Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

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

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

The words do not have to be perfect.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Come on, man.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

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

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

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

So many bastards, so little time.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Open Thread: What Just Floated to the Top of the Media Septic Tank

Late Night Open Thread: What Just Floated to the Top of the Media Septic Tank

by | 47 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

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.”

Reader Interactions

47Comments

  1. 1.

    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.)

  3. 3.

    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)

  4. 4.

    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.

  5. 5.

    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.

  8. 8.

    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.

  9. 9.

    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?

  15. 15.

    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.

  16. 16.

    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.

  17. 17.

    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.

  19. 19.

    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?

  20. 20.

    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?

  21. 21.

    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.

  22. 22.

    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.

  23. 23.

    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.

  24. 24.

    Mike J

    @Amir Khalid:

    US$7 a gallon for petrol sounds like it would be pretty hard on the working poor in America.

    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.

  25. 25.

    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.”

    youtube.com/watch?v=8PgIKAukheo#t=251

  27. 27.

    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”.

  29. 29.

    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.

  30. 30.

    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.

  31. 31.

    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.

  35. 35.

    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

  36. 36.

    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.

  37. 37.

    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)

  40. 40.

    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.

  41. 41.

    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?

  43. 43.

    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?

  45. 45.

    RSA

    @Amir Khalid:

    I’ve always wondered about that part of J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world: in the Americas, where do magical kids go to school?

    And how do they get there? It’s not as if everyone can just hop on a train…

  46. 46.

    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?

  47. 47.

    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.

Comments are closed.