Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

No one could have predicted…

Usually wrong but never in doubt

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

We still have time to mess this up!

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

No Justins, No Peace

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

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

I was promised a recession.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

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

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

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

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

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Someone Check Her Aricept Levels

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Benen captures a Noonan classic:

More than a week after Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) was indicted on two felony counts, the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan shared her concerns about the case on national television yesterday. The exchange was one of my favorite of any Sunday show this year.

NOONAN: I think, yes, it was local Democratic overreach. It’s just a dumb case. I don’t think it should have been brought. Naturally he looks like someone who is…

STEPHANOPOULOS: But the prosecutor is a former Republican, I think.

NOONAN: That may be. But when you look at this case, it just looks crazy.

[…]For the record, Democratic officials in Travis County recused themselves from the case, and the prosecutor in this case, Michael McCrum, worked in the Bush/Quayle administration. What’s more, McCrum, who enjoys a solid reputation as a credible attorney, was appointed to oversee this case by a Republican judge. […]

It’s the ability to soldier on after her main talking point was completely refuted that marks Peggy as a true Sunday show regular.

Reader Interactions

132Comments

  1. 1.

    dmsilev

    Always remember:

    Was Mr. Clinton being blackmailed? The Starr report tells us of what the president said to Monica Lewinsky about their telephone sex: that there was reason to believe that they were monitored by a foreign intelligence service. Naturally the service would have taped the calls, to use in the blackmail of the president. Maybe it was Mr. Castro’s intelligence service, or that of a Castro friend.

    Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

  2. 2.

    raven

    Speaking of stupid:

    GA board reinstates gun rights to convicted felons
    By ASSOCIATED PRESSpublished Sunday, August 24, 2014
    ATLANTA (AP) — An increasing number of convicted felons in Georgia have been getting their gun ownership rights reinstated by the State Board of Pardons and Paroles.
    The State Board of Pardons and Paroles restored firearms rights for more than 1,400 felons between 2008 and 2013, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Sunday. The board restored gun rights for 666 people last year, which is 10 times the number of pardons that restored firearms rights six years ago.
    The overall number includes 358 felons who were convicted of violent crimes, 166 who were convicted of drug crimes and 32 who killed another person. Between 2008 and 2013, the board denied about 700 applications from felons looking to have their gun rights reinstated.
    Board members declined the newspaper’s requests for interviews. The longest-serving member took office in January of 2009. Board spokesman, Steve Hayes, said the board’s turnover rate could explain an overall increase in gun pardons. In 2012 the number of violent felons who had their gun rights reinstated was 71. The number increased to 208 in 2013.
    “Everyone deserves an opportunity for a second chance,” said former parole board chairwoman Gale Buckner, who is now a judge in Murray County. She added that a second chance might require a higher level of scrutiny for applicants who were convicted of violent crimes and crimes against children. “It would have to be an extraordinary person for me to vote to have their gun rights restored,” Buckner said.

  4. 4.

    Punchy

    At the “that may be”, any REAL journalist would have stopped her dead in her tracks and point out that her entire rant is incorrect. Alas, Short George doesn’t have the stones nor the gumption to shut Old Dumb Lady’s pie-hole.

    Next Week’s Exchange:
    Noony: Hitler was a Democrat!
    George: No he wasn’t
    Noons: Maybe he wasn’t. Still, Democrats hate Jews and stuff
    George: No they dont
    Nooner: Maybe they dont. But Dems hate blahs and Hispys….

  5. 5.

    some guy

    @dmsilev:

    the Post has a funny story up about “Professional Clinton Hater” Barbara Comstock and the trouble she is having getting traction in her VA election race.

    hard times out there for mouthbreathers and Clinton Haters

  9. 9.

    Face

    The State Board of Pardons and Paroles restored firearms rights for more than 1,400 white felons between 2008 and 2013

    Between 2008 and 2013, the board denied about 700 applications from Black felons looking to have their gun rights reinstated.

    Don’t know for sure, but pretty confident I accurately updated that for ya.

  11. 11.

    Frankensteinbeck

    It’s the ability to soldier on after her main talking point was completely refuted that marks Peggy as a true Sunday show regular.

    It has been said before that the job of pundits like Noonan is propaganda, to make Republican talking points palatable. This is true, but it’s to make those talking points palatable to other pundits. You have a bunch of rich bigots hiring other rich bigots and talking to each other about how great they are and how poor people and minorities earned their abuse. Contrary voices are few and far between, and denounced as immature and unserious. That’s how an echo chamber works.

    Tl;dr, the narrative is that Perry is presidential material and his glasses prove it. The narrative will not be stopped until praising Perry becomes embarrassing again. Mere scandals don’t count.

    EDIT – @Amir Khalid:
    Bullshitting, in the sense that she doesn’t care what’s actually true. She knows what MUST be true.

  13. 13.

    Just One More Canuck

    @Amir Khalid: both – she is one of those in the centre of the stupid/evil/crazy vortex, along with, among others, Gohmert, Bachmann, Palin (Sarah, not Michael) and the usual gang of idiots

  14. 14.

    danielx

    It’s the ability to soldier on after her main talking point was completely refuted that marks Peggy as a true Sunday show regular.

    Our Lady of Stolichnaya is a pro, and well understands Republican and show business rules.

    1. Never get off point, no matter whether your point is contradicted by the facts. Wingnuts are not interested in facts, they’re interested in red meat.

    2. Never let ’em see you sweat.

  15. 15.

    big ole hound

    BULLSHIT. How do you guys find time or care about anything that is said on a Sunday talk show? You guys give them life by tuning in or even commenting on comments. Find better things to do on Sundays than watch idiots talk to each other.

  16. 16.

    Belafon

    @big ole hound: That is such an annoying meme: “If we’d just ignore them, they’ll go away.” Please go find me proof that anyone who managed to make it to “serious person” has ever gone away by being ignored. John McCain lost an election and still shows up as the presidential candidate on all of the sunday shows.

    Limbaugh is losing radio stations not because the left ignored him, but because the Stop Rush campaign has gone after him.

  19. 19.

    Tone In DC

    Find better things to do on Sundays than watch idiots talk to each other.

    You just described every infomercial, all of the reality show on TV, most talk shows and pretty much all sitcoms. Not to mention half of ESPN’s lineup. All seven days, not just Sunday.

    Maybe that dude was right, and it IS just a vast wasteland.

    Gonna have to actually grab a good book this evening, or something.

    That or watch Orphan Black (BBC on-demand).

  20. 20.

    Patrick

    Here’s what Peggy Noonan wrote just a few days before the 2012 election:

    There is no denying the Republicans have the passion now, the enthusiasm. The Democrats do not. Independents are breaking for Romney. And there’s the thing about the yard signs. In Florida a few weeks ago I saw Romney signs, not Obama ones. From Ohio I hear the same. From tony Northwest Washington, D.C., I hear the same.
    I suspect both Romney and Obama have a sense of what’s coming, and it’s part of why Romney looks so peaceful and Obama so roiled.

    Why, oh why, does people like Noonan keep getting invited to the Sunday talk shows? She has nothing to add to the discussion as she is always wrong. And how about McCain/Graham? Who cares about their opinion since they have been 100% wrong on everything regarding foreign policy the last 12 years. And why doesn’t “journalists” on these shows EVER challenge them and point out how wrong these clowns are when they spout their obvious lies???

  21. 21.

    Kay

    Here’s a piece in the Texas Tribune that contradicts the unanimous verdict of the pundits:

    The criminal case against Perry centers on his “coercion” of a local elected official using threats and promises. It is not premised—as has been repeatedly misreported—on the veto itself. Craig McDonald, the head of Texans for Public Justice and the original complainant, has said as much. As McDonald told CNN:
    “The governor is doing a pretty good job to try to make this about [Lehmberg] and her DWI conviction. But this has never been about his veto of her budget and about her. This is about his abuse of power and his coercion trying to get another public citizen to give up their job.”
    It is quite possible that the case against Rick Perry will fizzle. Perhaps it is “flimsy” and “thin” and all the rest. Credible legal experts have said they think the prosecution will have a difficult time securing a conviction. However, none of us is privy to the evidence and testimony presented to the grand jury. According to Peggy Fikac of the San Antonio Express-News, McCrum said he “interviewed more than 40 people, reviewed hundreds of documents and read many dozens of cases.” Fikac and other reporters who staked out the courthouse long before the national press spent five minutes reading the indictment watched “current and former Perry staffers, Travis County employees and state lawmakers” entering the grand jury room over the summer.

    I think it’s weird and wrong that they all came out immediately and announced it was “criminalization of politics”, which is a damn talking point, not analysis. I think it’s fine to look at it legally and say it will be hard to convict, but all of them repeating Perry’s line is unseemly, don’t you think?

    Talk about overreach. I think this is pundit overreach.

    I don’t know if there’s anything to it, but all of them repeating “the criminalization of politics” doesn’t sit well with me. You know, Cuomo would probably have a defense like the one pundits are offering Perry. Where is the line? Who decides? Should it be Peggy Noonan and David Axelrod?

  23. 23.

    Cacti

    @Patrick:

    Why, oh why, does people like Noonan keep getting invited to the Sunday talk shows?

    Because the Sunday talk show audience is old, white, and conservative.

  24. 24.

    nancydarling

    My brother, who lives in an Austin suburb is livid about the way the national press is covering this and getting it wrong. The Travis County (Austin) District Attorney is tasked by the Texas State Constitution with investigating public corruption for the whole state.

    Travis County DA Rosemary Lehnberg was investigating the 3 billion dollar (tax payer funds) Cancer Prevention and Research Institute and how the money was given out. Perry’s friends and big donors were first in line for the grants. One eleven million dollar grant was not even vetted. The process was so egregious that the entire governing board, including at least one Nobelist, resigned.

    I am not defending Lehnberg’s horrible behavior. She blew .238 on a blood alcohol test and was a total ass when she was hauled in. (I heard Robert Scheer say she wasn’t driving when the cops nabbed her. She was sitting in her car in a parking lot. Does anyone know if that is true?)

    Rick Perry doesn’t give two hoots about her DUI conviction. The real reason he wanted her out was to call off the dogs of the CPRI investigation since he would appoint her replacement.

    The law Perry broke goes back to 1917 and the last indicted Texas governor, Pa Ferguson. Ferguson was throwing his weight around and he vetoed funding for the University of Texas because he didn’t like some professors and wanted the UT president and others out so he could appoint his cronies to replace them.

    The law passed at the time makes it illegal for the governor or anyone else to use their powers of office to coerce any other elected official.

    Perry’s veto of funding for the Travis County DA wasn’t illegal—the threat that came before the veto was. If he hadn’t made the public threat, he might have gotten away with it.

    Sadly, he still might skate on this.

  25. 25.

    Kay

    And, just to be clear, if they find anything actionable on Cuomo I hope they hammer him, so I’m not upset about unequal treatment.
    I think we have a corruption problem in this country re: our elected officials. I get the difference between “illegal and incredibly sleazy and corrupt but legal” so I can deal with that distinction when and if it occurs as part of a process. I’m not happy that pundits have decided they can parse what’s actionable and what’s not 20 minutes after the indictment is released.
    They have a process in Texas. What’s wrong with letting it play out and seeing what happens, finding out what the Grand Jury heard, rather than preemptively providing a complete defense for this one very powerful person?

  26. 26.

    Kay

    @nancydarling:

    I agree with him.

    Even if they turn out to be right they are way the hell out of line. They are so far out in front of this story they have now created a whole SECOND story, which is apparently what they want to talk about rather than the case itself.

  27. 27.

    Joey Maloney

    I don’t know if there’s anything to it, but all of them repeating “the criminalization of politics” doesn’t sit well with me.

    That’s the kind of thing criminals say.

  28. 28.

    Cacti

    The phrase “criminalization of politics” has always made me chuckle.

    Your average person probably thinks of politicians as a borderline criminal class to begin with.

  30. 30.

    raven

    Authorities who reported an active shooter at the U.S Army’s Fort Lee in Virginia Monday morning have given the “all clear,” according to a posting on the installation’s Facebook page.

  31. 31.

    Kay

    @Joey Maloney:

    Well, you know there’s a line between the “criminalization of politics” and the “decriminalization of corruption” and I’m not sure our esteemed pundit corps should be drawing it.

    Politicians have a huge interest in promoting this idea that nothing they do is actionable or crosses a line. I can think of two right off the top of my head who will or have relied on that; Christie and Cuomo. I expect them to do it. I don’t expect national political opinion writers to start making these calls.

  32. 32.

    lamh36

    Talking about failed media…the NYT can kiss my natural Black ass.

    “@AntonioFrench: I can’t image a pain worse than the loss of a child. Keep the family of #MikeBrown in your prayers today.”

    “@Gawker: The “Times” says Mike Brown had “problems” but Darren Wilson just had “unsettled early days” http://gaw.kr/XL0MIm9”

    so Mike Brrown was “no angel, cause…

    “@jbouie: “Listened to rap music, drank alcohol, smoked weed, shoplifted, and got in fights” describes a good chunk of my white HS classmates.”

    Fuck the NYT

  33. 33.

    Cacti

    @lamh36:

    Reminds me of the Katrina reporting where black survivors “looted” supplies from the swamped grocery stores, while white survivors “found” them.

  34. 34.

    MattF

    What Noonan has is an unbreakable connection to St. Ronald. ‘What would Ronnie do?’ He hired Peggy Noonan. End of debate about Noonan.

  35. 35.

    beth

    @lamh36:

    Fuck the NYT

    The kid is being buried today – don’t they have any fucking shame? They couldn’t wait till tomorrow to tell everyone just what a thug they think he was?

  37. 37.

    Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)

    @lamh36: NYT is disgusting. From their op-ed page to their lifestyles for millionaires features to their reporting on “kidz today” which is all about hyper wealthy mostly white scions of the lucky duckies who read NYT. It’s all terrible.

    But their reporting on Ferguson reminds me of their attitude towards “The Negro” 100 years ago when they posted “funny” stories about rural Southern black men. It’s not ironic or hipster racism, it’s just racism. NYT’s total disregard all along for the truth in this case has been heinous.

  38. 38.

    kindness

    Speaking of Republican Snake Oil salespersons…

    This morning I lasted 5 minutes on NPR. I left for work just in time to get Cokie Roberts latest slam of the Obama Administration. Within the span of her segment I found myself yelling at my radio twice and before she even finished her piece I switched over to the i-pod.

    NPR is dead to me.

  39. 39.

    Comrade Dread

    @Patrick: Being a Villager in good standing means no one else from the tribe ever remembers when you were completely, utterly, stupidly, hopelessly wrong. Even if it happened to end up costing a few hundred thousand people their lives and wrecked a country or two.

  40. 40.

    Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)

    As a boy, Michael was a handful. When his parents put up a security gate, he would try to climb it. When they left out pens and pencils, he would use them to write on the wall. He used to tap on the ground, so his parents got him a drum set; his father played the drums. He grew into a reserved young man around people he did not know, but joking and outgoing with those close to him.

    So basically me.

    NYT usually only talks about white people as “troubled” if they commit suicide or possibly if they kill someone else. And this “bad baby” stuff is over the top.

    Remember Mark Twain? “Tom was a bad baby.” Twain barbequed so many sacred cows in that book and so cunningly that half the cattle didn’t even know their haunches were being roasted.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    @lamh36:

    I don’t pretend to understand all of the parts of this, but I will tell you something. When I went to Detroit for Netroots Nation, I attended a forum that was composed of the mothers of black sons who had been shot. Not by police. One of them said something that hit me like a ton of bricks about the media treatment of her son’s murder. She said her son’s murder was an UNSOLVED criminal case, not a narrative about crime in the inner-city. She said they lumped her son in with our “national conversation on violence” and he was shot by people he didn’t know and had nothing to do with, and no one even tried to find his killer, because it was just one more shooting in Detroit and he was black, so therefore part of some “national problem”. She wants to know why that is, and why the ONLY people who treated it like an unsolved murder of an individual person was the national non-profit, “missing and murdered children”.

    It stuck with me, because she’s right. That’s different than how other murders are treated.

  43. 43.

    Patrick

    @kindness:

    I left for work just in time to get Cokie Roberts latest slam of the Obama Administration.

    Whenever I hear Cokie Roberts’ name I am always reminded of this idiotic comment from her in 2008:

    On the August 10 edition of ABC’s This Week, ABC News political analyst Cokie Roberts criticized Sen. Barack Obama — who was born in Hawaii — for “going off this week to a vacation in Hawaii,” which she said “does not make any sense whatsoever.” Roberts stated: “I know his grandmother lives in Hawaii and I know Hawaii is a state, but it has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place.”

    Just like Peggy Noonan, Cokie Roberts is old and white and is amazingly detached from reality.

  44. 44.

    D58826

    @Just One More Canuck: The usual howler monkeys (with apologizes to the real ones) were at it again over ISIS. They are all demanding Obama DO SOMETHING but they don’t say what that something is. Arms for the Syrian rebels? But the rebels are fighting ASSAD not ISIS. ISIS is one of the rebel groups. Well send weapons to somebody then. Lets see Assad is being richly supplied by the Russians and the Chinese and we spent 25 billion on arming The Iraqi army. All those arms haven’t seemed to have done any one a fat lot of good other then ISIS when the capture them.

    What about airstrikes in Syria? Aside from the fact that the GOP got cold feet the last time Obama mentioned airstrikes in Syria, Assad has been bombing everything that moves and he still managed to lose his largest airbase over the weekend.

    McCain has upped the ante to maybe some special forces boots on the ground. So far ISIS has been very successful against the 500k man Iraqi army, the Syrian army, Hezbollah forces and whatever manpower Iran has provided. Exactly what will these special forces be able to do that the others have failed at?

    Of course there is the old standby send in large numbers of American ground troops. They don’t explain where these troops will be based. Iraq? Turkey? Jordan? the ever popular Kurdistan? Presumably they will be supplied by magical carrier pigeon since the area that ISIS occupies is landlocked (sorry Navy). I’m sure there will be any number of countries offering to house the American troops since US ground troops are so popular in the Middle east.

    I have no idea if Obama is making the right decisions but the devil is very much in the details and in the Middle East he has been working overtime. Unless these fools can offer some level of detail the ‘journalists’ on the talk shows should politely tell them to STFU!

  45. 45.

    big ole hound

    @Belafon: All information spewed forth on Sunday is readily available without the slant put forth by old white newspaper hacks. Their audience is so small now that the impact on social change is tiny. The few voices of reason are drowned out by idiots trying to be relevant and just make a living. I think more good is done by Stewart and Colbert mocking what they say so maybe they could have that going for them.

  46. 46.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    She’s a motherfuckin’ pro, gotta give her that. Horse gets shot out from under her and she still keeps riding.

  47. 47.

    Cacti

    @Kay:

    She said they lumped her son in with our “national conversation on violence” and he was shot by people he didn’t know and had nothing to do with, and no one even tried to find his killer, because it was just one more shooting in Detroit and he was black, so therefore part of some “national problem”. She wants to know why that is, and why the ONLY people who treated it like an unsolved murder of an individual person was the national non-profit, “missing and murdered children”.

    Hell, Tupac and Biggie were A-list celebrities, and no one was ever charged in either of their murders.

  48. 48.

    Roger Moore

    @Amir Khalid:

    I wonder, is Peggy Noonan lying here, or bullshitting?

    I think the main thing she’s doing is repeating the conventional wisdom. The Village has decided that this is Democratic overreach, so that’s what she’s going to say, even when somebody points out that it’s incorrect. I don’t know if that counts as lying or bullshitting or some third category like parroting.

  49. 49.

    Culture of Truth

    Incredibly, she isn’t even the greatest idiot on that panel. Bill “rictus grin” Kristol demanded more “overreaction” from the President.

  50. 50.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I would like to force the G-Steph and whoever makes the casting decisions on these clown car shows to read Peggy’s Magick Dolphins column (and the “is it irresponsible to speculate…”) aloud and then tell me that those words are in no way a reflection of her intellect and her fitness to discuss politics and current events.

    See also, too, Bill Kristol and “pop sociology”, Lindsey Graham and pretty much everything he said in the run up to the Iraq War, and of course John McCain and Sarah Palin

  51. 51.

    Belafon

    @big ole hound:

    I think more good is done by Stewart and Colbert mocking what they say so maybe they could have that going for them.

    And pointing out what an idiot she is will do more damage than ignoring her.

  53. 53.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: and after I typed that, I clicked over to Slate where Saletan and Weisberg want me to know that Iraq War cheerleader Anne Applebaum has some ideas on how Obama can “salvage” his foreign policy.

  54. 54.

    magurakurin

    @Patrick: It was after Joe Biden’s debate in 2008 that I decided that Cookie Roberts needed to be roasted on a spit and fed to hungry pigs ala Brick Top. She slagged Biden for saying, Bosniak, the correct word in fact. Still waiting for her apology….asshole
    and NPR has been dead to me since about 1998

    During coverage of the October 2 vice-presidential debate on PBS’ Charlie Rose, Rose asked, “Did either of them make any mistakes that you noticed?” National Public Radio senior news analyst Cokie Roberts responded that Sen. Joe Biden “talked about the Bosniaks.” Roberts later said: “[I]f [Gov. Sarah Palin] had said ‘Bosniak,’ everybody would be making a big deal of it, you know.” In fact, Biden correctly referred to certain residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina as Bosniaks. According to the U.S. State Department, as of 2002, the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina consisted of the following ethnic groups: “Bosniak 48.3%, Serb 34.0%, Croat 15.4%, others 2.3%.”

    link

    video

  56. 56.

    Patrick

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    that Iraq War cheerleader Anne Applebaum has some ideas on how Obama can “salvage” his foreign policy.

    Salvage??? He killed bin Laden, ended the Iraq war, Khadaffi is gone. What the hell is she talking about? Going back to the good old days of Bush with endless wars and just giving up on catching bin Laden?

  57. 57.

    Patrick

    @magurakurin:

    And she never apologized? Shame on NPR for still having her on. At the very least, NPR should have issued a correction. At least that’s what a credible news operation would do.

  58. 58.

    Mandalay

    @Patrick: Not forgetting this gem from Cokie in 1997, which still I consider to be the worst column ever written on anything ever:

    Internet Could Become a Threat To Representative Government

    Let’s just all get together, via computer, and let the politicians know what we want, so then they will do it! No more pandering to the big contributors, no more deals between members, just the voice of the people will be heard!

    We hear that and shudder. To us it sounds like no more deliberation, no more consideration of an issue over a long period of time, no more balancing of regional and ethnic interests, no more protection of minority views.

    Cokie Roberts is the ultimate Villager, and rotten to the core. Just a vile human being.

  63. 63.

    shelley

    Cole encountered some wild turkeys on Friday, but looks like he luckily missed this guy:

    “Seth Grim, a 21 year old Pennsylvania man, was arrested Friday morning after he crashed the SUV he was driving in West Virginia, littering the road with 30 live chickens, according to the Charleston Gazette…..
    Seth Grim’s Facebook page has some clues to his mindset. He’s a big fan of New World Order conspiracies, conservative shock jock Michael Savage, and Ron Paul. He believes in the Illuminati and promotes 9/11 truther videos”

    Lovely

  64. 64.

    piratedan

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: this is what I mean regarding who is driving the media bus, there needs to be more attention put on the people that decide what and who we get to see and how they deem it newsworthy and how said news is spun. These are the guys who need their walking papers because they’re doing a disservice to the country and the notion of democracy itself imho.

  65. 65.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The solution to this problem is really quite simple.

    Nuke the Village from space.

    Only way to be sure.

  71. 71.

    balconesfault

    The real story is that Rick Perry wanted to get to appoint the Travis County DA, which runs the state’s Corruption Investigation Division – at the same time that Rick Perry was being investigated by the division for how he has been spreading around hundreds of millions to corporate interests via the state’s “Enterprise (Slush) Fund” which he has total discretion over.

    The corporate media is too dulled to the idea that Government running corporate slush funds is wrong in any way, shape, or form. But the libertarian wing of the GOP is going to hone in on this during the primaries like a laser.

    So even if I think a President Perry would be an absolute disaster for the country – conservative pundits circling the wagons around Perry just makes me look forward to the GOP Primaries all the more. Popcorn time!

  72. 72.

    Lurking Canadian

    @Another Holocene Human (now with new computer):

    As a boy, Michael was a handful. When his parents put up a security gate, he would try to climb it. When they left out pens and pencils, he would use them to write on the wall. He used to tap on the ground, so his parents got him a drum set; his father played the drums. boy. He grew into a reserved totally normal young man around people he did not know, but joking and outgoing with those close to him.

    Fixed that for them.

  77. 77.

    raven

    Oh god, I can’t swim for a couple of weeks so I turned on MSNBC during lunch. Tweety subbing for Andre Mitchell!

  78. 78.

    Belafon

    @srv:

    I’m glad democrats can declare victory with a stable Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya

    So, the world in 2000 is pretty much like it is today. Please find me anyone declaring victory, like you so want them to be.

  79. 79.

    Mandalay

    @rikyrah:

    Have voting rights been restored to former felons?

    Yes. Voting rights for convicted felons are actually more generous in some wingnut states (e.g. GA, OK, SC) than you might expect. Florida is brutal, and getting worse under Rick Scott.

  80. 80.

    El Tiburon

    It’s not just rightwing loons who have this Rick Perry indictment all ass-backwards.

    Leonard Pitts (I know, who cares, but still…) basically dismisses the indictment as just sour grapes by Perry’s democratic foes in Texas. He then blathers on about something or another for a while.

    The narrative has been written and it has mostly been accepted by The Pundits That Matter: Perry may be a stooge, but politics is politics.

  81. 81.

    Chyron HR

    @srv:

    I know you have your heart set on being John McCain’s secretary of defense, but I’m afraid the position is not available. You can stop auditioning now.

  82. 82.

    Calouste

    @Patrick: Cokie Roberts’ dad was a long term Congressman who was House Majority Leader when his plane disappeared over Alaska. I’m sure at least part of Cokie’s career comes from her dad’s connections deciding his kids needed a bit of help after his death.

  83. 83.

    pamelabrown53

    @Mandalay: “Florida is brutal and getting worse under Rick Scott”. Truer words have not been spoken. BTW, Floridians, remember tomorrow is primary day.

  84. 84.

    srv

    @Belafon: Patrick is declaring victory.

    Actually, too, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya were more stable in 2000.

    It’s all Bush’s fault.

  85. 85.

    Schlemizel

    Here is something that has be peculating for a bit and really needs more attention.
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/23/internet_economy_needs_infinite_supply_of_idiots/?page=1

    Last week Samsung announced the acquisition of a crowd-funded startup called SmartThings for $200m. USA Today wrote that the deal “has also once again validated the power of crowdsourcing platform Kickstarter, which helped bring SmartThings to market back in 2012. The startup originally sought $250,000 in funding to produce its smart hub, eventually raising more than $1.2 million from individual backers.”
    SmartThing’s individual backers, who in conventional language are called “investors”, received nothing from the windfall. Nor did Kickstarter backers of the brilliant Oculus Rift VR headset, after Facebook acquired the team for $2bn. WiReD magazine glossed over this, mentioning “people who had ponied up to support the original Kickstarter campaign, only to see their investments made irrelevant by a deep-pocketed corporation.”

  86. 86.

    Calouste

    @lamh36:

    I of course don’t know anything specific about Mike Brown’s parents, but what I have heard about Ferguson and the poverty there the last few weeks, I wouldn’t be surprised if his mom only has one good dress to wear. Of course having only one good dress and not two wardrobes full of dresses for all kinds of occassions would be completely unimaginable to a NYT reporter, and probably be considered a faith worse than death.

  87. 87.

    Elizabelle

    Pay no attention to our gin-soaked lady of the magick dolphins.

    Simpsons Marathon, through September 1. All 552 episodes; not sure what they’re on now, but Phil Hartman still doing guest voices. (RIP. Sigh.)

    FXX.

    They hold up very well, and amazed some of them go as far as they do. Great social commentary.

    The Villagers? Don’t trouble your mind with small (conventional wisdom) minds. Life is short.

  88. 88.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Chyron HR: Nah, he’s gonna be President Howard Kucinich’s Secretary of Keepin’ it Real

    @Calouste: Cokie Boggs Roberts. The Original Luke Russert. That’s one shameful CV, or should be. Her mother took over her father’s seat in the House and was later named Bill Clinton’s Ambassador to the Vatican. Didn’t stop Cokie from turning on Bubba when his dirty, dirty sex life was exposed!

    I once (late 90s) saw George Will on that CSPAN call in show and some old crank wanted to know how poor Mr Will could stand to be in the same room with that god awful Clinton-loving Sam Donaldson. GWill told the old crank he knew of no one who believed more strongly than Sam Donaldson that Bill Clinton should have been convicted and removed from office. So throw in Russert and it was pretty much unanimous on your Beltway Sunday.

  89. 89.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @srv: Well, Osama bin Laden had world class support in his efforts to muck things up in the Middle East, in the form of the deserting coward and the Dark Lord.

  90. 90.

    Calouste

    @Schlemizel:

    has also once again validated the power of crowdsourcing platform Kickstarter,

    Besides the issues you have mentioned, how many failures are there in crowdsourcing compared to the successes?

    And technically, crowdsourcers don’t invest in a company, they make a downpayment on a product or service they might or might not receive.

  91. 91.

    Roger Moore

    @Schlemizel:
    I’m not terribly put out by that. The people who put money into a Kickstarter know perfectly well that they aren’t getting an equity stake in the company. It’s really more of a pre-ordering system that lets the company use the money for development. It might be cool if the people who put money into it got a tiny share if/when the founders make it big, but that was never the promise.

  92. 92.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Calouste: There’s that possibility, of course. That it’s her best dress and she wanted to wear that to her son’s funeral.

    It’s also quite possible that her son once commented to her that she looked wonderful in that dress and it was his favorite.

    Either way, the NYT reporter should be flayed alive for those comments.

  93. 93.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Patrick:

    Cokie Roberts has been just terrible for at least a couple of decades now, but back in the 1970s she was actually a good reporter. NPR was in its infancy then, and hired a lot of women — Cokie, Linda Wertheimer, Nina Totenberg, Jackie Judd, Susan Stamberg — in part because they couldn’t afford that many experienced men (and also, I like to think, because they were somewhat enlightened).

    Unfortunately, the marauding Village took over. Cokie is the worst, but it’s infectious: I remember listening to Linda Wertheimer filling airtime on NPR the day Romney announced that Paul Ryan would be his running mate, and most of what she had to say was about Ryan’s wife’s mother, who had been her (LW’s) best friend in college. It’s all about the Connections, no matter how tenuous.

  94. 94.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @lamh36:

    That makes me almost physically ill that she would even think of posing a question like that. Good to see that most of her followers are calling her on it.

  95. 95.

    Ruckus

    @lamh36:
    Don’t know, have never even seen the ladies picture, but if she is anything like a lot of the people in the small town in PA where I went to a friends wife’s funeral, and the only males in suits were the funeral director, my friend and me and none of the women wore black, maybe she only had one dress. Or maybe there are many things far more important than the color of her dress, first world people’s stupidity not being one of them. For fucks sake she’s burying her murdered son, not going out for a night on the town, there isn’t anything more important to discuss than her dress color?

  96. 96.

    Mandalay

    @Schlemizel:

    SmartThing’s individual backers, who in conventional language are called “investors”, received nothing from the windfall.

    I’m a strong supporter of Kickstarter projects, and that article is complete bullshit.

    People who fund/donate/support Kickstarter projects are not “investors”, they are “backers”. Kickstarter makes no promise at all of any financial return on the investment, and those who give have no more expectation of a financial return than someone donating to a registered charity. (Less actually since AFAIK donations to Kickstarter are not tax deductible.)

    The web site refers to those who give money as “pledging” and “supporting”, and if a project does not reach a predefined level of funding then your pledge is not accepted. How does that translate to commercial investing, where you will never get your money back if a project never gets off the ground?

    Kickstarter does an enormous amount of good, and helps make the world a better place. What is your agenda in posting that malicious drivel?

  98. 98.

    Patrick

    @srv:

    I’m glad democrats can declare victory with a stable Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Good luck with that in November.

    Good luck in November with declaring a new war on Iraq…And personally to me Afghanistan was all about getting bin Laden. Obama did.

    BTW – the only reason Dems will do badly in November is because this year they happen to have more seats to defend. It will have zilch to do with foreign policy.

  99. 99.

    Roger Moore

    @Ruckus:

    For fucks sake she’s burying her murdered son, not going out for a night on the town, there isn’t anything more important to discuss than her dress color?

    We absolutely must be distracted by minutia, since the alternative is talking about why she’s going to her 18 year old son’s funeral instead of worrying about what he’s doing off at college. It’s much better to disparage the victim’s family than discuss how he wound up a victim in the first place.

  100. 100.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Roger Moore: Well, this is because discussing how he wound up dead in the first place disrupts the “post-racial” narrative that the vermin of the Village are so fond of, and wedded to.

  102. 102.

    Calouste

    @Ruckus:

    What do you think of her choice to buck traditional colors?

    Note that the NYT reporter thinks that Mike Brown’s mother had a choice in dress. Most likely because in the circles that the NYT reporters hangs out, one buys a dress for a funeral because one can’t be seen in the same dress as at the last funeral, let alone in a dress that one wore somewhere else.

    (If you haven’t seen it already, go watch La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beaty), this year’s winner of the Oscar for best foreign film. It has a great, although somewhat cynical, bit in it about the funeral as a social occasion.)

  104. 104.

    scav

    @lamh36: There also the barely hid assumption That she knows what a traditional funeral must look like, does look like and should look like. How dare those people tamper with it? Dad’s was about half Carharts and was held in a shipbuilding workshop. Then there’s the behind the velvet roped invitation to others to actively participate in using another persons funeral as a spectator sport with prizes and tut tuts to be awarded (and the NYT award for best choice in footwear goes to . . . while the People Choice for cumberbund is to the quirky..)

  105. 105.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Cacti:

    The phrase “criminalization of politics” has always made me chuckle.

    Me, too. Because I read it as people turning politics into a criminal enterprise by doing political things criminally.

  106. 106.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    I have to say, the one thing the case doesn’t look to me is “crazy”. It might be *wrong* – I’ve seen some lefties I respect saying that it sounds like it could be a stretch, and I respect them when I agree, so I respect them when I disagree. (That’s one reason I couldn’t be a Republican.)

    But even if the law would have to be twisted to cover this, it doesn’t sound *crazy*.

    What really bugs me is that, even if the law doesn’t cover this situation, we have a chief executive threatening to withhold funding for a critical government agency, because he’s pissed off that he doesn’t have the power to fire someone. That’s a dictionary illustration of “fine, if you won’t play by my rules, I’m taking my ball and going home!” an example intended to illustrate whiny immaturity, not good – or even competent! – leadership.

  107. 107.

    scav

    @scav: Also note that men next to the mother are sporting red, so clearly something private and planned is going on, but no, let the bubble-headed ‘reporter’ make it all about a single mother and an invite to a DIY America’s fashion Parade, maybe Donald Trump will weigh in down twitter stream!. “Reporters”.

  109. 109.

    Waynski

    @lamh36:

    “@jbouie: “Listened to rap music, drank alcohol, smoked weed, shoplifted, and got in fights” describes a good chunk of my white HS classmates.”

    This. Not one of those should be a death sentence offense for any teenager, black or white. For God’s sake, we’re all human and we all make mistakes, especially at that age. Christ, I know I did. Nobody shot me for being a (white) rambunctious teenage dick. I used to swipe Bazooka Joe bubble gum from the local pharmacy. I never got caught, but I’m quite sure the cops in my little white suburban town would not have shot me for it. And btw, it seems this cop didn’t even know the kid had stolen cigars. He was just harassing those boys.

  110. 110.

    burnspbesq

    It’s not a crazy case. Perry almost certainly did what he is accused of having done.

    Does the statute make any sense? Different question …

  111. 111.

    srv

    @brantl: Actually, I blame Carter. He doesn’t get enough blame for Afghanistan and demonizing Ghadaffi.

    I don’t blame him for Iraq though. Even Reagan was smart enough to stay out of Iraq and Syria.

    @Patrick: Benghazi was a victory.

  112. 112.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mike E:

    That’s so obscene it’s almost perfect. Because why wouldn’t Cokie and Steve be tight with McCrory?

    Edited because I originally hit submit too quickly.

  113. 113.

    Gin & Tonic

    Here’s what hit the top of my Google News feed: “More White House officials at Michael Brown’s funeral than Thatcher’s”

    From Fox, although I probably didn’t have to add that.

  114. 114.

    Mike G

    STEPHANOPOULOS: But the prosecutor is a former Republican, I think.
    NOONAN: That may be. But when you look at this case, it just looks crazy.

    Spouting Republican ideology on TV is like driving the wrong way down the Freeway of Truth and Facts at rush hour. You’re not going to last long if you aren’t adept at rhetorically dodging lots of inconvenient facts hurtling in your direction.

  115. 115.

    Calouste

    @Gin & Tonic:

    IIRC, it is not customary to send government representatives to funerals of former foreign heads of government or state, only to funerals of current ones. I think typically a country in such a case will be represented by its ambassador or a former high ranking official from the era of the deceased.

  116. 116.

    Mandalay

    @lamh36: After getting pounded for that tweet, she’s doubling down:

    My question was not about fashion. It was about a mother’s grief and her choice to show, through clothing, that she was celebrating life.

    What a worthless lying asshole.

  117. 117.

    ? Martin

    @Mandalay:

    Kickstarter does an enormous amount of good, and helps make the world a better place. What is your agenda in posting that malicious drivel?

    The consumer in this case has no rights whatsoever. In fact, now that Samsung has bought the company out, they don’t even need to deliver on what the backers paid for – even if they produce a successful product.

    This is a scenario that has enormous potential for abuse and wouldn’t be tolerated in any other consumer setting.

  118. 118.

    JustRuss

    @Mike G: On the late night talk shows, it’s not uncommon for Letterman or some other host to stop in the middle of a conversation and yell at someone off stage to make sure he’s got the capitol of Liberia or some other bit of trivia correct. But God forbid our news shows hire a couple fact checkers and pause 5 seconds to have them vet the BS being spewed by their guests.

    So Stephanopolous lets himself get steamrolled by Peggy Noonan of all people, and the networks wonder why the Sunday shows are circling the drain.

  119. 119.

    dweb

    As always, Charlie Pierce unloaded the ultimate whack-down on Ms. Noonan in the run up to the 2012 elections after her persistent claims that the race between Obama and Romney was just too close to call and she didn’t want to get caught trying to predict the outcome. Virtually nothing Peggy has ever said about anything is of any intrinsic value, so being very careful to be “part of the in crowd” seems clearly to be her best defense.:

    http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/politico-media-stumped-election-14328507

    Over in the corner is the foot-fondling lady who believes in magic dolphins:

    “No one wants to look like a nincompoop on Nov. 7th. You can’t get in too much trouble with ‘too close to call!’ – especially if everyone else is saying it,” Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan told POLITICO.

    Peggums, sweetie, in your case, “looking like a nincompoop” is a horse that has left the barn, run over the hill, sired twelve A-level stakes-race winners, and is now buried with honors on the backstretch at Keeneland. Trust me on this.
    (And, even if you accept the premise of this whole exercise as legitimate, which no thinking human should, why is Peggum’s opinion worth a damn? Is it just the first three “famous” people who return your phone calls?)

  120. 120.

    Cckids

    @Calouste: Red may have been Michael’s favorite color, too. I’ve been to 2 funerals of teens where the family & close friends all wore the kid’s favored color as a memorial.

    In any case, again, why would anyone imply criticism here? What a sh*tty human being.

  121. 121.

    muddy

    @Cckids: I wore green when speaking at my father’s service. It was his favorite color. Nobody looked sideways at it, and this was nearly 20 years ago.

  122. 122.

    WaterGirl

    @Ruckus: It’s shameful for anyone to have even raised the question. Maybe she wore red in defiance, or anger, or maybe it helped her feel strong. Or maybe she didn’t even notice. Or maybe she didn’t give a fuck what she wore to her son’s funeral after he was murdered by the police. Or maybe red was her son’s favorite color. Or maybe the last time she wore that dress her son told her “you look nice, mama”.

    Fuck anybody who gives a fuck about the color of her dress. Except her, if the color mattered to her.

  123. 123.

    Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)

    @Mandalay: Michael Brown’s mother is a private person. It’s sick to gossip about her private choices on a national stage as if she were a public figure, not to mention ghoulish.

    These people have no boundaries and no shame.

  124. 124.

    nellcote

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Here’s what hit the top of my Google News feed: “More White House officials at Michael Brown’s funeral than Thatcher’s”

    From Fox, although I probably didn’t have to add that.

    My first guess was AP

  125. 125.

    Jebediah, RBG

    @magurakurin:

    “[I]f [Gov. Sarah Palin] had said ‘Bosniak,’ everybody would be making a big deal of it, you know.”

    In a way, she’s right, since it would be a big deal if Palin used a correct term.

  126. 126.

    Jebediah, RBG

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Here’s what hit the top of my Google News feed: “More White House officials at Michael Brown’s funeral than Thatcher’s”

    From Fox, although I probably didn’t have to add that.

    Did they also point out that Michael Brown was not actively evil?

  127. 127.

    Thoughtful David

    @Mandalay:
    Cokie Roberts is why I quit giving to my local NPR station, and have basically quit listening to them. Yes, the money went to support local programming and non-Cokie programming, but when you have such a large negative, even a bunch of small positives don’t get you out of the hole.

  129. 129.

    Procopius

    @Tone In DC: Newton Minow. I remember when he said it. IIRC it was after Sid Caeser and Imogene Coca left the air. Believe me, it’s gotten vastly worse since he made that judgement. I try to imagine how miserable peoples’ lives must be that they watch TV as a distraction, and thank Dog for my blessings.

  131. 131.

    dmbeaster

    @nancydarling:

    I heard Robert Scheer say she wasn’t driving when the cops nabbed her. She was sitting in her car in a parking lot.

    If the engine is running, typically you can still be busted. It is not unusual to see people this drunk at the side of the road stopped and passed out with the car still running. The cops do not have to see the car in motion to make the case. The exact rule probably varies some from state to state depending on the wording of statutes.

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