Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

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

Ah, the different things are different argument.

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

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

In my day, never was longer.

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

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

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

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

The revolution will be supervised.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

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50Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    Nicely done:
    Republicans Just Won the Food Stamp War
    “Both the Senate and President Barack Obama are expected to approve the legislation.

    Here’s why the compromise level of cuts is a Republican win: In addition to the $9 billion in food stamp cuts in this five-year farm bill, another $11 billion will be slashed over three years as stimulus funding for the program expires.”

  2. 2.

    eric

    @Corner Stone: a contrary assessment

    http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=4081

    his conclusion:

    The proposed conference agreement drops the draconian House provisions, and its one SNAP cut curbs a dubious practice that SNAP’s congressional champions didn’t envision or intend. There’s no denying that the 4 percent of beneficiaries who would be affected are low-income people who would face a significant benefit reduction. But congressional rejection of the agreement because of this provision would risk future harm to far larger numbers of low-income people who rely on SNAP.
    Defeating the agreement almost certainly would merely postpone the tightening of the SUA provision; now that the loophole has come to light, it won’t withstand public scrutiny, and it will be closed sooner or later anyway, with its closing widely viewed as a reasonable reform. Meanwhile, congressional rejection of the proposed conference agreement would likely push the farm bill and SNAP reauthorization into the next Congress — thereby rolling the dice for the more than 45 million people who constitute the other 96 percent of SNAP recipients

  3. 3.

    Corner Stone

    @eric: I read that but disagree with the premise. The draconian cuts would not have passed in any form of the bill, so to say we were spared from them seems a little off. But YMMV.

  4. 4.

    eric

    @Corner Stone: i think his point is the flip side, the no cut bill would not pass either and that gets us nowhere, so if you have to do a bill (and you do), this is the closest to do no harm. i suspect that you and i agree that it should have made increases and not cuts.

  5. 5.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Cutting food stamps is stupid, for two reasons:

    1. Starving people is bad policy that leads to tumbrel rides for Rethuglican assholes

    2. Food stamps actually provide economic stimulus, in the form of creating business for grocery stores and everyone involved in the economic chain of providing food to people. This is basic fucking Adam Smith 101 (but then again, I keep forgetting, Rethuglicans claim to worship the ground Adam Smith walked on but have never fucking read his fucking book).

  6. 6.

    Corner Stone

    I would go further and say that a cut of any kind at this point is clearly unacceptable for any moral human being. Arguing that $8.6B is far, far less than the $40B the vampires were pushing for doesn’t really amount to much of an argument, IMO.
    Just more rear guard action, instead of offense.

    And, yes, I know the R’s control the House and that the poors aren’t much of a consistent voting block. But for fuck’s sake, isn’t it kind of the point of being in public service? To speak for, work for and defend those who may not be able to?

  7. 7.

    bemused

    MSNBC is still shuffling it’s daytime schedule around and I was surprised to read yesterday that Mia Farrow’s son, Ronan, a former foreign policy official in Obama adm will start an afternoon one-hour show Feb 24. I didn’t know much about Mia’s children but remembered reading about Ronan in a Vanity Fair piece on Mia and her family in the magazine a few months ago.

  8. 8.

    Eric U.

    there was an article in the Atlantic or some such magazine a while back about a rural town where the economy was almost all SS and food stamp money. When I drive around central PA, I suspect many of the towns were like that, at least before fracking started to bring in some extra money. But that’s transient, we’ll be back to living off of SS and food stamps soon enough

  9. 9.

    eric

    @Corner Stone: again, we agree, Comrade, but I think you would find plenty of statements in the congressional record from members of Progressive Caucus that affirms every word you wrote. I bet there are senators on record saying this. But the fact that we are left to guess as to who or how many made such moral stands is evidence of the malevolence of the courtier class that controls the media complex.

  10. 10.

    Corner Stone

    @eric: It’s my understanding that the status quo would have remained and the next Congress would have had to take this up if no deal was reached. And I believe we have a decent chance of gains in the House this fall.

  12. 12.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Corner Stone:

    a cut of any kind at this point is clearly unacceptable for any moral human being

    Well, that excludes every Rethug in Congress, right there.

  15. 15.

    eric

    @Corner Stone: alas, that is not a bet i would take. I understand your position, but then we pass a new law that restores food stamps. more sadly, i think this is a losing issue in swing districts that dems would need to retake the house. the antimooching sentiment has so grown among the lower middle class as a reverse class resentment, that i think humanity is in for a bumpy ride for a while

  16. 16.

    raven

    @PurpleGirl: Clicky linky

    Each state now sets a “Standard Utility Allowance” (or SUA) that reflects typical utility costs for those low-income households in the state that incur heating (and/or cooling) costs apart from their rent. (If the landlord pays these costs directly, they are reflected in the household’s rental charge itself, which is already fully counted in computing a household’s shelter deduction.) Thus, if a household shows that it incurs out-of-pocket heating or cooling costs, the state agency adds the household’s rent and the state’s SUA to determine the household’s total monthly shelter costs and computes whether they exceed 50 percent of the household’s income. (Technically, states also establish SUAs for households that do not incur heating or cooling costs but pay other utility bills, but those SUAs are much lower. Many states also establish different SUAs for different regions of the state.)

  17. 17.

    Corner Stone

    @PurpleGirl: It’s a way to defray or account for utility costs for the poors:

    “Each state now sets a “Standard Utility Allowance” (or SUA) that reflects typical utility costs for those low-income households in the state that incur heating (and/or cooling) costs apart from their rent. (If the landlord pays these costs directly, they are reflected in the household’s rental charge itself, which is already fully counted in computing a household’s shelter deduction.) Thus, if a household shows that it incurs out-of-pocket heating or cooling costs, the state agency adds the household’s rent and the state’s SUA to determine the household’s total monthly shelter costs and computes whether they exceed 50 percent of the household’s income. (Technically, states also establish SUAs for households that do not incur heating or cooling costs but pay other utility bills, but those SUAs are much lower. Many states also establish different SUAs for different regions of the state.)”

  19. 19.

    Waynski

    I’m watching MSNBC right now and Andrea Mitchell is interviewing Olympia Snow and it struck me how much Olympia – whom I like – looks like Andrea’s husband. Separated at birth? I miss Spy magazine.

  22. 22.

    Ash Can

    @Corner Stone:

    isn’t it kind of the point of being in public service?

    You know that, I know that, and many other people know that. But here’s the reality: Not enough people who know that got their asses out and voted in 2010. As a result, the Republicans, who believe in neither the “public” nor the “service” parts of “public service,” were able to turn what had, for two years, been the most productive government in decades into a shit sandwich for the entire nation. The moral of the story is, do whatever you can do to get your local House and/or Senate Dem elected/reelected this year. The end.

  23. 23.

    Yatsuno

    In the category of things can never be easy:the new gig wants me to start Feb 10. I’m not cleared to work until March 10. Unless the doc okays it, I have to turn it down. Which will suck mighty donkey balls. Or they don’t agree to the compromise date, which is the 24th, but the recruiter says that is REALLY pushing it.

  24. 24.

    Schlemizel

    @Corner Stone:

    From your lips to His noodly appendage! I am not at all confident as I still believe the game is well rigged at the state level. I don’t believe the marks are about to wakes up & realize they are being had. My current hope is that the baggers and the bother-ers will split from the Koch suckers and a few Dems will sneak in.

  26. 26.

    ? Martin

    @PurpleGirl: Standard Utility Assessment. SNAP scales benefits for people depending on their cost of utilities (more utility costs, less money for food). Problem is that there’s also the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) which is administered through the states. If someone is getting a LIHEAP subsidy, they can still qualify for the SNAP subsidy, depending on state rules. So some states are letting their people double-dip, while others aren’t. We can argue over whether the benefits of the programs are good enough, but the double-dipping wasn’t intended under SNAP rules, and because it varies by state, Congress wants to make the program more uniform. Somewhat worse, some states are providing very nominal LIHEAP subsidies ($1) simply to trigger the qualification for the better SNAP benefits. Essentially, it’s a way for some states dixie to avoid paying for state-level benefits and shifting the cost to the feds.

    My understanding of the fix is that the SUA/LIHEAP overlap gets eliminated. Now, will those states start paying out proper LIHEAP subsidies to make up for the loss of SNAP benefits? I doubt it. But that’s what they intend to have happen.

    It’s something that needs to be fixed, and is a byproduct of the patchwork nature that everything gets done in this country. So the fix here would make things fairer across states, but not likely better for the people that rely on those benefits.

  29. 29.

    Cacti

    Senator Graham says that the world is “literally” about to blow up.

    It figuratively drives me insane when people misuse the word “literally”.

  31. 31.

    kindness

    I saw him on The Daily Show last night. That clip reminded me of movies made in the 70’s by college kids with no budget.

    If I had any mushrooms it would probably be hilarious. Sadly since Jerry died all my sources have moved on.

  32. 32.

    raven

    @kindness:

    Now your patrons have all left you in the red
    Your low rent friends are dead
    This life can be very strange
    All those dayglow freaks who used to paint the face
    They’ve joined the human race
    Some things will never change
    Son you were mistaken
    You are obsolete
    Look at all the white men on the street

  35. 35.

    WaterGirl

    @Yatsuno: Well, shit. I was kinda worried about that being an issue when I saw your good news last night.

    I also wondered if there’s a way to assess whether the new place would be as amenable to working around the upcoming second surgery. There’s a lot to be said for a boss/place that doesn’t make something like that uncomfortable for you.

  38. 38.

    Elizabelle

    Speaking of comedians: it must be fun to be former RNC chair Ed Gillespie, who’s announced his bid for US Senate this fall.

    First, retired GOP Senator John Warner, the Tiffany standard for moderate Republicans in Virginia, endorses the incumbent Democrat, Mark Warner (no relation) earlier this week.

    And now, the articulate young Libertarian, Robert Sarvis, who pulled 6.6% of the vote in November’s governor’s race between Terry McAuliffe and Ken Cuccinelli, has just announced he plans to run for Senate.

    This after Democrats swept all top state offices, and held two state senate seats in January special elections.

    Cake walk, Mr. Gillespie?

  44. 44.

    eemom

    @Elizabelle:

    Awesome sauce! I had not heard that about Sarvis.

    I’ll never forget the 1994 election when Warner — together with Nancy Reagan — dissed Oliver North. I was so horrified by his candidacy, and I wasn’t even into politics at the time.

  45. 45.

    Yatsuno

    @WaterGirl: As far as that goes, that’s why I have a union. They can grease those skids. I’m just hoping the new commissioner can get us out from this damn hiring freeze. Even with me it will be understaffed.

  46. 46.

    kindness

    @raven: Got that one on the ole ipod too. The nice thing about being in N. Cal is you can be someone like me and not be obsolete. Elsewhere in the world, yea I could be. Here I fit right in.

  48. 48.

    Elizabelle

    @eemom:

    Yeah. John Warner cemented a lot of Democratic support by standing up against the Oliver Northization of his party.

    I was astounded to see real political courage, and appreciated JWarner for it.

    The Times Disgrace has been following Virginia politics avidly.

    I am on there daily, watching Cheetah Cam. (Local Richmond zoo has five cheetah cubs, now they’re cheetah kids, not babies.)

    All six cheetahs are bundled together under their heat lamp now. They’ve dined; it’s 25 degrees out.

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