Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let there be snark.

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

Good lord, these people are nuts.

The willow is too close to the house.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Optimism opens the door to great things.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

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

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

This really is a full service blog.

Infrastructure week. at last.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2014 / Open Thread: “Such A Bargain!”

Open Thread: “Such A Bargain!”

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Ed Kilgore, at the Washington Monthly:

… To put it another way, Cuomo spent $60.62 per vote, and Teachout $1.57. Now it’s hard to put a value on four years as governor of New York. But it’s probably safe to say that the hold on Cuomo’s presidential ambitions that many Teachout voters were probably hoping for was—priceless.

On the Bronx streets where I grew up, we said Takka mitseya, such a bargain! — which we thought was Yiddish for “paid too much for something that wasn’t worth having in the first place”. But now I can’t find that on Google, so either I’m spelling it wrong or there weren’t enough native Yiddish speakers in University Heights in the 1960s…

Reader Interactions

53Comments

  1. 1.

    JPL

    Anne, Please put up a thread where we bloviate about what the President is going to say. The NYTimes is reporting that Saudi is going to provide a base where we can train Syria moderates to help with ISIL.
    That’s excellent news. The country supporting ISIL now wants to provide us with bases to defeat ISIL.

  2. 2.

    Seonachan

    “Take a metsie” is probably close to the YIVO transliteration. More colloquially you’ll probably find it under “Tahkeh a Metsieh”.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    I never really saw Cuomo as a serious presidential contender. If this puts a kibosh on his plans, all the better.

  5. 5.

    Anoniminous

    The people who think Cuomo has a shot at the Presidency are the same goofballs who thought Bloomberg – remember him? – had a shot.

  8. 8.

    JPL

    @Baud: I don’t think so. They want to rid Syria of Assad. It has nothing to do with ISIL.

    BTW.. A friend told me that she heard a news reporter say they only say ISIS cuz it’s earlier. Most Americans don’t understand Levant. wtf.. Why not explain , the territory.

  9. 9.

    big ole hound

    Cuomo is not a bargain in any language. He dissolved the NY “political ethics committee” just like Perry. We crazies in the left coast have heard enough about his slime to stay away.

  11. 11.

    Mnemosyne

    @mellowjohn:

    That’s one of the reasons the media originally decided that Obama didn’t have a chance against Hillary — after all, Hillary had solid East Coast credentials by that point. Obama didn’t even live on a coast, fer chrissakes.

  13. 13.

    Kay

    That was great to watch. I just found the whole thing very upbeat and hopeful. I knew she wasn’t going to win but I love an upset and I always think everyone will BE the upset, so I was looking for one despite knowing better.

    I don’t know how she managed to appear so calm and completely tranquil through that whole thing. I’d see these pictures on Twitter where she looked like she was strolling down a street and just happened to be shaking hands with everyone. “Making it look easy” is an understatement.

  15. 15.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I don’t know how she managed to appear so calm and completely tranquil through that whole thing.

    Her name is Zephyr Teachout. How could she not be calm?

  16. 16.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: I haven’t been able to figure out why everyone readily changed from ISIS to IS

    “oh, the horrible, evil people who are massacring all these people and beheading children and journalists want to be called IS instead of ISIS – well, we wouldn’t want to offend them, now would we?”

  17. 17.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

    The cynical side of me wants to say that the media didn’t want to suggest that ISIS/ISIL/IS was somehow only a Middle East problem. But who really knows?

  18. 18.

    WereBear

    @Howard Beale IV: This was serious pressure from the left. Ms. Teachout won rural counties.

    I’ll vote for Cuomo, because it’s likely the Republicans will run a shifty-eyed lunatic with bestiality issues (like last time,) and because, of course.

    And because I’ve never voted for a Republican, and I doubt that will change in the next, oh, 20 years.

  19. 19.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: I think the stupid media just falls in line, just like they mostly take dictation these days instead of behaving like journalists.

  20. 20.

    Dog On Porch

    The Bronx in the ’60’s? Do your posterity and countrymen a favor, record your memories, and submit them to the Library of Congress.

    And now for a laugh. I was crawling around in pajamas a continent away when I committed these lyrics to memory circa 1962:

    “There’s a hold up in the Bronx,
    Brooklyn’s broken out in fights
    There’s a traffic jam in Harlem that’s backed up to Jackson Heights
    There’s a scout troop short a child
    Kruschev’s due at Idewild…

    ….Car 54 where are you?

  21. 21.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    She’s missing the combative adrenaline gene. It was just pitch-perfect for that race to me: “I’m the one who isn’t horrible”

    She only slipped at the end there, when she said this:

    “When people ask me why vote for you, what are you qualifications? One of them is that I’m not under federal investigation,” she said.

    Anyone would crack by then! She deserved that after all those weeks of positive campaigning.

  23. 23.

    lamh36

    Hmm, so now I guess ESPN is on the case. So anyone wanna bet on what if anything will happen to Goodell.

    As a SAINTS fan, you can imagine, that we are loving seeing Goodell in crosshairs.

    Wait, so now they are saying that Ray Rice spit in Janay’s face! And security watched the incident as it happened on the control room monitors

    “One former staffer said Rice, the former Baltimore Ravens running back, spat in his then-fiancée’s face twice, “once outside the elevator and once inside,” prompting her to retaliate with movements that were ultimately countered with a knockout punch…

    “Get him away from her! Get him away from her!” the first responder was told by another security officer over a radio, one former security staffer told “Outside the Lines.” The staffer had full access to the security footage.

    The security staffers said they did not see any sign of injury on Palmer’s face or head but added that her hair was covering much of her face, making it hard to determine her condition. They also said they didn’t see any blood in the elevator or on the hip-level railing that Palmer’s head appeared to strike as she fell to the elevator floor.

    “The first thing he [Rice] said is, ‘She’s intoxicated. She drank too much. I’m just trying to get her to the room,'” one staffer said.

    “When she regained consciousness she said, ‘How could you do this to me? I’m the mother of your kid,'” that same staffer told “Outside the Lines.”

    With his fiancée still groggy, Rice dialed somebody on his cellphone and said, “I’m getting arrested tonight,” the staffer said. Police arrived in 10 to 15 minutes.”

    @JohnBarrESPN

    Our sources say 25-to-30 casino staffers watched Ray Rice video. Dozens more had access. So who leaked it? http://m.espn.go.com/wireless/story?storyId=11503496 …

  24. 24.

    WereBear

    And thanks for the nudge in the previous thread about updating passwords. My standards were getting old and it was time to revamp them.

    And I broke down and did the 2 step authentication. Jiminy!

  27. 27.

    WaterGirl

    @Howard Beale IV: It’s like that diet aid that was pronounced AIDS. I don’t recall how they spelled it, but they changed their name in a hurry and I never heard of them again.

    That’s some bad luck, to have your whole business go down in flames because of a fluke like that.

    I have trouble with ISIS because, to me, ISIS is a really cool black kitty who fetches a leather toy in the shape of a hand.

  28. 28.

    Kay

    Politico just hired a “labor policy editor”.

    I know it will be terrible, but I’ve decided that it’s positive that they feel like they have to do that, have that “beat”, if you will :)

  30. 30.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Maybe not. Didn’t you say that there was a WaPo education reporter that actually wasn’t in the “reform” camp.

  33. 33.

    WaterGirl

    Since it appears that we may not get a thread for the president’s address this evening, can we all agree on a thread to use for that topic?

  34. 34.

    BBA

    @WereBear: This time the Republican candidate is the producer of Cardinal Dolan’s radio show, who somehow got himself elected Westchester County Executive.

    I swear Westchester was normal when I grew up there…

  39. 39.

    WereBear

    @BBA: THIS Cardinal Dolan?

    Per Wikipedia:

    In 2011, Dolan thanked Bill Donohue for a press release, reproduced on the Archdiocese of New York website, in which Donohue referred to the non-profit support group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests as a “phony victims’ group”.[57]

    Nothing like making my decisions easier, Republicans.

  40. 40.

    PurpleGirl

    @WereBear: I’m contemplating not voting for governor in November because I don’t want Cuomo to think he has my support. I’m not sure this means Astorino might win but I really can’t think I’m going to vote for Cuomo. I voted for him against Paladino because Paladino was just too crazy.

  42. 42.

    Anne Laurie

    @WaterGirl:

    I have trouble with ISIS because, to me, ISIS is a really cool black kitty who fetches a leather toy in the shape of a hand.

    Yeah, our Isis was the world’s most adorable Victorian-style blue cream (dilute tortie) shorthair. Those ISIL goobers don’t deserve to desecrate it!

  43. 43.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    There are two now. There’s now a younger one in addition to the bitter and cynical older reporter.

    I celebrate all small successes:

    Pittsburgh Public Schools Tuesday night announced a plan to reduce the time spent in testing by as much as half in grades K-5.
    The biggest reductions are planned in grades 3, 4 and 5 where the number of periods spent in testing are to decline from 85.5 periods to 41.5 periods. After school board member Sherry Hazuda was told one period equals 45 minutes, she said, “No wonder people are complaining when you see it like that.”

  45. 45.

    WereBear

    @PurpleGirl: I’ve decided not voting is a bad thing. That’s what leads to poor turn out in the mid-terms.

    After all, nothing stops a crazy Republican from voting. And look at how much of Their Way they’ve gotten lately. Much too much.

  47. 47.

    Tenar Darell

    @WaterGirl: Heh. I sometimes feel like emailing someone like David Gregory, and asking him where he learned to take such great dictation? (I don’t, mostly because I assume my evil would only be read by interns, like comments on Bobo’s articles).

  50. 50.

    Chris T.

    @Fred Fnord: Take two and call me in the morning.

    (What is the plural of “messiah” anyway?)

    (Interesting factual aside, dictionary says the Greek spelling was “messias”; the Greek plural would then be “messies”, more or less. But since it’s from Hebrew that’s probably the wrong way to pluralize it.)

  52. 52.

    Matt McIrvin

    @WereBear: It just depresses me sometimes: voting Democratic all too often gets you someone who adopts Republican policies, and the right wins. Not voting gets you Republicans, and the right wins. Rejecting the stale and pointless two-party binary usually leads you into the arms of Libertarians, who are actually even further right, and the right wins. Or to “centrist” right movements like Unity or No Labels, and the right wins. Or to progressive movements who spend most of their time shanking Democrats in the back, Republicans get elected and the right wins.

    I’m with the people who argue that the goal of voting at this point in history is harm reduction. Usually I can’t see any better thing to do than to support the furthest-left viable candidates in Democratic primaries, and then support the Democrat in general elections, so that’s what I do. But you have to come in knowing you’re not going to win, really, just hold back the damage as best you can.

  53. 53.

    Epicurus

    @PurpleGirl: I’m right there with you, and trust me; there are not enough Republican voters in the world get Astorino to victory. I’m planning on making Cuomo’s margin the smallest possible. He’s terrible, and in a just world, would be in jail. No vote for you, Andrew! And you ain’t never gonna be President….ever.

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