Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Not all heroes wear capes.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

This blog will pay for itself.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

When I was faster i was always behind.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

T R E 4 5 O N

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

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Reader Interactions

186Comments

  2. 2.

    Amir Khalid

    I wonder if that improvised water-bottle gas mask actually works. It does seem that the wearer can breathe through it.

  5. 5.

    Gin & Tonic

    Hey mix, it’s “Ukraine”, not “the Ukraine.” You don’t say “the Caracas” or “the Venezuela,” do you?

  6. 6.

    Cassidy

    Thank FSM, they don’t have to deal with the police state that we have here. I mean, OMG, some white suburbanite’s metadata was stored! Freedom died.

  10. 10.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    And yet Obama is the tyrant. The g*dfearing christian(ist)s and their freedom of religion is under attack by legal gay marriage, among other things. And they are silenced is they try to protest the oppression.

    Of course they have no appreciation of actual oppression. That’s assuming they’re even aware of it.

    I’m cranky today; we pick up Layla this afternoon following last night’s surgery. She’s in good spirits, the vet said.

  16. 16.

    Southern Beale

    It’s UKRAINE. Not THE Ukraine. Just UKRAINE.

    Jesus fucking Christ. We don’t say “THE Spain” or “THE Ireland,” do we?

    THE Ukraine goes back to when Ukraine was a Soviet territory. THE Ukrainian part of the USSR.

    Christ. It’s not hard, people.

    Love,

    SoBe, channeling her Kiev-born, thankfully now dead, father.

  17. 17.

    Amir Khalid

    The Associated Press reports:
    Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik wants a sofa, a new PlayStation and a fancier gym to work out in — or he’ll go on hunger strike!

  19. 19.

    TooManyJens

    @Cassidy: These are tragedies happening to real people. Just for once, can we think about those people first, and not about how their struggles can be used as fodder for one more snark in an endless stupid blog pissing contest?

    I mean seriously, the threads where that stuff is on-topic aren’t enough of a shithole? You have to bring it here? Not everything is about “who’s right in the great Greenwald/Obot wars?”

  22. 22.

    monkeyfister

    The Venezuelan “opposition” are the same elitist Fascists that the Late Hugo Chavez was elected to fight back. No bones about it– they are Fascists of the highest order. Screw them.

  23. 23.

    monkeyfister

    The Venezuelan “opposition” are the same elitist Fascists that the Late Hugo Chavez was elected to fight back. No bones about it– they are Fascists of the highest order. Screw them.

  25. 25.

    Belafon

    @Southern Beale: We do say “THE United States”, “THE United Kingdom”, and “THE United Arab Emirates” or “THE UAE”. But yes, if they don’t call themselves “THE Ukraine” we shouldn’t either. We should also start calling Germany Deutschland.

  27. 27.

    Cassidy

    @TooManyJens: I know they’re real tragedies happening to real people, some of which I’ve seen first hand. That’s the point. When you have a bunch of entitled suburban liberals calling this country a police state when we have perfectly good examples of what really happens in a real police state, it’s so fucking offensive that it makes me want to vomit. The fact that some of our own entitled WATB’s can really compare their petty complaints to real people being killed or disappeared in a prison somewhere is so absurd that anything short of stabbing them in the face with a bendy straw isn’t enough. Unfortunately, my only recourse is too mock and mock I will.

    Short answer? No. I plan to continue to rub their noses in their dogshit as often as possible.

  28. 28.

    monkeyfister

    @some guy: Exactly. And ALLLLL that money that should go to HIMHIMHIM. They should be happy that Nicolás Maduro is practicing such restraint.

  29. 29.

    monkeyfister

    And in Ukraine, 2/3 of that “opposition” is Nationalists and Neo-Nazis, so screw them into the ground and cover them over, too.

  31. 31.

    some guy

    @monkeyfister:

    it’s scary to watch the recent turmoil in Venezuala, just too too close in resemblance to how the CIA and the fascists undermined and overthrew Allende in 1973. the Maduro government is acting with restraint, no doubt. Arresting Lopez and expelling the 3 US diplomats assisting him with his destabilization campaign is a good start.

  35. 35.

    some guy

    Short answer? No. I plan to continue to rub their noses in their dogshit as often as possible.

    Tweedledum has a sad that Tweedledumber is out dumbing him. This must not stand.

  36. 36.

    monkeyfister

    @some guy: Precisely! Which is why I really hope there is not a single one of those bastards standing when their temper tantrum is over.

  40. 40.

    GregB

    Not to mention Egypt, the largest Arab nation in the world has just been given an economic death warrant by Islamist radicals who put a nail in the coffin of their already wobbly tourist trade. No one wants to get blowed on vacation.

    I am getting quite concerned about the trajectory of world affairs.

  42. 42.

    maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor

    Actually, my first thought when seeing that picture was “West Virginia.”

  43. 43.

    Gin & Tonic

    @GregB: No one wants to get blowed on vacation.

    Um… this may not have been exactly what you meant to say. or else we enjoy our vacations differently.

  45. 45.

    Cassidy

    @some guy: I made a suggestion about how you could spend your time. I believe it involved a plastic bag and some duct tape to seal it around your neck. You should consider adding some worth to this life by turning yourself into fertilizer.

  48. 48.

    some guy

    @Gin & Tonic:

    For Mr. Tyagnibok, a urological surgeon by training who joined the party at its inception in the early 1990s, the aim is to translate that higher profile into an even larger role in the country’s future politics, based on an unyielding nationalism.

    “Our understanding of nationalism is love,” he said in a recent interview in one of the buildings in downtown Kiev that are occupied by protesters, a site known as the Headquarters of the Resistance. “Nationalism is love of the land, love of the people who live on the land, and it is love of a mother. Love of a mother cannot be bad.”

    Members of Ukraine’s Parliament saw things differently a decade ago. In 2004, they voted to expel Mr. Tyagnibok over a speech in which he described World War II-era partisans bravely fighting Germans, Russians, Jews and “other scum.” He went on to slur what he called the “Jewish-Russian mafia” running Ukraine.

    Until 2004, Svoboda had been called the Social-Nationalist Party, which critics said was just a word flip away from its true ambitions and a deliberate reference to the National Socialism of the Nazis. Unabashed neo-Nazis still populate its ranks, organizations that study hate groups in Europe say.

  50. 50.

    monkeyfister

    @Gin & Tonic: BBC and RT mainly. The two sources I’ve followed since this started. But look up the Political Parties involved, and what they stand for. Easy wiki searches. This uprising is not good. Ukraine wants into the EU. What it is all about. EU doesn’t need THIS kind of crazy. They have enough already going on.

  56. 56.

    monkeyfister

    @some guy: There ya go. Just like the Neo-Nazis in Greece call themselves “Golden Dawn” and the Teabagged GOP keep trying to re-brand. All of the same cut. Wolves in sheepskins.

  60. 60.

    gogol's wife

    The subtlety and well-informed detail of the geopolitical analysis on this thread is breathtaking.

  61. 61.

    Chyron HR

    @some guy:

    Congratulations, you are literally arguing that it’s okay for a government to arrest, deport and kill its citizens if said government decides that they’re “bad people”. Is the irony entirely lost on you?

  62. 62.

    monkeyfister

    @Gin & Tonic: It’s not the “healthy” type of Nationalism. About 1/2 of the remaining 1/3 are of a more healthy Nationalist stripe, the others just want to out from between the Russian Hammer and the EU Anvil, and have some nice things.

    The rest are monsters.

  65. 65.

    some guy

    @Chyron HR:

    excuse me, can you point to my specific comments where I am “arguing that it’s okay for a government to arrest, deport and kill its citizens” ????

  66. 66.

    Cervantes

    @Southern Beale:

    SoBe, channeling her Kiev-born, thankfully now dead, father.

    So I guess calling it Malorossíya again is completely out?

    Just kidding. Here’s to your dad.

    Boritesia: poborete!

  67. 67.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Omnes Omnibus: All three of Mary’s suitors dress remarkably similar that I think is the source of confusion, that and their colorless personalities and boring dialog about how wonderful icy Mary is.
    Its not the actors’ fault as much as the writer’s. Even the blonde Matthew became colorless and dull once he was besotted with Mary, no wonder the actor wanted to leave the show, rather than mouth dialog about how wonderful Mary was episode after episode.

  69. 69.

    some guy

    Max Fisher’s blog at WaPo has been a pretty good source on the Ukraine protests. Svoboda isn’t the only party in the riots, but they have become the leading force for the most violent episodes.

  71. 71.

    some guy

    @Chyron HR:

    seriously. please show me where I am arguing a government should arrest/expel/kill it’s opponents.

    that’s a pretty bold claim, so some evidence to support the assertion would be nice.

  73. 73.

    Gin & Tonic

    @some guy: The hardest-line group currently is Pravyj Sektor, not Svoboda, actually. While I hold no brief for them, when the government’s opening position in all attempts to negotiate is “fuck you,” it’s difficult to imagine what other direction the protests can take.

  74. 74.

    Seanly

    @some guy:

    The neo-Nazi’s rhetoric is the same as a lot of American white power BS. To be only partly snarky, when neo-Nazis from one country get together are they comrades in arms? I’m going to guess the answer is no since their xenophobia is such a big part of their beliefs. I certainly have the same hatred of their terrible philosophy no matter what flag they wave.

  75. 75.

    beltane

    @monkeyfister: My husband attended high school in Venezuela. Many of his former classmates live in Miami and are fervent supporters of the opposition. All of them, without exception, are hardcore wingnut 1%ers of the type that make Mitt Romney seem to be a man of the people in comparison. If an elected leader here seriously did anything to threaten the interests of the upper class, I’d expect to see the same type of violence here. Rich people do not relinquish power easily.

  77. 77.

    some guy

    @Gin & Tonic:

    so nationalism itself isn’t a bad thing, but the nationalism of Dmitro Yarosh is something you hold no brief with, and the nationalism of Oleh Tyahnybok is probably something also you hold no brief with, but the “other” nationalists of Western Ukraine are OK in your book?

  79. 79.

    Davis X. Machina

    @beltane: Those are the ones with the wherewithal to get to Miami. They may not be the sum and substance of the opposition. I suppose the gentleman in the photo could be living on subventions from the 1%-ers wired in from Coral Gables….

  80. 80.

    JPL

    Sen Corker must be so proud… VW

    Sorry if it has been mentioned before but if I were a democratic governor, I would be pursuing VW.

    also… sorry if it has been mentioned before

  81. 81.

    beltane

    @some guy: Ethno-nationalism of the blood and soil variety is a plague on humanity. Period. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire did not lead to progress but to endless bloodshed and genocide.

  82. 82.

    Mark B.

    @Amir Khalid: If you find some way to make one-way valves for the intakes in the water bottles and the exhaust, then it’s semi-plausible if you fill the water bottles with something like activated charcoal. And you’d need a lot of duct tape to make the whole thing seal properly. Probably something to try during the zombie apocalypse, but not worthwhile before that.

  84. 84.

    Chris

    Question. Can somebody who knows Venezuelan politics pretty well give me the basics of what’s going on down there? How’d it start, who’s protesting, what’s the disagreement about, etc.

    I ask because I tend to be suspicious of U.S. media coverage of that country, since they spent the entire Chavez years assuming, as did Respectable Washington Opinion, that the man was a dictator (repeated elections and their repeated certification by international observers be damned), that his reforms were ruining the country and sinking the people in poverty (reports from various international observers on the standards of living be damned), and that his opposition was simply a matter of being “pro-democracy” (including the ones who’d supported the 2002 coup).

    Doesn’t mean I think the Venezuelan government’s flawless. Or that I don’t believe they couldn’t handle riots badly or thuggishly – police brutality seems to be a constant in this world. I’m not particularly invested in either side (don’t know enough to be), just wanted to hear it from someone other than our glorious “Shape Of Earth: Views Differ” mainstream media.

  85. 85.

    some guy

    @Gin & Tonic:

    again, the takeaway from your reply seems to be that the nationalists and Neo-Nazi’s who are leading the Ukrainian riots are not your cup of tea, but it is unfair to tar the rest of the “nationalist” Ukranian opposition with the brush of the leaders of their movement.

    am I understanding you correctly?

  86. 86.

    Kay

    @JPL:

    Love how politely threatening it is:

    “I can imagine fairly well that another VW factory in the United States, provided that one more should still be set up there, does not necessarily have to be assigned to the south again,” said Bernd Osterloh, head of VW’s works council.
    “If co-determination isn’t guaranteed in the first place, we as workers will hardly be able to vote in favor” of potentially building another plant in the U.S. south, Osterloh, who is also on VW’s supervisory board, said.

    He can imagine doing that. Voting against another factory in the US south. :)

    Also, we need the word “co-determination”, immediately.

  87. 87.

    dr. luba

    @Belafon: It’s a matter of calling someone by they name they prefer. If you have a friend named Charles, and he prefers being called Charlie, you call him Charlie, not Chuck. It’s only polite.

    When China asked the world to stop calling its capital Peking, everyone began referring to it as Beijing, as asked. And we now refer to Mumbai and Chennai, not Bombay and Madras.

    After independence, Ukraine asked that the “the” not be used in front of its name, and that its capital be called “Kyiv,” not “Kiev,” the latter being the Russian name. Why are they not accorded the same respect, when it comes to nomenclature, as China or India?

    FYI, the “the” is a legacy of Russian imperialism. Russia has always striven to deny Ukraine’s nationhood, under the tsars, the USSR, and now under Putin. The Ems Ukase banned the use of the Ukrainian language under the tsars, and forced Russification was standard policy under the USSR. So yes, Ukraine is a bit touchy on this subject.

  88. 88.

    beltane

    @Chris: The current government of Venezuela was elected with the support of the poor and working class (the moochers) who make up a majority of the population. The opposition is drawn from the ranks of the middle and upper classes (the Galtian geniuses) who object to the government’s policies favoring the poor. They are protesting. The government has responded in a heavy-handed way, perhaps due to suspicions that the protests are being instigated by the CIA, an organization that has sought to undermine just about every elected left-wing government that has ever existed in Latin America.

  89. 89.

    Gypsy Howell

    @schrodinger’s cat:
    I’m glad I’m not the only one. I was beginning to think I had that facial recognition problem.
    For me, DA is devolving down to watching for costumes only. And I’m not a huge fan of the silk hefty bag fashions of the Twenties, so even that is losing my interest.

  90. 90.

    monkeyfister

    @beltane: Thanks for that! Yes. They are terrible people. The US Media seems to LOVE them, and so Chavez and now Maduro are demonized. Sure there are supply issues in Venezuela, but they are caused by the Fascists “going Galt” for kicks.

  92. 92.

    Gin & Tonic

    @chopper: We’ve been through this before here. It is grammatical in the sense that Ukrainian, Russian, etc. do not have a definite article. So “the” makes no sense. But someone who speaks *only* Ukrainian, Russian, etc. doesn’t even really understand what this is about. It’s an issue for those who speak English as well as Ukrainian, who find the use of the article vaguely demeaning. But why is it so hard to call people or a country what they prefer to be called. If you work next to a guy named Edward, and he says “please don’t call me Ed,” do you argue with him? Do you say “but I’ve always called you Ed” and be an asshole?

  93. 93.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Gypsy Howell: I don’t like the twenties fashions either, especially the shapeless dresses and those faux-bob hairstyles. I do love the hats and the jewelry, particularly the long necklaces.

    ETA: Did you see Parade’s End? Rebecca Hall’s wardrobe was to die for.

  94. 94.

    beltane

    @Davis X. Machina: My husband has plenty of former classmates who still live in Venezuela, are relatively well-off, and who all support the opposition. They yearn for the halcyon days of the 1980s when the American-backed right-wing government kept the slum dwellers in their placed by depriving them of access to housing, electricity, health care and education. My husband has fond memories of being a 17 year old in Caracas and receiving a weekly allowance that was more than the annual income of the average bus driver. Good times.

    But I guess it’s possible that this fellow is a firebagger who feels Maduro isn’t going far enough and isn’t using his bully pulpit effectively.

  97. 97.

    catclub

    @beltane: Thailand is a similar case. Not certain about the CIA part, but that could be similar, too!

    Democracy is fine as long as the plutocrats can win. If not, then “No Fair!”

  98. 98.

    rikyrah

    Lawrence O’Donnell went into great detail on the Senate and why the largest Democratic PAC is not funding Senate campaigns and looking to fund HRC at their own peril. If the Senate goes Republican right now, the President, even a HRC presidency will not be able to govern.

    http://on.msnbc.com/1dKbYG0

  99. 99.

    NotMax

    @schrodinger’s cat

    I’ve never watched the show, but will grant that cloche hats were an abomination.

    (It was also a time of a booming market in so-called “ladies’ guns” which could fit into a tiny fashionable purse.)

  100. 100.

    JPL

    @Kay: A google search shows that the Chattanooga newspaper picked up the article. MSM will ask Corker for a statement soon. haha

  102. 102.

    Certified Mutant Enemy

    When China asked the world to stop calling its capital Peking, everyone began referring to it as Beijing, as asked. And we now refer to Mumbai and Chennai, not Bombay and Madras.

    I’ve known Indians who still refer to those cities as Bombay and Madras (there’s still businesses which use those terms in their names)…

  103. 103.

    beltane

    @monkeyfister: I do give the upper class South Americans credit for their honesty. Unlike our own right-wingers, they don’t feel the need to disguise their contempt for for workers, or their feeling that the poor are vermin no different than rodents or head lice. Pope Francis is a direct rebuke to these people, and his recognition of the basic humanity of the lower classes is not just pretty words meant for the ears of wealthy North American liberals.

  104. 104.

    dr. luba

    Using RT as your main news source for things Ukrainian is questionable at best. It is a Russian government owned news outlet, and the Russian government has a line to sell when it comes to Ukraine.

    Both sides of the current “war” have bad actors. Yes, most of the opposition member are “nationalists,” but few are nationalists in the Nazi sense, more in Scottish National Party sense. They want a free, independent and democratic Ukraine. Batvishchyna is a much larger force in the opposition than Svoboda or Prayi Sektor; the former head of the party, Yulia Tymoshenko (who is a political prisoner or Yanukovych’s) and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the current head, are of Jewish extraction. Groups of volunteers from the Maidan have been patrolling and protecting synagogues in central Kyiv from the Berkut and “titushky” (plain clothes government paid thugs).

    The government forces/Berkut are thugs, and heavily antisemitic. You can see snapshots of their Facebook page (yes, Ukrainian special forces have a FB page) on Jewish Ukraine’s website.

  105. 105.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Certified Mutant Enemy: I prefer using Bombay in English and Mumbai in Marathi like it has always been called. Changing Bombay to Mumbai was the idea of the loathsome Shiv Sena, a regional party in the state of Maharashtra, where Bombay/Mumbai is.

    P.S. My family are native Mumbaikars, both my grandfathers worked for Bombay’s Port Authority, BPT or Bombay Port Trust.

  108. 108.

    Cervantes

    @Davis X. Machina:

    Those are the ones with the wherewithal to get to Miami. They may not be the sum and substance of the opposition. I suppose the gentleman in the photo could be living on subventions from the 1%-ers wired in from Coral Gables….

    Yes, he could also be on someone’s payroll.

  109. 109.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @dr. luba:

    FYI, the “the” is a legacy of Russian imperialism.

    The British [and the US] have that bit of history, and that construction with the definite article, in much of their former sphere of influence as well: “The Japans”, “The Sudan”, “The Dardanelles”, etc., etc.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  111. 111.

    dr. luba

    @Gin & Tonic: In Russian and Ukrainian it’s true they don’t have articles like “the,” but the difference is manifested in other ways, namely through prepositions.

    In Russian when they say “на Украине” as opposed to the correct “в Украине” when stating that someone or something is “in Ukraine.” The former indicates that Ukraine is a region, rather than an independent state. In Ukraine the usage is, of course, the opposite.

  112. 112.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Gin & Tonic:

    The “the” of “The Ukraine” is sort of making an entire country “generic”. It’s “the borderland” you know…of that big bully to the East, and I don’t just mean Vlad Putin, although he is a bully.

    “Ukraine” is obviously a bit less generic, but either way, it’s Ukraine’s lot in life to be defined in reference to Russia, not on its own. I have no solution for them, other than to pick up the entire country and move to Australia.

  113. 113.

    Chris

    @beltane:

    Thanks for that. I too live in Miami, so I’ve heard some pro-demonstrator stuff in the last day or two, but some of it’s from people who, short version, I would not trust to choose the right side in World War fucking Two, let alone any other conflict involving a hint of left wing populism. OTOH, some of it’s been from people who’re fairly leftie themselves and sympathetic to causes like Chavez’s most of the time. Suspect the sight of cops fighting demonstrators may trigger OWS memories…

  115. 115.

    beltane

    @Cervantes: The Venezuelans are not refugees like the Cubans. There was an election, not a revolution. Just because someone owns a home in Miami (not so expensive in the years immediately following the real estate crash) doesn’t mean they don’t travel back and forth regularly or have family still living in Venezuela, etc..

  116. 116.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Certified Mutant Enemy: Yeah Shiv Sena got the bandwagon rolling in the 90s and dozens of Indian cities have been renamed since, it is heard to keep track of the new names and frequently the old names are still used.
    In the cesspool of Indian politics, Anglicized names are sometimes less political than the local names. English is neutral, now that Brits are gone.

  117. 117.

    Chris

    @beltane:

    I feel the same way when looking at the far right in France on social issues. At least they don’t bother hiding it with all this pious fucking bullshit about loving sinners and hating sins – it pretty much begins and ends with “God hates fagz.”

    Then again, the way things are going, the American elites are looking more and more like South American ones every day. When the deaths of people without health insurance makes you cheer…

  118. 118.

    NotMax

    @Amir Khalid

    Reminded of a cartoon from way back depicting the inside of a white-collar prison.

    Bunch of well-dressed gents banging their glasses on the table in protest, captioned “Yadda-yadda! Let the warden drink these martinis!”

  119. 119.

    celticdragonchick

    @Cassidy:

    When you have a bunch of entitled suburban liberals calling this country a police state when we have perfectly good examples of what really happens in a real police state, it’s so fucking offensive that it makes me want to vomit.

    Maybe you missed some of those pix from the militarized lockdown in Boston, or the numerous police beatings and assaults on Occupy across the country (here in Chapel Hill, NC a SWAT team used submachineguns as clubs to beat non resisting occupiers and members of the press at a long abandoned car dealership)..So yeah, I think a case can be made that we have become a ‘soft’ police state where you will be beaten, charged with assaulting the officer who beat you and put onto a no-fly list and have your attorney/client conversations listened to if you think about getting “uppity”. The banksters are not playing around, and they have paid for the best security money can buy. Don’t believe me? Ask the press members who were threatened with arrested for trying to get footage near BP property during the oil spill. The local sheriff said he had been ordered to arrest photographers and press members by BP…

  121. 121.

    beltane

    @Chris: Most Americans, including progressives, have no clue about political conditions in the rest of the world. Just because someone is protesting their government doesn’t mean they automatically deserve our support.

  122. 122.

    schrodinger's cat

    @dr. luba: No, Shiv Sena is not responsible for all the name changes. They just got the ball rolling and inspired a lot of copycats. I doubt that BJP is behind the name changes in the south. AFAIK, BJP has no support in the south with exception of Karnataka
    As for Kolkata/Calcutta, I doubt that BJP is responsible for that either, they are not a major party in West Bengal, its the Communists who are strong there.

  126. 126.

    Chris

    @beltane:

    Most of these people (both kinds) either weren’t American or weren’t born that way, even if they’ve lived here for a while. Like I said: I take anti-Chavista sentiment with a grain of salt, but the MSM’s been very successful at spreading its memes into conventional wisdom. (Exactly why I’m suspicious whenever it pops up).

  127. 127.

    Cervantes

    @beltane:

    The Venezuelans are not refugees like the Cubans. There was an election, not a revolution. Just because someone owns a home in Miami (not so expensive in the years immediately following the real estate crash) doesn’t mean they don’t travel back and forth regularly or have family still living in Venezuela, etc..

    Sorry, I have no idea how the above is related to anything I said.

    (Which, by the way, was simply this: many protestors in Caracas were, and are, on someone’s payroll.)

  128. 128.

    Kay

    @JPL:

    A google search shows that the Chattanooga newspaper picked up the article. MSM will ask Corker for a statement soon. haha

    He’s such an idiot. He inserted himself in that on orders from his DC overlords and now everything that happens is his.

    I don’t know that he can race to the bottom any faster. Maybe he should commit to paying their employees out of state tax revenue. This absolute on-your-knees deference to business interests has no bottom. It’s endless. It only goes in one direction, down.

  129. 129.

    Cervantes

    @Chris:

    I ask because I tend to be suspicious of U.S. media coverage [that] his opposition was simply a matter of being “pro-democracy” (including the ones who’d supported the 2002 coup).

    Do you remember the infamous NYT editorial?

  130. 130.

    beltane

    @Cervantes: Sorry, I was partially responding to another comment that seemed to imply that the Venezuelans living in Miami were the well-off vanguard of some mass exodus from the country. Well before Chavez there were Venezuelans living or vacationing in Florida.

  131. 131.

    dr. luba

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    The “the” of “The Ukraine” is sort of making an entire country “generic”. It’s “the borderland” you know.

    Yes, but they’re kind of stuck with that name now, since Muscovy stole their original name of “Rus.”

  134. 134.

    Cervantes

    @Certified Mutant Enemy:

    I’ve known Indians who still refer to those cities as Bombay and Madras (there’s still businesses which use those terms in their names)…

    Yes, some people make a point of not kowtowing to nationalists — which may take a certain amount of bravery.

  135. 135.

    Rafer Janders

    @dr. luba:

    FYI, the “the” is a legacy of Russian imperialism.

    The Russian language does not have a “the” definite article, so it can’t be a legacy. It was only ever called “the” Ukraine in English, not in Russian, where such a phrasing is grammatically impossible.

  137. 137.

    sparrow

    @Gypsy Howell: Thanks for sending me off on a wiki-tangent… I just discovered that there is such a thing as face-blindness! I have long suspected I had that, and now I’m kind of freaking out… it would explain a lot of my social awkwardness problems as I just *don’t* recognize people even after I’ve met them several times. Huh.

  138. 138.

    Rafer Janders

    @dr. luba:

    When China asked the world to stop calling its capital Peking, everyone began referring to it as Beijing, as asked. And we now refer to Mumbai and Chennai, not Bombay and Madras

    I assume you also use Roma, Firenze, Milano and Venezia instead of Rome, Florence, Milan and Venice? That you refer to Den Haag and Muenchen and Koeln instead of The Hague and Munich and Cologne? That you travel to Deutschland, Espana, Italia and Hellas instead of Germany, Spain, Italy and Greece? That you pronounce Paris as “Paree”?

  139. 139.

    Cervantes

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    As for Kolkata/Calcutta, I doubt that BJP is responsible for that either, they are not a major party in West Bengal, its the Communists who are strong there.

    It’s an audio-optical illusion. The Brits anglicized the old Bengali name,”Kolkata,” thus: “Calcutta” — but they pronounced it in the Bengali way, more or less, and so no one was overly annoyed. But once an American pronunciation began to dominate (second half of the last century), it was far enough from the Bengali to cause consternation, and so it was decided that to clarify things, “Calcutta” would be no more.

  140. 140.

    Cacti

    Good thing those Ukrainians and Venezuelans don’t live in a real police state, like the USA. Otherwise, they’d be even deader.

  141. 141.

    ericblair

    @Rafer Janders:

    The Russian language does not have a “the” definite article, so it can’t be a legacy. It was only ever called “the” Ukraine in English, not in Russian, where such a phrasing is grammatically impossible.

    Yeah, dr luba explained it well upstream: there’s a difference in preposition usage in Russian and Ukrainian that has the same connotations. Of course, that distinction is not really possible to express in English, since the preposition “constellation” is so different a dictionary’s basically useless. Languages are fun.

  144. 144.

    celticdragonchick

    @Cassidy:

    Well, as you are blowing your self righteous chunks, try not to get any on the bodies of Kelly Thomas (beaten to death by Fullerton PD, officers acquitted), Robin Pratt (murdered by Deputy Anthony Alston in bad tip raid, officer never charged despite grand jury recommendation) and the thousands and thousands of other Americans who are systematically deprived of life and liberty by a system laughably predicated on “rights”.

    From law blog Popehat:

    There are multiple classes of people, but it boils down to the connected, and the not connected. Just as in pre-Revolutionary France, there is a very strict class hierarchy, and the very idea that we are equal before the law is a laughable nonsequitr.

    Jamal the $5 weed slinger, Shaneekwa the hair braider, and Loudmouth Bob in the 7-11 parking lot are at the bottom of the hierarchy. They can, literally, be killed with impunity … as long as the dash cam isn’t running. And, hell, half the time they can be killed even if the dash cam is running. This isn’t hyperbole, mother-fucker. This is literal. Question me and I’ll throw 400 cites and 20 youtube clips at you.

    Next up from Shaneekwa and Loudmouth Bob are us regular peons. We can have our balls squeezed at the airport, our rectums explored at the roadside, our cars searched because the cops got permission from a dog (I owe some Reason intern a drink for that one), our telephones tapped (because terrorism!), our bank accounts investigated (because FinCEN! and no expectation of privacy!). We don’t own the house we live in, not if someone of a higher social class wants it. We don’t own our own financial lives, because the education accreditation / student loan industry / legal triumvirate have declared that we can never escape – even through bankruptcy – our $200,000 debt that a bunch of adults convinced a can’t-tell-his-ass-from-a-hole-in-the-ground 18 year old that (a) he was smart enough to make his own decisions, and (b) college is a time to explore your interests and broaden yourself). And if there’s a “national security emergency” (defined as two idiots with a pressure cooker), then the constitution is suspended, martial law is declared, and people are hauled out of their homes…

    …to every drug court judge who sends 22 year olds to jail for pot…while high on Quaalude and vodka because she’s got some fucking personal tragedy and no one understands her pain, to every cop who’s anally raped a citizen under color of law, to every other cop who’s intentionally triggered a “drug” dog because the guy looked guilty, to every politician who goes on moral crusades while barebacking prostitutes and money laundering the payments… to every cop who has 50 state concealed carry even while the serfs are disarmed, to every politician, judge, or editorial-writer who has ever used the phrase “first amendment zone” non-ironically: this is how the system is designed to work.

    The system is not fixable because it is not broken. It is working, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to give the insiders their royal prerogatives, and to shove the regulations, the laws, and the debt up the asses of everyone else.

    Burn it to the ground.

    Burn it to the ground.

    Burn it to the ground.

    But do carry on with your bout of self induced nausea.

  145. 145.

    Cervantes

    @Rafer Janders: To be fair, the point was not that local names must always be used in English; it was that local names ought to be respected if the locals are asking us to.

  146. 146.

    Rafer Janders

    @dr. luba:

    When China asked the world to stop calling its capital Peking, everyone began referring to it as Beijing, as asked.

    Excuse me, but the name of the country is Zhōng Guó, not “China”.

  147. 147.

    dr. luba

    @Rafer Janders: Not the same thing. Has Italy officially asked people to stop calling it Florence and go with Firenze?

    Kiev is the Anglicization of the Russian name of the city. Kyiv is the Anglicization of the Ukrainian name.

    It is more equivalent, say to referring to calling Gdansk Danzig.

  148. 148.

    Rafer Janders

    @Cervantes:

    To be fair, the point was not that local names must always be used in English; it was that local names ought to be respected if the locals are asking us to.

    But in most of those places, the locals would prefer that the real names in their real languages be used, not the fake names we’ve made up in English.

  149. 149.

    Rafer Janders

    @dr. luba:

    Has Italy officially asked people to stop calling it Florence and go with Firenze?

    ITALIANS officially call it Firenze and not Florence. Why can’t you respect their choice? Do you need a formal invitation?

  150. 150.

    Cacti

    @Rafer Janders:

    Or that you’d love to visit Wien in Oesterreich and Genf in die Schweiz rather than Vienna in Austria or Geneva in Switzerland?

    Or that you’re planning on a trip to the famous Oktoberfest in Munchen, the capital of Bayern, rather than Munich, in Bavaria.

  151. 151.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Cervantes: Are you Bengali, by an chance? Changing names does not change history, renaming cities does not change the fact that a tiny country ruled over India with impunity for well over a hundred years. Calcutta to Kolkatta is one of the more ridiculous name changes in my opinion. YMMV.
    Bombay, Madras and Calcutta are essentially British creations, chosen because of their locations on the coasts to be commercial hubs for the global British trade. They were insignificant villages before the British took interest in them. For example, Bombay was a set of 7 tiny villages, ignored by both the Marathas and the Portuguese. Vasai which is near Bombay, was considered more important, strategically.

  152. 152.

    Suffern ACE

    @beltane: Yep. Sometimes it is enough for us to just try to determine if our government is backing anyone at all and try to get them to stop. I would not be surprised if the CIA were backing the protestors in both instances, however. Not that they are, but I would not be surprised, even though whether or not Ukraine is more closely aligned with Russia or the EU/Nato and whether or not CITCO spends its money on housing or electric plants is really kind of inconsequential to me.

  153. 153.

    ericblair

    Personally, I’m not that upset that the Russians call our capital Vashington. Place names are different in different languages due to pronunciation and language drift, historical fuckups, and politics. Most of the time nobody cares, sometimes they do. It’s complicated. For more details, consult your friendly neighborhood State Department protocol desk. Can we move on now?

  155. 155.

    Cervantes

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Are you Bengali? Changing names does not change history, renaming cities does not change the fact that a tiny country ruled over India with impunity for well over a hundred years. Calcutta to Kolkatta is one of the more ridiculous name changes in my opinion. YMMV.

    Am I Bengali? Sheesh. Relax already. Someone asked who changed “Calcutta” (back) to “Kolkata.” I explained that it was the locals who did it, to preserve and fortify the long-standing local pronunciation and not because of a political demand issued by the BJP. (You, too, doubted the BJP had anything to do with it.)

    If you saw me claim that changing names is tantamount to changing history or some such twaddle, then kindly show me where.

  157. 157.

    Cervantes

    @Rafer Janders:

    But in most of those places, the locals would prefer that the real names in their real languages be used, not the fake names we’ve made up in English.

    Prefer, shmefer! If they tell me to use some original, non-Anglicized name, I happily do so. It’s simply courteous.

  158. 158.

    Steeplejack

    @Gin & Tonic:

    No, but “the Ukraine” used to be common, or at least accepted, until the country itself clarified things in 1991.

    I have always liked “the Argentine.”

  160. 160.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Cervantes

    :Am I Bengali? Sheesh. Relax already.

    I meant it as a compliment. Most Bengalis, I have encountered love to argue.

    If you saw me claim that changing names is tantamount to changing history or some such twaddle, then kindly show me where.

    I said nothing of the kind. I was referring to the people behind the name changes, not you.

  162. 162.

    Cassidy

    @celticdragonchick: There are thousands upon thousands of people from Latin America and former Soviet Bloc nations who would like to have a word with you about context and the definitions of words, specifically not making up your own because you know fuck all about what you’re talking about.

  163. 163.

    Cervantes

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    :Am I Bengali? Sheesh. Relax already.

    I meant it as a compliment. Most Bengalis, I have encountered love to argue.

    Well, I’m intimately familiar with Tagore and Sufia Kamal and Amartya Sen. Does that count?

    If you saw me claim that changing names is tantamount to changing history or some such twaddle, then kindly show me where.

    I said nothing of the kind. I was referring to the people behind the name changes, not you.

    Super, except in the case of Kolkata — the only one I discussed — they weren’t (as far as I know) involved in the BJP project of Restoring Greatness.

  164. 164.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Cervantes: BJP has not been behind many of the names changes. Kolkatta, Calcutta seems like nitpicking, but whatever floats their boat. I don’t even know what we are arguing about, so I will now go outside and play in the snow.

    P.S. I don’t care much for the BJP, in case it was not clear. They are by far the worst major political party in India. I wish for the times when they used to win 1 or 2 seats in the Loksabha (Indian version of the House of Commons)

  165. 165.

    BobS

    @some guy: Daniel Larison at The American Conservative has had some interesting posts as well. Two other good sources of news and analysis are the Moon of Alabama blog and the Global Research website.

  169. 169.

    catclub

    @beltane: “someone owns a home in Miami (not so expensive in the years immediately following the real estate crash)”

    Why do I think that anyone who does is certainly in the top 1% of he Venezuelan economy?
    Maybe that is outdated understanding of their economic development.

  171. 171.

    PurpleGirl

    @Amir Khalid: He does? Or he’ll go on a hunger strike?…. I don’t think most Norwegians will care about a hunger strike. He’s lucky the Norwegian system gives him the stuff he gets now. If he were in the US, he’d get maybe an hour of sunlight a day in a yard without gym equipment or contact with other prisoners. And his cell would have a stainless steel bunk, a stainless steel sink and toilet. There might have a table and chair, but no sofa.

  172. 172.

    celticdragonchick

    @Cassidy:

    And there are millions (yes, millions) of people in jail cells right here who would no doubt like to have a word with you and your self righteous indignation. But bravo…well and truly sniveled on your part.

    Fun fact: the United States has 5% of the world population and 25% of all the world’s prisoners. We are number one in raw numbers of prisoners and number one in population percentage held in prisons.

    In fact, the only country that beats us in historical terms is the Soviet Union under Stalin, but please keep telling me I have no fucking clue what I am talking about. I do enjoy hearing that from people like you.

  173. 173.

    Bob In Portland

    If you don’t realize that these uprisings have been fueled by your tax dollars, then you haven’t been paying attention for the last half century.

    The “rebels” in Ukraine are organized around the old fascist OUN/B who in WWII were in the Waffen SS. These folks’ parents and grandparents were the Nazi helpers who exterminated the Jews in the region, probably the only reason why anti-Semitism isn’t more visible in the demonstrations (although anti-Semites always seem to find a Jew behind something). After WWII they continued to fight a guerrilla war against Soviets into the early fifties under the Gehlen Org, which by then had been absorbed into the CIA. Like in Georgia, many of the reactionary leaders were trained by US “pro democracy” units, like the NED.

    Anyone who thinks American hands are clean in this region should look up Ruslan Tsarni and Graham Fuller.

  176. 176.

    Bob In Portland

    Remember, two of those three hitchhikers who strolled into Iran were hanging around in Yemen and Syria a couple years before all hell broke loose there. I suspect they’re Johnny Appleseeds for the CIA.

  177. 177.

    helping hand

    @Bob In Portland:

    probably the only reason why anti-Semitism isn’t more visible in the demonstrations

    They’re doing their best to stay on message:

    But keeping extremists out of a self-professed extremist group is, he admits, not always easy. Some Pravy Sektor members have been spotted wearing neo-Nazi symbols.

    “Of course, it is difficult to control everyone,” he says. “I know one guy who’s got ‘14/88’ [a symbol referring to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf] painted on his shield. But we’re trying to purge them. We are a highly disciplined organization.”

    And, yes, this is their best:

    “If you ask me which is better, Russia or the EU, I’d go with the EU – Russia is a tyrannical empire,” he says. “But we don’t think everything’s okay with the EU. We are Christians, and we share Christian values, and we don’t want the things we see in the EU, such as the idea that gays should have the same rights as everyone.”

    http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/ultra-right-wing-movement-has-become-sharp-edge-of-ukraine-protests/article16761189?service=mobile

  179. 179.

    Cassidy

    @celticdragonchick: Well, that’s good. I have all the time in the world to tell you what a pretentious twit you are. Be sure to let us know when the gov’t agents come to get you for expressing your opinion on a blog since we live in such a horrible police state.

  180. 180.

    Joey Giraud

    @Cassidy:

    What a scheisskopf‎ you are.

    Just because you failed the exam to be a head-busting SWAT commando, doesn’t mean there aren’t head-busting SWAT commandos in America.

  182. 182.

    Rafer Janders

    @Cervantes:

    Prefer, shmefer! If they tell me to use some original, non-Anglicized name, I happily do so. It’s simply courteous.

    If I’m speaking French, I say “Pa-ree.” If English, “Pa-ris”. If I’m speaking German, it’s “Bare-leen”. If English, “Ber-lin”. Etc.etc. People can of course tell me how to pronounce it in their own language, but in English, I’ll go with the commonly-accepted English pronunciation and/or word.

  184. 184.

    celticdragonchick

    @Cassidy:

    What do you have here?

    Seriously…what is your evidence to refute ours?

    I can show you over one hundred years of armed government force being used against left wing populist movements from the Ludlow Colorado massacre of 1914 to the Oakland police beating people and cracking skulls during Occupy.

    Rightwing nutjobs showing up with loaded AR-15 rifles and signs threatening insurrection??

    Not a fucking peep from the police or the banksters who call the shots.

    You want facts on incarceration rates? We have them. You want SWAT team daily use stats for non violent warrants? We can get that also. Coordinated suppression of African Americans, Latinos and poor whites? This stuff is documented every fucking day. We just don’t pay attention any more because…bread and fucking circuses.

    Pictures of SWAT guys in dystopic sci fi gear beating the shit out of people doesn’t even make the news anymore. SCOTUS dismemberment of the 4th Amendment and allowing law enforcement to shoot the shit out of people (and prosecute survivors for trying to defend their family, natch!) when they break into the wrong house, fer chrissakes? Yawn.

    All you can do is say that we are not as bad as other countries that don’t hide the abuse as well as we do.

    That is one fucking low bar, dontchathink?

  185. 185.

    Joey Giraud

    @Cassidy:

    Yeah, stupid people pull out the stupid word all the time.

    This isn’t a matter of intelligence, you idiot. It’s a matter of judgment. Your’s sucks.

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