Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

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

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

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Let’s finish the job.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

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

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Please don’t feed the bears.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: Brown Bagging It

Reader Interactions

162Comments

  3. 3.

    Poopyman

    According to the Raw Story article he’s both, having lifted the story and then lying about where it came from.

  4. 4.

    Linnaeus

    I’m not normally one for armchair psychology, but I’m wondering if this guy’s a sociopath.

  5. 5.

    Samuel Knight

    Standard playbook, just make up stuff and pander to the nutbase biases.

    Jack Kemp did it, he learned the lesson and is doing the exact same thing.

    Will the other side be willing to just use the word “lie” and call him on it?

    He’s an easy punching bag, highly recommend just laughing at it. Since it’s a pathetic joke treat it as one.

  6. 6.

    Belafon

    Actually, Ryan’s allowed to lie because the Noah movie isn’t historically accurate.

  7. 7.

    japa21

    Actually, it looks like he wasn’t totally a liar. The person who he says told him the story actually testified before his committee on food stamps and did repeat the story. She is actually the plagiarist. However, as the Washington Post points out, if you are giving a major address you better be sure of what you are saying.

    Of courser, it is possible that he actually knew where the story came from and knew not only that it was false but also that it was used as an argument for school lunches and food stamps. But he wouldn’t let an opportunity to feed the belly of the beast that is CPAC pass by.

  10. 10.

    dubo

    According to the WaPo, Ryan’s “source,” Eloise Anderson, actually did tell this story – she’s the plagiarist.

  11. 11.

    dmsilev

    It doesn’t matter. He’s still a Serious Policy Person who Cares About The Poor.

    Because reasons.

  12. 12.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    This is the politician’s equivalent of those right wing chain emails that go around.

  13. 13.

    Chris

    Paul Ryan is a plagarist and/or liar. Republican does bad thing. But it’s all OK because Obama’s book wasn’t 100% true. both sides do it, and Democrats are worse.

    They’re getting as tiresome and predictable as ever.

  14. 14.

    Chris

    @japa21:

    Of courser, it is possible that he actually knew where the story came from and knew not only that it was false but also that it was used as an argument for school lunches and food stamps. But he wouldn’t let an opportunity to feed the belly of the beast that is CPAC pass by.

    I remember reading a theory about Birthers that said that for some of them, whether Obama actually faked his birth certificate or not was irrelevant: it was the kind of thing he would do, whether or not he’d actually done it, because he’s a sneaky underhanded lying cheating… you know.

  16. 16.

    NonyNony

    @Linnaeus:

    I’m not normally one for armchair psychology, but I’m wondering if this guy’s a sociopath.

    Let’s see, what’s the definition of a sociopath? The dictionary definition is:

    a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.

    He may or may not be a sociopath from a clinical perspective, but it certainly appears to my eyes that he’s at least had his conscience surgically removed at some point (if he ever had one).

    Of course, that seems to be a requirement to be a Republican politician these days.

  17. 17.

    geg6

    @Linnaeus:

    You’re still wondering about that? I’ve been convinced for years now. IMHO, anyone who reveres that hypocritical psychopath Ayn Rand is either stupid, a psychopath or a sociopath. Or all of the above. What they aren’t are normal people.

  19. 19.

    MomSense

    @geg6:

    IMHO, anyone who reveres that hypocritical psychopath Ayn Rand is either stupid, a psychopath or a sociopath. Or all of the above.

    Or a 12 year old boy who likes the poorly written sexy bits. Hopefully they grow up and leave Rand behind. The ones who don’t become US congresscritters or Wall St. Journal op ed writers.

  20. 20.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @SRW1: Pat Robertson is the kind of person who would have bought Jesus’s toenail clippings from a traveling salesman in the Middle Ages

  21. 21.

    RuhRow_Gyro

    That is so sweet that she puts his food in a brown bag and now he knows someone really cares.

  22. 22.

    Shakezula

    Well let’s see. To begin with, the original story was about a homeless child so his take was already wrong. And he uses this story to claim that it is better for kids not to eat at all, if their parents can’t show their love by making enough money to pay for lunch (while he works to make sure said parents can’t earn a living wage).

    I put all my chips on #3 – Crazy assed liar.

  24. 24.

    kindness

    Integrity is not one of Paul Ryan’s virtues. That the MSM doesn’t go head on Jon Stewart with anything that comes out of Ryan’s mouth just goes to show that the MSM is complicit in the scam most the time.

  26. 26.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    Republicans have to plagiarize or synthesize their anecdotes about the poor because none of them have actually spoken with a poor person since the Great Depression.

  27. 27.

    Linnaeus

    @NonyNony: @geg6:

    I’m just often reluctant to throw around terms like “sociopath” too loosely. Maybe he’s not one, at least not clinically as NonyNony suggests. Socially, though, his policy prescriptions are functionally sociopathic.

  28. 28.

    burnspbesq

    There is a new record out this week on Deutsche Grammophon of the Copenhagen Philharmonic playing new orchestral works by Bryce Dessner (of The National) and an orchestral suite derived from the soundtrack of the film “There Will Be Blood,” composed by Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead).

    If you care at all about the current state of “classical music,” this is a must-hear. These guys may make their money on rock, but they are both major talents as composers.

  29. 29.

    danielx

    But it’s all good because it totally proves that Paul Ryan reads books.

    And that proves that he is a Very Serious Person.

  30. 30.

    BubbaDave

    I guess we should cancel our liberal plans to have hordes of roaming “urban” youth (IYKWIMAITYD) knock down school kids and steal their brown bag lunches to force them into a life of cafeteria dependency. Curse you, Paul Ryan, for discovering our evil plot and having the courage to boldly reveal the truth!

  31. 31.

    Highway Rob

    (1) Conservative tells false story.

    (2) Non-crazy-person demonstrates that the story is false.

    (3) “So what if this story is false, what matters is that it could be true.”

    Repeat as necessary.

  32. 32.

    Belafon

    I propose a brown-bag tax credit. Keep your receipts as you buy your kids’ lunches, all those brown bags you buy may save you money on next year’s tax returns.

  33. 33.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @kindness:
    As a class – and they are a social group, mixing primarily with each other – national journalists seem to be Reagan Democrats. They know that they’re basically liberal but the country is basically conservative and that really the way you help poor people is by gutting the safety net so they’ll learn character, and that Obama guy, he just doesn’t seem relatable, and how can we be safe from the Evil Empire without a cowboy to stare the bad guys down? Oh, and since most of them are rich, it’s clear to them that rich people are just better than poor people and should get preferential treatment and constant praise.

  34. 34.

    MattF

    @Just Some Fuckhead: I think there’s a lot of truth to this. Ryan has a whole spectrum of behaviors that draw from the winger-universe. It’s his repertoire. And the whole set of responses that start out with “Well, y’know, none of this is actually true” is just irrelevant.

  35. 35.

    maya

    Next, Ryan will propose a program where homeless schoolkids will get their lunches in an Ayn Rand lunch box. But, instead of actual food inside it will contain selected passages from her many, many, fine books.
    I loved my Hopalong Cassidy lunch box with its thermos full of Topper pee.

  36. 36.

    Chyron HR

    I recommend the Republicans re-re-rebrand themselves as the “brown baggers” and wear lunch bags over their heads. It could only help their electoral chances.

  37. 37.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @dmsilev: He’s also a budget hawk fiscal conservative who voted to put two wars on the national credit card and wants us to get Serious about Entitlements. Also, too, his history as a marathon runner, the story of his hard luck childhood, having an after school job, the Janesville Ford plant. The man has a long history as a careful half-truther.

    He’s still just the sort of young man Bob Schieffer and Cokie Roberts wish their daughters could bring home.

  40. 40.

    Petorado

    This is silly to bring this up, but contrary to Ryan’s fairy tale, kids in the lunchroom would more likely say that the kids with the Lunchables in the brown paper bag has the parents that don’t care, while the kid who has the cash to get a burger and fries from the cafeteria has the parents who do. So that’s my contrary annecdata to Ryan’s version.

  41. 41.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @MattF: When you tell them it isn’t true – and I do with relatives and Facebook friends – they reply that this or that tangential claim may be questionable but it illustrates a larger truth they believe in.

  43. 43.

    Violet

    @David Hunt:

    What? Next you’ll be telling me he didn’t run a 2 hour marathon!

    Don’t forget all those fourteeners in Colorado that he climbed.

  44. 44.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Petorado:

    Actually, yes.

    When I was growing up, it was definitely not cool to be a brown bagger. Even if you were brown bagging with a Beatles lunchbox. What was cool was eating whatever the lunch lady was serving up.

  45. 45.

    GregB

    Paul Ryan and the GOP have inspired me to go and slap the trays of food out of the hands of these freeloading young urchins.

    They should be force to mop the floors wearing Gingrich 2016 t-shirts if they want any of my tax dollar supported food handouts.

  47. 47.

    maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor

    @Linnaeus:

    I’m not normally one for armchair psychology, but I’m wondering if this guy’s a sociopath.

    I favor a Shaker rocker rather than an armchair, but the answer is “yes.”

  48. 48.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: That WSJ douchebag did sum up the Paul Ryan-GOP stance on poverty: Stop being poor. Health care: Don’t get sick.

    The sad part is that segment could have been run at any point in the last five years.

  49. 49.

    Belafon

    @Violet: Any time I read that I think of William H. Macy’s character in Jurassic Park III, though I tend to hope the spinosaurus catches him.

  53. 53.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @MomSense:

    Aha!

    and that Wall St. Journal guy is an ignoranus.

    I see what you did there! It took me a second reading, but, by golly, I see it now!

  55. 55.

    jibeaux

    Of course he’s a sociopath. These days, conservatism isn’t a political philosophy, it’s an entry in the DSM-IV.

  56. 56.

    geg6

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Totally agree. It was the most embarrassing thing in the world to bring lunch to school. You ate the cafeteria food or were considered weird forever more. At least until high school, where it was cool to skip the cafeteria and go off campus to the local Burger King and Arby’s.

    I don’t think the kids in my old high school are allowed to leave campus for lunch anymore. It could be because my generation often never came back from lunch. We were too stoned to make it back.

  59. 59.

    Violet

    @geg6: This was how it was in my schools too, although we did have a “bring your own lunch day” from time to time and everyone had lunchboxes. I brought my lunch in high school because, as you said, it wasn’t cool to eat in the cafeteria. Although they did put in a salad bar and then it became cool for the cheerleaders and other popular girls to eat a teensy salad at lunch.

  60. 60.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Violet:

    Well, one of them gets eaten by a dinosaur.

    Well, not one of the principles, of course, but one of the bit players.

    No speaking part extras are of course known as “hors d’oeuvres”

  61. 61.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Two days after a poll shows that John McCain is the least respected Senator in the country, after a week of everyone who knows anything about the region saying that everything he says about Russia/Ukraine is remarkably and dangerously ignorant, when a cursory review of the last ten years confirms that ignorance and underscores his hypocrisy, Time Magazine is touting a “Newsmaker Interview” with the man Andrew Sullivan is now calling “the buffoon from Arizona”. I guess he needed a dry run for his lines for this two or three Sunday Show exclusives this week.

  62. 62.

    D58826

    Given all the love he is getting at CPAC and from the GOP, will Putin be invited to speak? Or maybe he will be in the 2016 presidential front runner. He certainly looks better shirtless than Christie!

  64. 64.

    Violet

    @D58826: Speaking of Christie, I saw a few minutes of the Today Show this morning and they showed a clip of Christie at CPAC. He said something like, “If we’re going to be the party of pro-life, we need to care for the babies both in the womb and after they leave the womb.” Interesting… Was in another room so didn’t catch if they showed how well that was received by the audience. Anyone know?

  65. 65.

    chopper

    the problem in these guys’ minds isn’t as much that kids are getting free lunches, it’s that the kids’ parents don’t feel sufficiently guilty about their kids getting free lunches. they are supposed to feel horrible, like leeches ruining things for everyone else. you know, like worthless assholes who should just up and die and ‘reduce the surplus population’.

    truth is, somewhere there’s a parent of a kid getting a free lunch who doesn’t get down on their knees every morning and beg forgiveness from paul ryan for being a ‘taker’. and that gives paul ryan a sad.

  66. 66.

    Mararama

    @Villago Delenda Est: When I grew up, bringing lunch from home wasn’t any particular stigma, but I envied all the girls with the pretty lunch boxes. Only brown bags for our family of six! And mom wasn’t any too fancy about what she packed. Mom allowed us one “hot lunch” per week. We studied the menu like detectives to pick the best stuff, which back in the sixties was usually a hamburger and jello with a little dollop of whipped cream. Bringing lunch in a brown bag was no badge of honor, that’s for sure.

  69. 69.

    Someguy

    No comments on the Senate Rapeublicans shooting down Gillibrand’s bill to force the military to take sexual assault at least as serious as budget cut threats or annual service academy football games? Huh.

  70. 70.

    BGK

    So yesterday there was a serious (seriously!) discussion here on requiring gun owners to have liability insurance. This happened in Florida, making my brane hurt: Florida House Moves Ahead On Insurance Gun Bill.

    The shorter: House and Senate committees passed bills barring “discrimination” against gun owners by homeowners insurance carriers by prohibiting the carriers from dropping coverage or changing different premiums of gun owners.

    So I guess the insurers will get to eat the liability suits, and like it.

    So, my coverage can by dropped, or refused, based on the kind of dog I own, but not on my personal arsenal.

  72. 72.

    Belafon

    @Violet: It was a pretty good version, as a trilogy goes, they were all pretty good.

    The premise of this one is that the son of this couple, the Kirbys (played by Macy and Tea Leoni) is trapped on the island from the second movie. They hire the paleontologist from the first movie, Grant (played again by Sam Neill), to help them search the island for their son, though they don’t tell him this at the beginning. Instead, they say that Kirby is a wealthy businessman whose been hiking everywhere and they just want a flyover and Grant to tell them about the wildlife. In one of the scenes, Kirby is trying to put his backpack on, and is spinning around in circles trying to get to the second backpack strap, making it pretty obvious that he’s not very experienced. Ultimately they find the son and the son, parents, Grant, and Grants intern make it off the island, after being chased by a spinosaurus and velociraptors.

  73. 73.

    chopper

    @BGK:

    so i guess the insurance companies will have to raise everybody’s rates, for which floridians will blame obama.

  74. 74.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Someguy: When you’re trying to persuade people of something, passive aggressive self-righteous condescension is always the best place to start. You are a very smart person.

  76. 76.

    JPL

    Glenn Kessler gave Paul four pinocchios and gave Wonkette some credit. I still think that Obama shares the blame for calling Ryan a serious thinker though.

  77. 77.

    maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor

    @jibeaux: Ryan’s a particularly interesting creature, though. He’s an instrumental liar, as all politicians are, and he’s an ambitious, which all politicians are, and he’s got a narcissistic streak, which all politicans do.

    But he lies gratuitously. He lies about anything and everything, for no good reason and in many cases when he’s clearly going to get caught. And getting caught has no discernible impact on him–not as in changing his views, which never happens, but he can’t even be bothered to pretend that he thinks getting caught means or says anything.

  78. 78.

    beltane

    @BGK: Being that insurance companies are businesses and not charities, the only logical response to this law will be for insurers to assume that ALL Florida homeowners own guns and are careless with them. The forced subsidization of Florida gun owners is soc!alism, but it’s drenched in blood so it’s OK, not like birth control coverage.

  79. 79.

    gvg

    One of the comets on that WSJ article had a good point. Besides being liars, both Ryan and Anderson are talking nonsense. What do they even MEAN by the left is only offering “a full stomach and an empty soul.” How does he come to the conclusion that the brown bag story mean SNAP programs should be cut? I got that the child in question had a mother that essentially abandoned him and wanted food AND a substitute mother in the nice lady who was taking an interest in him. There aren’t enough nice ladys who can do that though there are some. Programs like snap help more numbers even though they aren’t personal love.
    Has Ryan ever gotten to know one homeless kid and helped him? All I ever hear about is him trying to hurt the poor.

  80. 80.

    scav

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    speaking part extras are of course known as “hors d’oeuvres”

    If the producer really loved those dinosaurs or monsters, he’d have costume hand-wrap the extras in paper bags.

    Red paper bags, it goes without saying.

  82. 82.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Someguy:

    I haven’t looked at THOMAS, but I read that 10 Rethugs voted for it, and 10 Dems voted against it, so there was some bi-partisan douchbaggery involved in this.

    There are some people out there who are loathe to “interfere” with the military justice system, even when it’s painfully obvious it needs some interference.

  83. 83.

    Amir Khalid

    @JPL:
    I suspect Obama was misquoted, i.e. that he actually called Paul Ryan a “serious stinker”.

  84. 84.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @gvg:

    Has Ryan ever gotten to know one homeless kid and helped him?

    Ryan so loves the poor that he intends to starve them straight into heaven.

  86. 86.

    piratedan

    @JPL: well he’s what passes as a serious thinker on that side of the aisle simply because of lack of spittle and vitriol, which when you think about is a pretty low bar that regrettably few GOP congress critters can clear

  88. 88.

    Belafon

    @gvg: Ryan hasn’t come to any conclusion from the story that SNAP should be cut. He wants SNAP to be cut because he doesn’t want to pay for other people and thinks that this story will convince people to allow it.

  89. 89.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Violet:

    Of course, by caring for babies outside the womb he means darling white babies, not those brown and blah ones that will grow up to wear hoodies and terrorize entire neighborhoods with skittles and “thug music” played really loud.

  90. 90.

    Someguy

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist

    If condescension and snark causes you butthurt, I suspect you have difficulty reading BJ while sitting down.

  92. 92.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Belafon: Well, I think it’s time for veterans to take a stand on this.

    Male, didn’t serve, supported the war of your generation but had “other priorities”? No freedom for you, jackass.

    So sorry, Dark Lord (Vietnam) and Paul Ryan (Desert Storm). You’re fucked.

  95. 95.

    different-church-lady

    @maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor: It’s Harry Franfurt’s well-worn distinction between lying and bullshitting:

    Frankfurt argues that bullshit either can be true or can be false; hence, the bullshitter is a man or a woman whose principal aim — when uttering or publishing bullshit — is to impress the listener and the reader with words that communicate an impression favorable to the speaker, with no concern for the truth of what they’re saying. Likewise, the bullshitter is not concerned with consistency between what they’re saying at the moment, and anything they’ve previously said. Consequently, “the bullshitter is faking things, but that does not necessarily mean he gets them wrong.”.[1] He simply doesn’t care. In contrast, the liar must know the truth, of the matter under discussion, in order to better conceal it from the listener or the reader being deceived with a lie; while the bullshitter’s sole concern is personal advancement and advantage to his or her agenda; bullshit thus is a greater enemy of the truth than are lies.[2]

  96. 96.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @scav:

    Pop em out early and often, then Pop em off before they have the opportunity to sin or worse, inconvenience their betters.

    Darn tootin’! Some of them are still managing to get into college and you know what happens then. By starving them to death while they’re children we’re saving some Real American the cost of the ammunition he’d expend in standing his ground later.

  98. 98.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Cassidy:

    That too. You and I have paid for our freedom. The Dark Lord, the Marquis de Mittens and his vile spawn, and Paul Ryan? Not so much.

    They’re fucked, and they fucked themselves.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    @Violet:

    “When we say that we’re pro-life and that we’re proudly pro-life, that doesn’t mean that we’re pro-life just when that human being is in the womb,” Christie said. “We need to be pro-life when they leave the womb as well, for every step of their lives.”

    I really find the phrasing offensive, and they use this language and this frame all the time. The woman is not separate from “the womb”. If she were abortion laws wouldn’t be so difficult and we wouldn’t have been struggling over this for 150 years.

    They are completely removing the woman from the pregnancy. She disappears. You see it even in their statutes, their state laws.

    That they don’t realize this, that it doesn’t occur to them, to me means they cannot be trusted to write laws that apply to pregnant women. Fuck him. If he could write that paragraph and deliver it without realizing she’s missing, he has no business talking to me or anyone else about this. They’re not even willing to seriously grapple with it, think it through, weight the interests. She’s not even worth that.

  102. 102.

    patrick II

    I don’t really care if Ryan is lying or not. Stopping lunch programs for millions of kids because one kid wants his lunch in a brown paper bag is preposterous on its face. The sociopathology is worse than the lie.

  104. 104.

    Shakezula

    @BGK: Let the gun manufacturer vs. insurance company bidding war begin!

    If gun makers come out on top change your dog’s name to Glock or Bullet or something like that.

  106. 106.

    Elizabelle

    @cleek:

    you can’t hide your Ryan eyes…

    THAT needs to be a revolving tagline.

    Some of the others are getting to be too inside baseball, although I still laugh at the vicious jackals one. Whatever.

  108. 108.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @schrodinger’s cat: Ugh, I saw that last night and was so disgusted that he felt the need to start with Very Reasonable disclaimer that I didn’t even notice that half-wittery about arming the Syrians. What an asshole.

  109. 109.

    JustRuss

    @gvg: Indeed. Sure, it would be great if every kid had a mother who lovingly packed his lunch every morning, but cutting SNAP does nothing to make that happen. But doing nothing is cheap–in the short run at least–and fits in nicely with the conservative strategy of “If we ignore it, we can pretend it doesn’t exist”. See also warming, global.

  110. 110.

    Yatsuno

    @maya: “Their authoritah shall be respected, and they shall be numbered among the elect. And they shall strike down with a fierce vengeance all those of dark countenance who dare cross them.”

  111. 111.

    RaflW

    “He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown paper bag had someone who cared for him,” Ryan said. “This is what the left does not understand.”

    Fuck you with a red hot poker, Mister. How dare you pretend that its the left that doesn’t understand compassion. You would starve your own mother if it was “good for her soul.”

    You fucking moral black hole.

  112. 112.

    Kay

    @Violet:

    Not that he asked, but I actually find the mewling sanctimony and smarmy pity more offensive that a straight-up Right winger that shrieks about baby killers. At least those Right wingers are granting women some agency, an existence apart from “the womb”.

    The people who scare me are the Christie’s, where she simply disappears.

  113. 113.

    Suffern ACE

    I know it’s really just an attempt to drive them off the air, but I do find it amusing that the Canadian pron channels are going to need to start finding Canadian porn in order to meet their license renewals and offer closed captioning. I wonder if being an Enlgish to French porn translator pays well. We’ve got to make certain everyone understands what they’re watching.

  114. 114.

    JoyfulA

    @Belafon: You don’t get groceries in little brown paper bags anymore. You have to buy a package of brown paper bags, which is not an item covered by food stamps. So that adds another expense for poor families, and you have to be at least “lower-middle” class to afford a package of brown paper bags.

    So maybe they could update their story to “brown plastic bags”?

  115. 115.

    karen

    But it’s all OK because Obama ’s book wasn’t 100% true. Or something is black/a thug/pick one.

    FTFY

  116. 116.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    You and I have paid for our freedom.

    As did I. If my fury wasn’t exhausted I would be furious with Ryan and all of the other stay-at-homes who still imply that they’re better Americans than I am simply because I believe that all of my fellows here deserve whatever it takes from the rest of us to have a roof over their heads, full stomachs, medical care, and an education.

    ETA: Having served does not in any way make me a better citizen than anyone else.

  117. 117.

    maya

    For heaven’s sakes, they are not sociopaths. They regard themselves as socioyellowbrickroaders. Their way leads to the Wizard (Jesus Christ) who teaches all that true enlightenment, courage, intelligence and power comes from within. And, from the natural order of a free munchkin marketplace.

  120. 120.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Suffern ACE: This is because long, windy exposition is absolutely vital to every pr0n clip ever presented on the interwebs, because it’s simply impossible to understand the plot or WTF is going on without extensive backstory and explanation.

    Of course, you can tell if it’s Canadian pr0n if one of the participants is wearing a toque. An occasional “eh” is helpful as well.

  121. 121.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    This is because long, windy exposition is absolutely vital to every pr0n clip ever presented on the interwebs…

    Oh shit, there’s another thing I’ve been doing wrong. I always just wait for the crappy saxophone music.

  123. 123.

    JoyfulA

    @gvg: Ryan washed the clean dishes at a soup kitchen when he was on the campaign trail. Surely that should count for something!

  124. 124.

    maya

    @Villago Delenda Est: “Of course, you can tell if it’s Canadian pr0n if one of the participants is wearing a toque. An occasional “eh” is helpful as well. ”

    They also call a condom “aboot”.

  125. 125.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate:

    ETA: Having served does not in any way make me a better citizen than anyone else.

    Oh, I think it does make you better than Paul Ryan, particularly because you actually state that and thus deny Ryan’s unstated, but implied, point.

    Ryan has no basis to make such a claim, ever. You and I might do so, but we won’t because we learned a bit of humility in the process.

  126. 126.

    catclub

    @Villago Delenda Est: “There are some people out there who are loathe to “interfere” with the military justice system, even when it’s painfully obvious it needs some interference. ”

    So we have this system that has clearly not worked. The last thing we should allow is to try some change in that system.

    Also, it was McCaskill versus Gillibrand, as far as NPR was concerned.

  128. 128.

    RaflW

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    …that Obama guy, he just doesn’t seem relatable…

    Most of the time, this is the core of it I think. Most of the access-obsessed media hate the cool detachment and the careful analysis. He’s the “A” student they hated all through middle and high school.

    What a bunch of vain, useless turds we have in the press.

  130. 130.

    Hungry Joe

    Ryan seems to be a pathological liar, i.e., someone who’ll lie for no good reason. A wonderful passage in Manil Sura’s novel “The Death of Vishnu” (I think that’s where I read it, anyway) describes a civil servant who was such a pathological liar that he’d go to the roof of the building to eat alone because he’d lie about what he brought for lunch.

  131. 131.

    Hal

    I love that the moral of the story is that these kids are better off starving then getting a free lunch. Builds character.

  134. 134.

    RaflW

    @maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor:

    getting caught has no discernible impact on him–not as in changing his views, which never happens, but he can’t even be bothered to pretend that he thinks getting caught means or says anything.

    Well, when the sole punishment is four pinocchios (how sissy is that!?), why shouldn’t he lie like a banshee? Will it mean he won’t get on the Sunday shows? Won’t get plenty of ink from the Murdoch empire? No, of course not.

    There is no disincentive to lie, whatsoever, if you are Republican.

    (Sorry, Glenn Kessler, none of your peers cares, not one iota).

  136. 136.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @RaflW:
    ‘He just isn’t relatable’ is also how mild racism works psychologically. You never get to see how your feelings are constructed, only try to guess at them. The vast majority of the national journalist class are in high risk groups for non-frothing ‘those poor black people in their ghettos’ racism, which was a dominant theme during the time of their beloved Reagan. Those people would never put together the sentence ‘blacks are inferior’, but they will never have as good an opinion of a black male as they will of anyone else. Since they’re sure they can’t be racists, but Obama being in charge makes them uncomfortable, it must be his fault somehow.

    I will grant you that they are ALSO the kind of people who feel resentful when an actual intellect reveals them to be mindless gossips and bullshitters.

  137. 137.

    Bobby Thomson

    @JPL:

    Glenn Kessler gave Paul four pinocchios and gave Wonkette some credit.

    Which is more than TPM did. They gave Kessler 100% of the credit. For people who whine all the time about dead tree media not giving them credit, they’re doing a piss poor job of it themselves.

  138. 138.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @RaflW: (Sorry, Glenn Kessler, none of your peers cares, not one iota).

    They care as much as Kessler does, which is about as much as a sports reporter cares who writes “that was a bungled pass interference call…” about a game they’re only marginally interested in. The whole infantile language (“pinnochios”, “pants on fire”) they use for “fact checking” (the idea that “fact checking” is a subset political journalism drives me crazy) just underscores how the superficial way they view politics. Truth is as important as the lighting in a campaign commercial or the candidates wardrobe.

  141. 141.

    Bubblegum Tate

    Also on the “literary” tip, Greg Gutfield, the guy Fox News hired to be all “cool” and “conservative Daily Show-ish, has a new whining tome out called Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War on You. It’s about how too-cool-for-school liberals are evil and uncool conservatives are both their victims and their superiors.

    Thesis statement: “This bigotry toward the bland is neither harmless nor slight, but results in actual suffering, and even death.”

    Go ahead and skim through the Look Inside on Amazon. It’s…something.

  148. 148.

    burnspbesq

    @D58826:

    Or maybe he will be in the 2016 presidential front runner. He certainly looks better shirtless than Christie!

    It was one thing to call Grandpa Walnuts a native-born citizen because the Panama Canal Zone was kinda-sorta part of the united States. Applying that principle to St. Petersburg may be a bit of a stretch, unless you’re prepared to argue that St. Petersburg, Russia is really part of St. Petersburg, Florida.

  149. 149.

    Bubblegum Tate

    @Chris:

    I remember reading a theory about Birthers that said that for some of them, whether Obama actually faked his birth certificate or not was irrelevant: it was the kind of thing he would do, whether or not he’d actually done it, because he’s a sneaky underhanded lying cheating… you know.

    I encountered that sort of argument when that one girl scratched a backward “B” onto her cheek and claimed that deranged Obama supporters did it. Wingnut jumped on it right away, proclaimed it “Naziism 2.0,” and insisted that “this is what the left was, is, and always will be all about.” Man, did he get an amazing rant off.

    And then even his fellow wingnuts started saying, “Hey, you know, I don’t think her story adds up. Why is the B backward, anyway?” And he ultimately had to admit that the whole thing was a really weak attempt at a hoax. So when pressed about his earlier rant, he replied, “It’s all your fault, anyway. This is absolutely the sort of thing The Left does. Change your ways, and I won’t believe these sorts of stories anymore, but for now, I do believe them because they accurately describe you.”

    It was an amazing display. It actually left me speechless for a bit.

  150. 150.

    Bubblegum Tate

    @gvg:

    There aren’t enough nice ladys who can do that though there are some. Programs like snap help more numbers even though they aren’t personal love.

    Several months ago, I read about a report on how much aid comes from private charities vs. public assistance. The disparity was even greater than I thought:

    “Virtually every church, synagogue, and mosque in the country is now gathering up food and distributing, and all of that work that food banks do comes to 5% of the food that needy people get,” said the Bread for the World president, Reverend David Beckmann. “95% comes from school breakfasts, lunches, food stamps and WIC, so Congress can say ‘We can cut this program 5% per cent – no big deal.’ But if you cut the national nutrition programs 5%, you cancel out everything that the charitable system is doing.”

    Which kinda puts a pin in the wingers’ “private charity will pick up the slack once we cut public assistance!” balloon. Not that I expect them to deal with the facts, of course.

  151. 151.

    opiejeanne

    Could someone please explain to me what the wingers are fussing about with regard to Obama’s illegal use of Executive Orders? My God, it’s in the local weekly rag this week, which never allows this crapola but the writer squeezed it in because it was marginally about our local rep, Suzan Del Bene.

  152. 152.

    ellie

    I never bought lunch the entire 12 years I was in school. My mom made me peanut butter and jelly every day and I loved it. She always had just the right amount of peanut butter and the right amount of jelly. When I go home this summer I am going to ask her to make me one.

  153. 153.

    Trollhattan

    Paul Ryan would gladly be at the school in Salt Lake City that took away and threw out those kids’ subsidized lunches. “Gimme that lunch, you little moocher fuck!”

  154. 154.

    Trollhattan

    @ellie:

    Because this is Balloon Juice, you need to ask her for “a sammich.” Remember, now, for the rest of us.

  155. 155.

    Jebediah, RBG

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    they reply that this or that tangential claim may be questionable but it illustrates a larger truth they believe in.

    So they build their larger truths on known falsehoods?
    I suppose pointing that out wouldn’t faze them either.

  156. 156.

    cckids

    My sentiments about Paul Ryan’s remarks are best summed up by a commenter at that RS article:

    Dear Paul Ryan,

    I am one of those people on the left you claim do not know what love is. I was working full time and I was poor. I did not go to movies, out to eat, or even have a TV. I gave my child the food and ate nothing. I was starving, in the literal sense. There was not enough food to put in a bag of any sort. My life changed when a coworker told me about WIC.

    Kiss my ass, you worthless excuse for a human being. You are unfit to judge others, and unfit to use the word “love”.

  157. 157.

    Trollhattan

    @cckids:

    And, there it is. Amazing to me how much energy he puts into denying his own past. At least the biblical Judas had the “decency” to hang himself.

  158. 158.

    Svensker

    @Villago Delenda Est

    Of course, you can tell if it’s Canadian pr0n if one of the participants is wearing a toque. An occasional “eh” is helpful as well.

    Pronounced “too-k”.

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