cheap and effective.

  67. 67.

    muricafukyea

    January 29, 2014 at 12:02 pm

    Why are you posting this sheit? If I want to read their crap I will go to twatter and read it myself. They are only doing their job which is to feed red meat to their toothless hillbilly base. Yes it takes a special kind of asshole to do that job but whatever. Pointing and laughing has gotten old and tired.

  68. 68.

    raven

    January 29, 2014 at 12:03 pm

    @Botsplainer: Yea well you move down here and tell everyone what to do.

  69. 69.

    Belafon

    January 29, 2014 at 12:08 pm

    @raven: Not real sure why your fighting with him. He’s pointing out the very thing I see here in Texas: Voters chose lower taxes over a government prepared for emergencies, who then freak out when the weather gets bad, wonder why the government can’t do anything or won’t plan ahead – hint, you still have to pay for a snowplow when it’s doing nothing.

  70. 70.

    Amir Khalid

    January 29, 2014 at 12:08 pm

    @muricafukyea:
    You should start your own blog, call it The Juice of Muricafukyea’s Own Balloon, and show everyone here just how it’s done.

  71. 71.

    Mike in NC

    January 29, 2014 at 12:08 pm

    @Botsplainer: I was watching TV coverage on how badly Atlanta was hit by the storm, with horrific traffic jams and people getting stranded, etc. and all the reporters were posing versions of the same question: “Who do you blame for this?”

    Were they hoping to hear “Obama”?

  72. 72.

    pseudonymous in nc

    January 29, 2014 at 12:10 pm

    @Bubblegum Tate:

    please head [sic] the fact that it took, IIRC, approximate 13 ~ 30% of the foundling nation to overthrow the greatest fighting force in the world at the time.

    So, the Derperines are admitting that American independence was the project of a radical militant minority? That’s progress.

  73. 73.

    soonergrunt

    January 29, 2014 at 12:10 pm

    Congressman Michael Grimm (R-NY1) threatened to throw a reporter off the balcony of the House rotunda. On camera. During an interview.

    I win.

  74. 74.

    raven

    January 29, 2014 at 12:11 pm

    @Belafon: Because it’s bullshit in this case.

  75. 75.

    J.D. Rhoades

    January 29, 2014 at 12:12 pm

    The crazy white supremacist who keeps sending me e-mails about my columns hits a new low:

    Obama trots out Cory Remsburg, who has been in the Army for 10 tours. This guy had no brains before he went in and has no body now. He has served the kike jews, the war profiteers, the jew millionaires and he will be a vegetable on the taxpayer dole for the rest of his life. Now Obama has used him tryhing to shinein his reflected glory and most people still have not figured it out.
    russ

  76. 76.

    ? Martin

    January 29, 2014 at 12:12 pm

    @raven: When I was a teenager, my mom and I got stuck on an epic drive from NYC to the middle of PA – snow, sheet ice, fog so thick I had to stick my head out the window and look down to tell my mom where the lane lines were – hoping to hell we’d see someone’s brake lights in the dark before we bumped into them (at probably no more than 15 MPH). Hundreds of jackknifed semis. The first hour of the expected three was smooth sailing. The last 2 hours actually took 10. We were too poor at the time for a hotel, and sleeping in the falling apart Dodge Dart in 30 degree temps wasn’t appealing. I won’t defend our decision making to keep driving, but we kept driving.

    This was NJ and PA along I-78. This wasn’t municipality politics, these were two states that have good track records of keeping interstates open completely unable to do so because sometimes the weather wins in the near term. Atlanta got owned. It happens.

  77. 77.

    Poopyman

    January 29, 2014 at 12:13 pm

    @soonergrunt: Been there, done that.

  78. 78.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 29, 2014 at 12:13 pm

    It’s always projection with these assholes.

    Always.

  79. 79.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 29, 2014 at 12:15 pm

    @Cervantes:

    It used to be Ron Paul’s district.

    There you go.

  80. 80.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 29, 2014 at 12:18 pm

    @Liberty60:

    I do believe the Obama they see is the one sitting in Clint Eastwood’s empty chair.

  81. 81.

    pseudonymous in nc

    January 29, 2014 at 12:19 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    This is what happens when you elect people to run the state government on platforms of tax cuts, gutting government services and getting rid of government service workers. This goes double for electing those sort of people to suburban/exurban government in counties surrounding cities.

    Not quite. It’s what happens when you have a large metro area where transportation is problematic at the best of times, a state government that’s still dominated by rural and exurban counties, and local governments that have been carved out and operate on the basis of Not Being Those People, when Those People can also mean the other exurbanites, not just Those People in the city. (And the NAACP campaigned against the Atlanta transportation tax alongside the Tea Party: nobody trusts anybody.)

    Metro Atlanta’s fragile. It has been built out rapidly in ways that make long commutes a fact of life, and those commutes can be an hour or two longer in glorious weather just because of a single jam or accident. It is fragile in the way that overground power lines built out quickly and cheaply are fragile.

  82. 82.

    chopper

    January 29, 2014 at 12:19 pm

    @raven:

    from what i hear, the whole city has only about 3 dozen plows and even fewer salt/sand trucks.

  83. 83.

    Schlemizel

    January 29, 2014 at 12:21 pm

    @muricafukyea:

    You seem unhappy, I’m sorry. Perhaps you should search for a more entertaining web site that could engage your vast intellect and keep you deeply involved and highly energized.

    We have failed you and now must repair to our fainting couches to contemplate our inadequacies so that we fail no more.

  84. 84.

    MomSense

    January 29, 2014 at 12:21 pm

    @GregB:

    HA!!!

  85. 85.

    Cacti

    January 29, 2014 at 12:22 pm

    O/T, but I wonder if Betty Cracker has heard much about this.

    University of South Florida researches have uncovered the remains of 55 individuals in a makeshift graveyard near what was formerly the largest reform school for boys in the State.

    Former inmates have apparently long told tales of boys who “disappeared” without a trace or died under mysterious circumstances during their time there. The area where the bodies were found was nicknamed “Boot Hill” by former inmates.

    Reuters has the story.

  86. 86.

    schrodinger's cat

    January 29, 2014 at 12:23 pm

    @tazj: To our media betters, it is all a sport. That’s why they are so interested in the Presidential horse race.

  87. 87.

    Botsplainer

    January 29, 2014 at 12:23 pm

    @Belafon:

    Voters chose lower taxes over a government prepared for emergencies, who then freak out when the weather gets bad, wonder why the government can’t do anything or won’t plan ahead – hint, you still have to pay for a snowplow when it’s doing nothing.

    Interestingly, you can rinse a brine truck and use it to fertilize golf courses and medians the rest of the year, and vice versa. Not the greatest use, to be sure, but it is, in fact, still in continuous use and not a wasted investment.

  88. 88.

    raven

    January 29, 2014 at 12:24 pm

    @? Martin: I’m not saying they didn’t make a mistake having government, schools and private businesses all let out at the same time but that has nothing to do with taxes or lack thereof. The state actually told their people the could leave at 10am but everyone else hit it at noon. Much of Atlanta traffic is a nightmare on a clear day, when that storm moved quicker that projected it was curtains.

  89. 89.

    Schlemizel

    January 29, 2014 at 12:24 pm

    @Cacti:

    This was huge news around the middle of last year (unless this is a new set of graves). I think NPR did several pieces on the discover and the school that included interviews with some of the former residents of the school. it was a horror story.

  90. 90.

    FlipYrWhig

    January 29, 2014 at 12:24 pm

    @Mike in NC: they’re hoping to hear “I don’t blame anyone” so they can they contrast it to the notion of blaming Chris Christie for the GWB.

  91. 91.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2014 at 12:24 pm

    @RSR: wow, article url “dems seize control”

    these fuckers hate it when people vote or file into a public square in protest and demand change

    hate it hate it hate it

    politically, I identify with Millennials more than my own GenX generation. Remember “Don’t vote, it just encourages them”?

  92. 92.

    Soonergrunt

    January 29, 2014 at 12:25 pm

    @Poopyman: You do know that FPs here don’t actually read the site?
    No, I didn’t see that posting of mix’s earlier. However, it’s still the craziest thing that somebody in congress did, although in context it doesn’t appear to have anything to do with SOTU.
    but sometimes I win just by being me.

  93. 93.

    Cervantes

    January 29, 2014 at 12:25 pm

    @raven: Yes, there might not have been a way to prepare for this particular “extreme weather event.” That’s possible.

    What about the long run?

    In Massachusetts we have a Department of Environmental Protection which attempts to deal with causes and effects of climate change. Our towns and cities do as well, often at considerable cost and sacrifice (Cambridge, for example).

    I see that in Georgia you have an Office of the State Climatologist within the Environmental Protection Division. What do they do? I notice that the Division’s mission statement does not mention climate change.

  94. 94.

    raven

    January 29, 2014 at 12:26 pm

    @chopper: Yea and the city of Atlanta is a well known teabagger stronghold isn’t it?

  95. 95.

    boatboy_srq

    January 29, 2014 at 12:27 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: GOP is no longer a political party. It’s a diagnosis in itself.

  96. 96.

    Cervantes

    January 29, 2014 at 12:29 pm

    @pseudonymous in nc:

    Metro Atlanta’s fragile. It has been built out rapidly in ways that make long commutes a fact of life.

    As for fragility, the state EPD says “Georgia’s environment is healthy and sustainable. […] All Georgians understand the importance of a healthy and sustainable environment and act to protect and restore it.”

    Which may not exactly comport with what you say about commuting patterns and facts of life.

    Is it possible that the inability to deal with one extreme storm is not the real problem?

  97. 97.

    boatboy_srq

    January 29, 2014 at 12:32 pm

    @RSR: To the modern GOTea, there are only two election results:
    1) GOTea win. Interpreted as “The People have spoken”, and given the Teahad a “mandate.”
    2) Dem win. Interpreted as “Voter Fraud” to be met with as much obstruction and voter suppression as is humanly possible.

    There are no other outcomes – especially when the Dem is Blah, uterus-bearing or Other-wise deemed unfit for office.

  98. 98.

    JPL

    January 29, 2014 at 12:32 pm

    @raven: I listened to Gov. Deal say the National Weather Service downgraded the storm during the night. I have to wonder if he confuses watches and warnings. He seemed totally befuddled when he was corrected.

  99. 99.

    raven

    January 29, 2014 at 12:33 pm

    @chopper:

    Reed further noted that the city responded better than it did after a 2011 ice storm, which stopped the city dead in its tracks for four days.

    The city now has 30 spreaders, 40 snowplows and 70,000 tons of sand and gravel versus just four pieces of equipment three years ago, he said.

  100. 100.

    Cacti

    January 29, 2014 at 12:33 pm

    @Schlemizel:

    This was huge news around the middle of last year (unless this is a new set of graves). I think NPR did several pieces on the discover and the school that included interviews with some of the former residents of the school. it was a horror story.

    I guess the story is about the final tally. 55 unique sets of human remains in unmarked graves. All children.

    Researchers are now trying to coordinate with family members of the “disappeared” for DNA testing.

    Ghastly.

  101. 101.

    Schlemizel

    January 29, 2014 at 12:33 pm

    @Cervantes:

    A few years ago Atlanta went through a huge highway building program. They were determined they would build their way out of traffic congestion. From what I read they claimed to massively overbuild for what was required. Nobody mentions that any more as the place is a traffic nightmare already even without snow.

  102. 102.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 29, 2014 at 12:34 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    You’ll recall that Hillary Clinton’s lesbian lover, Vince Foster, before he took his own life (or was murdered by Hillary, if you subscribe to World Nut Daily) wrote a suicide note in which he decried the treatment of people like him by the media as “blood sport”, singling out the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal in particular.

    This has been going on for some time now, and is counterproductive with malice aforethought by those who cannot accept that they lost an election, therefore democracy must be flawed because they didn’t win, and anyone on the winning side is fair game.

  103. 103.

    MomSense

    January 29, 2014 at 12:34 pm

    The wingnuts are insane. I honestly don’t recognize their descriptions of the president, the earth, the constitution, the bible, the climate, the UN, history. I don’t understand them at all. The people who drive me crazy are people like Harold Ford. This morning he was saying something like ‘it would be so easy to cut a deal. you give me an increase in the minimum wage and i’ll cut entitlements (medicare and social security) for the 44 and under.

    WTF?? I guess I am spared in this proposal but I’m sure there are people like me who have been paying into the system from the age of 14 up. Are we just supposed to forfeit 30 years of contributing into Social Security and Medicare? WTF? For $2.85 more an hour? This is some straight out of a Dickens novel shit.

  104. 104.

    raven

    January 29, 2014 at 12:34 pm

    @JPL: I caught part of that and it seemed like the dude was saying the local forecast was more accurate than the National Weather Service.

  105. 105.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 29, 2014 at 12:36 pm

    @Schlemizel:

    If you build it, they will come.

    When Seattle replaced the old Lake Washington floating bridge back in the 90’s, they thought they had overbuilt it so that it would not be at capacity for 20-30 years.

    It was at capacity almost from the day it opened.

  106. 106.

    Cervantes

    January 29, 2014 at 12:36 pm

    @raven:

    The city now has 30 spreaders, 40 snowplows and 70,000 tons of sand and gravel versus just four pieces of equipment three years ago, he said.

    That’s good. Not easy to make desirable change happen rapidly.

  107. 107.

    JPL

    January 29, 2014 at 12:37 pm

    @Cervantes: pseudonymous in nc at 81 explained part of the dynamic. The train should continue a few miles north to Roswell but won’t because of fear of the others. Forget about Cobb County and rail. They’d rather sit for hours in traffic.

  108. 108.

    raven

    January 29, 2014 at 12:37 pm

    @Schlemizel: It’s awful. 75 and 85 have an enormous amount of truck traffic and public transportation, MARTA, is very limited. The suburbs don’t want public transportation because you-know-who takes it.

  109. 109.

    Patrick

    January 29, 2014 at 12:38 pm

    @MomSense:

    I guess it makes sense since people below 44 don’t vote to the same degree as people above 44. So politically it is viable.

    But seriously, what does Ford think the next generation is supposed to live on when they retire? This is what drives me nuts about Democrats. They whine and whine about Obama, but never a damned word of criticism towards Dems in Congress or Dems like Ford.

  110. 110.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 29, 2014 at 12:38 pm

    @JPL:

    He’s a Rethug, right? Befuddled is his default operating mode.

  111. 111.

    raven

    January 29, 2014 at 12:40 pm

    @JPL: They did a better job of explaining it than I did.

  112. 112.

    WereBear

    January 29, 2014 at 12:40 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: When Seattle replaced the old Lake Washington floating bridge back in the 90′s, they thought they had overbuilt it so that it would not be at capacity for 20-30 years.

    It was at capacity almost from the day it opened.

    This is how traffic works. I learned that from The Power Broker. Mass transit is the only thing that does work… but has a low-class stigma.

    @JPL: They’d rather sit for hours in traffic.

    Exactly.

  113. 113.

    Botsplainer

    January 29, 2014 at 12:41 pm

    @Schlemizel:

    A few years ago Atlanta went through a huge highway building program. They were determined they would build their way out of traffic congestion. From what I read they claimed to massively overbuild for what was required. Nobody mentions that any more as the place is a traffic nightmare already even without snow.

    You can build out as many lanes as you want, but if they’re draining onto four lane roads, the whole thing is going to suck.

    That’s what happens when you put suburban/exurban wingnuts in leadership roles regarding roads.

    Further, commuter traffic, being regional in scope, necessitates a lot of cooperation in planning in order to do it correctly.

  114. 114.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2014 at 12:41 pm

    @Ben Cisco: Yup. I mean, they lost the popular vote in 2012 and Duck Dynasty’s ratings are down. As are Rush’s and his earnings (for the network… he still has his sw33t deal). Beck got kicked off FOX. MSNBC beats FOX in the demo any time something interesting is going on. Chik-Fil-A’s sales are quietly down. Barilla (which was more likely to be bought by better off, educated people anyway) took such a hit so fast their CEO was running around doing ineffective damage control only a few weeks later.

    The best coup of all? Nice Polite Republicans was replaying one of their call-in shows last night right before SOTU and all of these folks made it past the screeners to hammer income inequality and ask why we couldn’t be like Northern Europe. Neil Conan’s horrid dancing-dave-style Village logic bounced off their heads like a glancing blow. I mean, we had white guys calling in with this stuff. White guys with Southern accents. It was beautiful!

    Oh, and Tyler Cowan is a douchebag. “I have no argument, let me ad-hom like a rabid ferret.” How old is that guy, I mean his accent makes it sound like he’s a contemporary of Roosevelt I?

  115. 115.

    raven

    January 29, 2014 at 12:42 pm

    Several officials spent time trying to explain how things got so bad so quickly

    “This came very suddenly,” Craig Witherspoon, superintendent of Birmingham City Schools in Alabama, said Wednesday. An estimated 600 students in his district spent the night in schools, tended by about 100 staff members.

    “All reports for the Birmingham area were that we’d get a light dusting to the south of where we were,” Mr. Witherspoon said. “And the flakes started coming, and then it just poured out.”

  116. 116.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2014 at 12:44 pm

    @GRANDPA john: The Dems were loudly applauding all of Obama’s “class warfare” talking points making it clear what 2014 will be run on, and then Obama followed up by making the Reps look like a bunch of assholes, which they are.

    Not fair! The Real Presnint, Bush the Lesser used SOTU to inspire the nation by running on an unexpected tangent about steroid usage in baseball!

  117. 117.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2014 at 12:46 pm

    @Roger Moore: Talk about your jive turkeys.

    Hustle harder, GOP, mama needs a new pair of shoes.

  118. 118.

    JPL

    January 29, 2014 at 12:49 pm

    @raven: According to Finch, snow is the best thing ever. He’ll romp in the snow and then come in and warm up.

  119. 119.

    chopper

    January 29, 2014 at 12:51 pm

    @raven:

    so about 3 dozen plows and fewer salt/sand trucks.

    definitely beats 4, but not by a whole lot, given the size of the city.

  120. 120.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2014 at 12:54 pm

    @Botsplainer: But you haven’t been listening! Rainy day funds are a burden on taxpayers. Why should government take more of their money? They should give it back because taxpayers know best how to invest their money. Also, one-time funds should never be held back or spent on continuing expenses. That would be irresponsible. You can’t mix irregular and continuing receipts, duh! It’s more responsible to splurge on some vanity project now.

  121. 121.

    raven

    January 29, 2014 at 12:55 pm

    @chopper: Much of the impacted area is well beyond the city limits.

  122. 122.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2014 at 12:59 pm

    @Cacti: WUFT did a story about it, so it has been in the news.

    Doesn’t surprise me one whit.

    I always thought those “Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranches” bumper stickers looked creepy, myself.

    They’ve interviewed survivors, too. Horrifying stuff. Think Magdalen laundries kinda awful.

  123. 123.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2014 at 1:03 pm

    @Cervantes:

    Is it possible that the inability to deal with one extreme storm is not the real problem?

    Could it be that “trunk and branch” highway netowrks built under the “moar lanes, MOAR” philosophy and the “car access only will keep the nears away” heuristic are actually very, very unstable and unable to recover from traffic “events”?

    Probably.

    I grew up in Eastern Mass which has a net-like road network dating to the cow trail days (though there are always rich assholes trying to close roads and sometimes succeeding). I remember days when they closed down interstate highways and my dad was only 20 minutes late getting home.

    We moved to Montgomery County, MD, an outage like that? For. Get. Bout. It.

    Robustness … nil

  124. 124.

    dollared

    January 29, 2014 at 1:04 pm

    @Roger Moore: @MikeJ: They are fluent in a language we all know and love: authentic frontier gibberish. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke5Mr5eCF2U

  125. 125.

    Astor Column

    January 29, 2014 at 1:05 pm

    Obummer made Huelskamp and Weber wait cause he was watching his favorite rerun on Drone TV — ‘All-night Al Qaeda Benghazi Human Wave Attacks’ #QuickRxnForcesInstantaneouslyTeleport

  126. 126.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2014 at 1:06 pm

    @Schlemizel: You can’t build your way out of traffic congestion. Since Americans are afraid of math we had to learn that as a nation the hard and expensive and asthma inducing way.

  127. 127.

    raven

    January 29, 2014 at 1:08 pm

    @Another Holocene Human: In the ATL they have these “Peach Lanes” that have sliding scale tolls that are set according to the volume of traffic. Pay more, less traffic.

  128. 128.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 29, 2014 at 1:09 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:

    It’s more responsible to splurge on some vanity project now.

    Like say the Olympics.

  129. 129.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2014 at 1:09 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    You’ll recall that Hillary Clinton’s lesbian lover, Vince Foster, before he took his own life (or was murdered by Hillary, if you subscribe to World Nut Daily) wrote a suicide note in which he decried the treatment of people like him by the media as “blood sport”, singling out the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal in particular.

    Wow. Didn’t know that. No wonder they spin conspiracy theories about him.

    It’s like Benghazi. Of course many pols thought it would finish Obama and it didn’t, but why the deep noise about it? Because they are denying the role of the video, a video produced and bankrolled in the US with ties to US wingnut/reckless Christians. Because they agreed with the intent of the video and now must run, run so far away from the consequence of Americans imperiled by such vile incitements.

    I’m going to remember this. The more bullshit CT noise they blow, the more likely they have something to hide. Deflect! Deflect!

  130. 130.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 29, 2014 at 1:12 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:

    Our problem is that we build transportation infrastructure not to move people around, but to move automobiles around.

  131. 131.

    liberal

    January 29, 2014 at 1:13 pm

    @dmsilev: anyone who’s read _Goliath_ is probably more worried about Israel having nukes than iran having them.

  132. 132.

    Belafon

    January 29, 2014 at 1:13 pm

    @raven: We’re getting those in Dallas. The funding from those will be used to build more highways.

  133. 133.

    boatboy_srq

    January 29, 2014 at 1:13 pm

    @dollared: Is that what The Random Word Generation Palinator v1.5 uses?

  134. 134.

    MomSense

    January 29, 2014 at 1:15 pm

    @Patrick:

    I have no idea what Harold Ford thinks will happen but it apparently hasn’t occurred to him that we have a lot of information about what happened to seniors before those programs. It was horrible unless you are a fan of poverty.

  135. 135.

    liberal

    January 29, 2014 at 1:15 pm

    @Another Holocene Human: I moved in the opposite direction recently.

    All I can say is that at least major intersections in MontCo have lights…

  136. 136.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 29, 2014 at 1:17 pm

    @MomSense:

    Pardon me, but looking back at actual history is not allowed in this game, as it provides a searing indictment of the last 30 years of policy that funnels wealth from the base to the top, where it sits around and is used for keeping score in a game that only a few can play.

  137. 137.

    ? Martin

    January 29, 2014 at 1:18 pm

    @Botsplainer: More directly, traffic planners too often forget that people have free will. If you give them a faster road, they’ll take it more often until it becomes a slow road again. They’ll choose it for trips that they previously chose another route, or trips they would have avoided, or they’ll move because the commute is no longer a disaster.

    We had a similar situation here in the OC. A new toll road was built to bypass the congested El Toro Y. For $5 or so you could avoid the crushing traffic. They also got funds to rebuild the Y, expanding it to 26 lanes at the widest point. As soon as construction was done, the Y was clogged because everyone shifted back off of the toll road to avoid the $5. Now the toll road is struggling financially. And because the Y opened up traffic somewhat, lots of people moved to the other side of it and it’s now jammed up again – enough so that our primary local arteries are filling up with bypass traffic.

    Roads are like bandwidth. As soon as you build more, you invent a justification to use more until you run out again.

  138. 138.

    Poopyman

    January 29, 2014 at 1:18 pm

    @Soonergrunt:

    but sometimes I win just by being me.

    I cannot argue with that, sir!

  139. 139.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 29, 2014 at 1:20 pm

    @Poopyman:

    Don’t call him sir. He works for a living!

    /standing up for Sarge

  140. 140.

    ? Martin

    January 29, 2014 at 1:20 pm

    @raven: Like I said, in the near term, the weather will often win. Sooner knows all about that.

  141. 141.

    Cervantes

    January 29, 2014 at 1:25 pm

    @MomSense:

    I have no idea what Harold Ford thinks will happen but it apparently hasn’t occurred to him that we have a lot of information about what happened to seniors before those programs. It was horrible unless you are a fan of poverty.

    Nowadays the Fords are all about the Benjamins.

    Harold Senior, a retired Congressman, now lives on Fisher Island (Miami), the Census locale with the highest per capita income in the country. Oprah Winfrey is a sometime neighbor.

    That’s what Junior knows about seniors. Expect nothing good from him.

  142. 142.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    January 29, 2014 at 1:26 pm

    @pseudonymous in nc: That all (the failure of each suburb to cooperate with “those people” and vice versa) sounds like what Detroit’s been dealing with for about four decades.

    The DC area faces the same issues with the transportation network. We had a fairly modest snowstorm hit here a couple years ago – I think about 4 inches fell with little or no ice – right at the start of the afternoon rush, and some people were stuck in their cars for 6+ hours.

  143. 143.

    Schlemizel

    January 29, 2014 at 1:26 pm

    @raven:

    Yeah, I read a story about the Falcons new stadium & there was some suggestions that the site was chosen in part because of the lack of public transportation. Gotta make a fella proud.

  144. 144.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 29, 2014 at 1:31 pm

    @Schlemizel:

    That is just…what’s the word for it?

    Braindead stupid.

    OK, two words.

    Didn’t the Falcons get a new fucking stadium less than 20 years ago? What, they need to have a new one every quarter century? Is this planned obsolescence on a braindead stupid (there’s those two words again) scale?

  145. 145.

    Schlemizel

    January 29, 2014 at 1:33 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:

    Yeah, my point exactly & not a new point either. The story I read had a lot of information about the campaign they ran to exclude people who told them they could not build their way out. But even so that is still an argument heard today. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised but these guys are so effective at ignoring experience and clinging to their fantasy that it is mind numbing.

  146. 146.

    liberal

    January 29, 2014 at 1:35 pm

    @pseudonymous in nc:

    Uh…all I can say is that here in librul Eastern MA, we apparently don’t believe in raising funds for government to do things like, uh, put up traffic signals.

    For the life of me, I’ve never seen a place with such a complete disregard for the principle that “heavily trafficked intersections should have traffic lights, not just stop signs.”

    And in Montgomery County, MD, another liberal bastion, the idea that we should encourage more intense us of urban areas because, well, it might be better for the environment than urban sprawl? Not in my back yard!

  147. 147.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2014 at 1:35 pm

    @liberal: hahaha, half the fun is trying to figure where the fuck you are and how the fuck to navigate the intersection without the aid of MUTCD standard signs and TCDs

    (watch the locals… they know)

  148. 148.

    raven

    January 29, 2014 at 1:36 pm

    @Schlemizel: The Georgia Dome sucks.

  149. 149.

    NonyNony

    January 29, 2014 at 1:37 pm

    @? Martin:

    They also got funds to rebuild the Y, expanding it to 26 lanes at the widest point.

    26 lanes is not an expressway. 26 lanes is a car crash waiting to happen or, if you’re lucky, a parking lot.

    26 lanes is like something a satirist in the 1980s might have used to lampoon expanding from 4 lanes to 6. Or what someone writing Judge Dredd might have used as a throw-away gag about future life in a Mega City.

    Jesus – 26 lanes. There has to be a better way to do things than that!

  150. 150.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2014 at 1:38 pm

    @? Martin: network analysis ASSUMES people will seek the fastest road

    it was developed in the 1950s by econ phDs

    if only those dipshit road engineers had heard of it before the 2000s

    nope, la la la fuck math anyway until the TAXPAYERS took away the lane widening punchbowl

    oh, now traffic engineering requires shmancy computer models and shit

    rotters, all of them

  151. 151.

    Schlemizel

    January 29, 2014 at 1:39 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Its an ‘arms race’ every time a new stadium is built some innovative way to soak the saps is deployed & the other owners lust after the same thing. Some of those new things can’t be shoehorned into the old building so taxpayers have to cough up or its “LA here we come!”

    You see it in stadiums all over now. There used to be a lower deck & an upper deck of seating. Now there is the lower level, a “club level’ of better seats that are much more expensive, then the really pricey executive suites (subsidized by your tax dollar as they are bought by corps & claimed as a business expense) THEN the upper deck which is now 3/4 of a mile away from the field.

  152. 152.

    Schlemizel

    January 29, 2014 at 1:42 pm

    @raven:

    NFL in person sucks! The game is now played for TV only & it would not matter where it was played.

  153. 153.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2014 at 1:43 pm

    @liberal:

    Uh…all I can say is that here in librul Eastern MA, we apparently don’t believe in raising funds for government to do things like, uh, put up traffic signals.

    It’s called Yankee thrift, get it right!

    When I was a kid, parents packed City Hall one night in an epic tug o war over road resurfacing vs school operating funds (school maintenence didn’t even come into it until they threatened to disaccredit one of our high schools for poor condition of physical plant). This is a place where Winter will fuck up your roads annually into pothole slalom courses. But fuck that unimportant shit, schools matter… so every year they dumped more asphalt oil in the cracks and went on about their business, though not in so many words because they don’t talk “southern” up there on pain of social ostracisation. Seriously, schools do matter.

    Anyway, when they do put in signals they install the inground detectors on the side streets past the stop lines so people just drive the auld new england way anyway.

  154. 154.

    Another Holocene Human

    January 29, 2014 at 1:47 pm

    Classic Montgy County:

    Dairy farmer dies
    Seize dairy farm from next generation for f*cking up some paperwork that was intended by Congress to let farms stay farms, because a Developer needs a new set of shoes, bay-bee
    Rapidly build infill non-mixed development in an already quasi urbanized suburb
    act shocked (shocked!) and dismayed when existing stormwater system epically fails and construction of the monster bedroom farm isn’t even complete
    Blow the county budget trying to fix this new disaster as stormwater lines going back over 100 years now need upgrades
    Get the state to bail you out. Bal’more kids didn’t need no book-larnin’ anyhoo.

    Rinse. Repeat.

  155. 155.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 29, 2014 at 1:48 pm

    @Schlemizel:

    NFL In person is watch a play, sit around waiting for Buicks to be sold, watch a play, sit around wait for Bud Light to be sold, repeat every 10 minutes or so, (if you’re lucky).

  156. 156.

    catclub

    January 29, 2014 at 1:54 pm

    @Schlemizel: The solution is not to go, but as long as there are far more people willing to go, they will continue to rip off the rubes. Us. Or Them!

  157. 157.

    Bill Arnold

    January 29, 2014 at 1:54 pm

    @JPL:

    Forget about Cobb County and rail. They’d rather sit for hours in traffic.

    I will never understand this. Sitting and waiting causes most normal people to think about how to change things so that they don’t sit and wait so much.

  158. 158.

    gnomedad

    January 29, 2014 at 2:02 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Stewardess! I speak jive wingnut.

    This is unreservedly awesome and should join the rotating tag lines. I am also totally stealing it.

  159. 159.

    liberal

    January 29, 2014 at 2:07 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:
    Maybe, but some of that stuff is bullshit.

    There was a case a couple of years ago where some county land was rented to some organic farmer guy for many years.

    Lease came up, or maybe the County had a clause allowing them to terminate it. Anyway, they wanted to build soccer fields.

    Organic farmer a-hole got upset and a bunch of morons backed him up.

    It’s not like anyone is entitled to rent land from the county, and it’s not like there’s no where else to do organic farming.

    Then there’s some modifications to some important planning document that would allow people to raise chickens.

    This “grow your own” shit is idiotic. There’s no reason to think it’s anymore economically efficient than more centralized operations (organic or not), and it’s just a recipe for breeding more nasty viruses (the ones which jump back and forth between domesticated farm animals and humans). It might be reasonable for vegetables, but …

  160. 160.

    Bubblegum Tate

    January 29, 2014 at 2:07 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Good grief. How did you find tha– ?

    Oh, I’ve been following that blog for years. I’m not sure if the better metaphor is something about Jane Goodall or something about a Petri dish, but it’s been an interesting (and frequently hilarious) little culture to observe.

  161. 161.

    Roger Moore

    January 29, 2014 at 2:07 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Our problem is that we build transportation infrastructure not to move people around, but to move automobiles around.

    It’s not even that. It’s that we build transportation infrastructure that naive beliefs suggest ought to be great for moving cars around but which experience shows doesn’t help much. It turns out that new infrastructure construction changes usage patterns in both the short term- people rush to use new routes, spreading usage around and encouraging more use- and in the long term- other things are built to take advantage of available infrastructure. Mass transit is the only system that really works well because over a wide range of usage it actually improves as more people use the system.

  162. 162.

    liberal

    January 29, 2014 at 2:08 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:
    I was surprised to see that some nasty pothole on an exit off 95/128 onto another major highway got patched within a couple weeks.

  163. 163.

    Bobby Thomson

    January 29, 2014 at 2:19 pm

    @Cacti:

    I figured VC’s comments section would turn into a typical Wapo sewer once the move was made. I wouldn’t be surprised if much of the thoughtful law nerd commentariat got turned off by it and drifted away.

    You assume they disagree with their knuckle dragging brethren. Seems dubious.

  164. 164.

    pseudonymous in nc

    January 29, 2014 at 2:21 pm

    @? Martin:

    More directly, traffic planners too often forget that people have free will. If you give them a faster road, they’ll take it more often until it becomes a slow road again.

    One of the consequences of OTP sprawl in Atlanta has been the rise of traffic between those satellite cities that doesn’t touch the downtown — Marietta to Roswell, Alpharetta to Duluth, etc. So you’re now getting six-lane suburban drags with lights at every strip mall, and no coherent strategy to deal with it, because governance is already fragmented, and fragmentation reinforces mistrust.

  165. 165.

    Roger Moore

    January 29, 2014 at 2:24 pm

    @Schlemizel:

    Yeah, I read a story about the Falcons new stadium & there was some suggestions that the site was chosen in part because of the lack of public transportation.

    That might be as much about maximizing parking revenue as about keeping the wrong kind of people away.

  166. 166.

    sparrow

    January 29, 2014 at 2:28 pm

    @liberal: Having chickens is actually pretty economically sound, if you have the space and don’t go crazy. They eat bugs and scraps from the compost bin, and the “food miles” are zero. Eggs are quality protein. I’d do it if we lived somewhere with a yard. Anything for slaughter is a whole other story, but if you were out in the country and there was a local processer, why not?

  167. 167.

    pseudonymous in nc

    January 29, 2014 at 2:31 pm

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:

    That all (the failure of each suburb to cooperate with “those people” and vice versa) sounds like what Detroit’s been dealing with for about four decades.

    It’s a systemic problem in the US: you see a different version in the Bay Area with all the little Silicon Valley cities (Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, etc.) refusing to countenance any kind of zoning, local NIMBYs in SF refusing to countenance any kind of building in their own backyard, and a disjointed and incoherent transportation network. The problem isn’t the Google buses so much as the fragmented governance: it’s the kind of thing that’s crying out for a regional approach, but there are too many egos and fiefdoms involved.

  168. 168.

    Roger Moore

    January 29, 2014 at 2:37 pm

    @NonyNony:
    26 lanes isn’t quite as unreasonable as it sounds, because it’s measuring all the lanes in a complex interchange. It’s basically two freeways that are 5 lanes in each direction plus a few ramps that let traffic from surface streets on in the same place. I think the East LA Interchange (complex interchange between I-5, I-10, US-101, and CA-60) has at least that many.

  169. 169.

    catclub

    January 29, 2014 at 2:40 pm

    I think it was LGM that had a blog showing that WA state transportation planners were still projecting the same Vehicle miles per year growth that they have been doing since forever, and that the actual VMPY (in WA state, natch) are coming in lower and lower relative to their projections.

    This is also the case nationally. I do not know about ATL region.

  170. 170.

    Roger Moore

    January 29, 2014 at 2:48 pm

    @Bill Arnold:

    I will never understand this.

    People have put a lot of time and effort into figuring out how to do stuff while they’re caught in traffic. They get to the point that they expect some personal time during their commute and are less bothered by how long it takes them. I assume commuters stuck in traffic are the major market for audio books, for instance.

  171. 171.

    NonyNony

    January 29, 2014 at 2:56 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    26 lanes isn’t quite as unreasonable as it sounds, because it’s measuring all the lanes in a complex interchange. It’s basically two freeways that are 5 lanes in each direction plus a few ramps that let traffic from surface streets on in the same place.

    Two freeways 5 lanes in each direction + another 8 lanes for on-and-off ramps on either side?

    I’m sorry – but that still sounds utterly ridiculous. Not quite as ridiculous as 13 lanes where 2 or 3 on either side are for on/off ramp traffic (which is what I was visualizing) but still – there has to be a better way of doing shit like this.

  172. 172.

    Roger Moore

    January 29, 2014 at 2:58 pm

    @liberal:

    This “grow your own” shit is idiotic. There’s no reason to think it’s anymore economically efficient than more centralized operations (organic or not), and it’s just a recipe for breeding more nasty viruses (the ones which jump back and forth between domesticated farm animals and humans).

    My sister raises chickens, and for her it’s less about economic efficiency than about ensuring that the chickens are raised humanely. Her chickens are treated almost as pets, albeit the kind of pet you’d never allow into the house. And honestly, the eggs you get from chickens that are out there foraging for themselves are simply much better than almost any commercially raised egg. And I’d expect that back yard chickens are a less effective breeding ground for disease than ones that are packed as densely as possible on commercial egg farms.

  173. 173.

    Kathy in St. Louis

    January 29, 2014 at 2:59 pm

    @dmsilev: Just a general question. That was a quote from two grown men, West and Morris? It sounds as if it were coined by a third grader who is pimping a second grader. “You lit up the liar light, you lit up the liar light”.

  174. 174.

    Roger Moore

    January 29, 2014 at 3:03 pm

    @NonyNony:

    Two freeways 5 lanes in each direction + another 8 lanes for on-and-off ramps on either side?

    No. It’s two freeways, each of 5 lanes in each direction (20 lanes) plus an extra 3 lanes of on and off ramps in each direction (6 lanes) for other traffic. I think there is a place where it’s ridiculously wide simply because it’s a Y intersection where the two freeways merge, so you briefly wind up with something like 10 lanes in each direction on the merged portion.

  175. 175.

    liberal

    January 29, 2014 at 3:35 pm

    @Roger Moore:
    My point is that the best way to limit viruses going between humans and chickens is to limit contact. Most efficient way to do that is to have large farms. Best way to ensure transmission of lots of viruses is to have tiny farms with a low animal:human ratio.

    At least, my impression is that tons of flu comes from SE Asia because those folks live with their animals.

  176. 176.

    No One of Consequence

    January 29, 2014 at 3:36 pm

    @liberal: Seriously? You just going on a rant about livestock, or are you talking about produce gardens too? Have you ever grown and harvested your own food?

    – NOoC

  177. 177.

    liberal

    January 29, 2014 at 3:37 pm

    @sparrow:

    …but if you were out in the country and there was a local processer, why not

    Maybe, but
    (a) MontCo MD (which I mentoined in a previous post) is hardly out in the country,
    (b) my impression (not 100% rigorously confirmed) is that many many tiny operations will create a lot more zoonotic disease than a few huge operations. Though if it’s just a few out in the countryside…but the idea behind the MontCo thing is “wouldn’t it be great if we all raised our own food?”

  178. 178.

    MomSense

    January 29, 2014 at 3:38 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Pardon me, but looking back at actual history is not allowed in this game, as it provides a searing indictment of the last 30 years of policy that funnels wealth from the base to the top, where it sits around and is used for keeping score in a game that only a few can play.

    QFT.

  179. 179.

    liberal

    January 29, 2014 at 3:40 pm

    @No One of Consequence:
    I’m saying “in a world of 7B humans and lots of zoonotic disease, the idea that we can all ‘grow our own’ is, frankly, idiotic. And if you don’t like that, too bad.” [Obviously, zoonotic disease would mean restricting consideration to animals.]

  180. 180.

    liberal

    January 29, 2014 at 3:44 pm

    @pseudonymous in nc:

    you see a different version in the Bay Area with all the little Silicon Valley cities (Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, etc.) refusing to countenance any kind of zoning

    I assume you mean regional zoning.

    AFAICT, the main problem with Silicon Valley is onerous restrictions on density that jack up housing prices.

  181. 181.

    liberal

    January 29, 2014 at 3:45 pm

    @MomSense:
    Well, except that policy has always funnelled wealth upwards. It’s just gotten worse in the past 30 years.

  182. 182.

    liberal

    January 29, 2014 at 3:58 pm

    @No One of Consequence:
    As for growing and harvesting my own food—I grew up in the midwest and we had a sizeable garden.

    The best thing for the environment would be people living in relatively high-density places. Of course there would still be places for gardens—rooftops, if nothing else. Not saying that a desire to grow your own ==> lower density. But certainly lower density ==> sprawl and/or smaller/atomized wild parcels.

  183. 183.

    RSA

    January 29, 2014 at 4:00 pm

    @MikeJ: Oops. You’re right. I’m no English Only person.

  184. 184.

    Turgidson

    January 29, 2014 at 4:37 pm

    @liberal:

    NIMBYism is a popular pastime in librul commie California, too. The high speed rail project will probably never get done because someone, somewhere, will always have a complaint about the route it takes and how it disrupts something or other. That’s an oversimplification of the trouble that project is in, but it’s a big part of the mess. And while urban and suburban Californians tend to like the idea of building or expanding mass transit, actual proposals to do so regularly sink in NIMBY type complaints and concerns.

  185. 185.

    jefft452

    January 29, 2014 at 5:04 pm

    “Huelskamp is from Kansas and had a little tantrum on Maddow”

    I saw that, it was like Bambi vs Godzillia

  186. 186.

    Fort Geek

    January 29, 2014 at 5:48 pm

    @muricafukyea: Yeah, I was just thinking about how it sucks that this is the only blog on the Internet. My browser should have a way for me to make it go away, some little “X”-shaped thingie somewhere that would…would…”close” a page.

    Really sucks being so helpless.

  187. 187.

    mclaren

    January 29, 2014 at 6:43 pm

    …And where are the all the kooks and cranks and crackpots on Balloon Juice who sneered for years that “the president can’t bypass congress!” and “the president is bound by the law” and “executive orders are not a substitute for legislation”?

    Ignorant incompetent sociopaths like burnspbesq and mnemosyne and Omnes Omnibus and eemom, who railed and shrieked with outrage when I proposed again and again that Obama should simply use executive orders and signing statements to bypass congress, as JFK and LBJ and Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan did — where are they now?

    C’mon, kooks. Let’s here a chorus of “the president of the United States is not a dictator” now that Obama is actually getting off his ass and using executive orders to do some of what I suggested. Let’s hear you ridicule Obama and explain that “the president can’t do that!”

    All together now: as a chorus of shrill small eunuchs, you need to shriek in unison: “YOU MUST THINK THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IS ABOVE THE LAW!”

    This, by the way, is the same president of the United States who ordered the murder of U.S. citizens without charges or a trial…and you were fine with that. This is the same president of the United States who signed a bill (the NDAA) authorizing the kidnapping of U.S. citizens without charges…and you had no problem with that. But the instant the president of the United States bends the rules just a little with executive orders, why, that’s OUTRAGEOUS! That’s UNCONSTITUTIONAL! You had no problem with Obama violating the 5th amendment and the 6th amendment with the NDAA, and you had no problem with Obama violating the 8th amendment and the 14th amendment with “targeted killings” and you had no problem with Obama violating the 4th amendment with warrantless unconstitutional NSA surveillance. But the instant Obama takes up his pen to issue an executive order to bypass a gridlocked congress, then you explode with pique.

    Shut the fuck up, you clueless sods. Go away and get a job explaining that space travel is impossible because “a vacuum gives a rocket nothing to push against.” Get a job explaining that democracy is “unstable and an unsuitable form of government.” You people are so fucking clueless, you’re not even useful as ballast on a zeppelin.

  188. 188.

    Mustang Bobby

    January 29, 2014 at 6:50 pm

    Nice of you to drop by, Rep. Grimm.

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