There is an argument to be made against giving malevolent crazy people the attention they crave. And, yes, I’ve made that argument myself. But I can’t resist mocking the media jeenyuses at Tucker Carlson’s Vanity Project. Let us join Gawker‘s J.K. Trotter in mid-spate…
The Daily Caller Can’t Quit Chuck Johnson
You may be aware that Charles C. Johnson of GotNews.com had a role in several notorious (and false) stories published by Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller. Yes, this includes the infamous debunked article—to which Johnson “contributed reporting”—about New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez supposedly soliciting prostitutes in the Dominican Republic.But today the conservative news site is trying to distance itself from its most famous former contributor. Why? Because the Washington Post decided to highlight Johnson’s tenure at the online rag…
The Daily Caller gave Johnson one of the largest platforms in conservative media, in part because Johnson wouldn’t hesitate to publish absolutely anything. The same pattern holds today. So it’s long past due for the website to acknowledge, and understand, its role in creating Charles C. Johnson. The world will be a slightly better place.
Further details, as always, at the link. Also, for once, it’s worth reading the comments on all three linked stories, for gems like “cat’s asshole of a mouth”, “Glen Beck and Ann Coulter’s test tube bastard“, and “He’s like if Newt Gingrich and George F. Will had a giant baby.”
NotMax
Ah, open threaditude.
Just finished enjoying a rare treat, half a roast duck (a small one).
Noticed today that gasoline is finally (finally!) inching down toward the $4/gallon mark locally – $4.09 for regular. Was still at $4.53 before Thanksgiving.
(Anything involving the name Tucker Carlson merits no comment.)
srv
That last thread was torture.
@NotMax: Gas was $2.70 in Texas last week.
Goblue72
@NotMax: needs to be $7 a gallon.
We need to make driving painfully expensive like they do in Europe. I drove in France two months ago and the number of small, fuel efficient cars on the road was amazing (many were diesel – a much more energy efficient fuel)
Suzanne
I am hoping to find some time soon to read the torture report, or at least a good chunk of it. Probably not until the weekend.
We found out that Mr. Suzanne’s grandmother has lung cancer. Don’t have any real details yet. She is the matriarch of the family and a great lady. So that is kind of dominating our attention here.
Spawn the Elder turns eleven next week. I am expecting the owl with her Hogwarts letter any day now.
Villago Delenda Est
As I have previously opined here, the universe will be a much better place when Fucker Carlson is reduced to sub atomic particles.
Suzanne
@Villago Delenda Est: I don’t know if I’ve told you recently that I think you’re awesome. I think you’re awesome.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
It would be nice if he could invite along a few of his closest “friends.”
Ruckus
@Goblue72:
As a good portion of that $7 is tax, it will happen here when angels fly out of my ass. So I’m not saying it’s impossible, just about 12 orders of magnitude smaller than me winning the lottery. You should know that my life is a country western song, if I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have none at all.
Amir Khalid
@Suzanne:
I’ve always wondered about that part of J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world: in the Americas, where do magical kids go to school?
Amir Khalid
@Goblue72:
US$7 a gallon for petrol sounds like it would be pretty hard on the working poor in America.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Disneyworld.
Suzanne
@Amir Khalid: I would assume an American Wizarding school would be in an old-school Taco Bell.
NotMax
@Suzanne
In Salem, Mass.
West Coast students go to the Magic Castle, natch.
Mike J
@Suzanne: Ocean Shores, WA
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
If it came on all at one time, the economy would just stop. Of course it would do the same anywhere the price doubled over night. On the up side traffic would be non existent.
Citizen Alan
The only canon American school from HP is the Salem Witches’ Institute, which presumably is an all female school. The American magical scene is a fertile ground for HP fanfic writers. Usually, either the U.S. is socially far ahead of Britain or else the American wizards still have slaves, depending on which way the writer wants to grind his axe.
Goblue72
@Amir Khalid: no more than anything else – and not a good reason to not do it. We are either serious about climate change or we ain’t.
Also, car ownership rates are much lower for the poor – esp the urban poor. Poor people ride the bus.
Nelson Kerr
@Goblue72: @Amir Khalid:
Thwe folks whom want 7$ a gallon gas could care less about the working poor.
Amir Khalid
@Goblue72:
I’ll concede that the urban working poor do indeed take the bus, but what about the rural working poor? And don’t high petrol prices also affect the cost of other necessities?
TheMightyTrowel
@Citizen Alan: This is one of the reasons I’m excited that she’s turning the canon textbook ‘fantastic beasts and where to find them’ into a film (or three?) apparently largely set in 1920s ish new york if fan gossip can be believed. Jazz Age wizards, anyone?
Goblue72
@Amir Khalid: Either climate change is critical or it’s not. We keep making excuses in this country about dealing with it. It is not going to get any cheaper in the future to deal with – only more expensive.
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
Yes, although poor commuting surburbanites (and inter-city commuters however urban) vastly outnumber the rural poor in the States and are in sum more impacted. Fuel cost volatility is disruptive, a lesson we forget after every bloody price spike. Ultimately, whatever combination of factors get us off the hydrocarbon dependency treadmill, it can’t be too soon.
balconesfault
@Nelson Kerr: No – those of us who want expensive gas (via tax) would use the monies raised to fund an incredible network of almost-free mass transit – so that said poor wouldn’t be slaves to car and auto insurance payments, and ready to be slammed with a financial crisis each time a police cherry top flashed in their rearview mirror.
If I get hit with a $250 ticket for speeding (doesn’t take much in most jurisdictions to rack that up, anymore, the way they’re using tickets to supplement taxes …) it’s an inconvenience. For many it means a juggling act to figure out how to pay the rent.
Second bonus is that said mass transportation infrastructure would generate a huge number of jobs during construction, and for operation … jobs that won’t be outsourced.
Mike J
@Amir Khalid:
Not for long. There would be recall elections for every person in congress who voted for it and it would be gone before it ever took effect.
And the party that led the charge for it would never, ever, ever hold any elected position any where in the US.
pagodat
In case you missed it, Andrea Tantaros on Fox News had the clearest explanation of the politics behind releasing the torture report: “I agree with you, the United States of America is awesome, we are awesome, but we’ve had this discussion, we’ve closed the book on it and we’ve stopped doing it, and the reason they wanna have this discussion is not to show how awesome we are — this administration wants to have this discussion to show us how we’re not awesome.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PgIKAukheo#t=251
A non mouse
@NotMax:
$2.38 yesterday in SW Ohio.
Major Major Major Major
The temporarily fucked-over driving poor in the US are worth it, if it’d put a meaningful dent in global emissions. The death toll over the rest of the century from global warming is going to be staggering.
Again, note: “if”, “meaningful”.
Amir Khalid
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m not sure I’d be on board with “temporarily” fucking over the poor, who are already the most fucked-over members of any society.
Major Major Major Major
@Amir Khalid: Pigovian taxation sucks, but something has to be done. If I were emperor, I’d give billions of fresh-printed dollars to new nuclear plants, expanding wind and solar, modernizing the American energy grid, and cleaning up our various methane factories we have lying around.
It’d be stimulative, too! It’d be the right thing to do. But I’m not emperor.
We couldn’t even get cap ‘n trade passed (which is known, if you look at the history in California, to be horribly faulty). I doubt we could get a carbon tax passed. And we certainly can’t get what I’d do if I were emperor passed.
But we’re nearing the point of no return. Regressive carbon tax seems most likely.
Another Holocene Human
Chuck’s twitter meltdown today was one of the most beautiful things on the internet in weeks. Check out the Deadspin and Gawker stories, also google cache from his old college because apparently the old student newspaper got a takedown or deletion request for all the old posts taunting Chuckles with a certain persistent campus rumor … too late … screencaps all over twitter. I knew about his HS shenanigans but the stuff from his college is even better.
Another Holocene Human
@balconesfault: Yeah, when you talk about cheap gas what about how expensive car ownership is?
And there’s really only one reason Republicans hate public transit and it’s not that it doesn’t turn a profit … neither does road maintenance.
Another Holocene Human
short term profit, needed roads build commerce, so does rail/transit access!!
Another Holocene Human
@pagodat: yeah saw that on RawStory, comments weren’t bad
Another Holocene Human
@Amir Khalid: Rural poor have jobs? Where are these jobs?
Another Holocene Human
Rural America, lives on white people welfare. And not very well.
Shouldn’t have taken all that land from the Cherokee and planted white people on it. #govtwaste #porkulus
Another Holocene Human
@Nelson Kerr: If those $3 taxes went to buses every 10 mins and more direct routes and subsidized electric bills back at the apt working poor might actually be able to improve their circumstances for once.
Another Holocene Human
I have quasi rural (small town?) working poor people ask me all the time why there isn’t a daily public commuter bus from where they live (affordable rent/trailer) to where the jobs are (in the city).
I wish I knew the answer other than: Austerity: Fuck You Boogaloo (this surplus is going to Rick Scott’s friends)
Amir Khalid
While we’re on the subject of fuel, the F-35 presents yet another occasion for face-palming.
Major Major Major Major
@Amir Khalid: This would be the airplane that nobody in the military wants and yet everybody in congress somehow needs, yes?
This fucking country.
Mike J
@Amir Khalid: It’s a pity they didn’t tell the marines they weren’t getting any toys. The whole project would have still be hugely expensive and wasteful, but probably only 1/4th what it costs with the stupid vstol variant.
SRW1
Anybody heard from Bill O’Reilly yet expressing his despair of how damn quick the ranks of the ‘too dumb to understand’ NBA stars have swollen?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Holocene Human: I’ve seen poopgate trending. I was reading about it over at LGF. They seam to pay a lot of attention to CCJ’s antics for some reason.
Face
@Amir Khalid: Ah yes…the “solution” is to paint obstensibly clandestine high-value targets a highly reflective, seen-a-mile-away hue. At ~$4K per truck! Lord, just how well-connected was that contractor to get such a bid?
Elizabelle
Charles Pierce calls Johnson “the angry Furby of the Intertoobz.”
RSA
@Amir Khalid:
And how do they get there? It’s not as if everyone can just hop on a train…
dubo
It’s amazing to watch the degeneration of conservative media in the fox news era
Generation 1: Assholes and blowhards running a well managed and effective campaign of lies in pursuit of their agenda – Limbaugh, O’Reilly
Generation 2: The campaign for the “smart” conservative take, undermined by how incredibly stupid Gen 2 is – Carlson, Goldberg
Generation 3: “Activists” who lack any intelligence, knowledge, or competence whatsoever trying to make up for it by being unspeakably vile – Malkin, O’Keefe, Johnson
I wonder what generation 4 will give us?
Matt McIrvin
Any tax should probably be a general carbon tax rather than just a gasoline tax, and it should be progressively rebated. If you’re poor you’ll get it all back and then some. Preferably sooner rather than later, though the mechanism for that could be difficult.