Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

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

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Consistently wrong since 2002

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Most of you should go to bed and try to be better Jackals in the morning.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

The willow is too close to the house.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

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Archives for 2014

Probable Cause

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Serious question- Is a 911 call all police need for probable cause to bother people, and do you have to produce id to them when you are just minding your own business? And what if you don’t have one?

For the life of me, I have no idea why the cop there didn’t walk up to the car, look at them, decide there is no there there, and move on. Instead he decided to be a sarcastic asshole- his tone of voice alone would have made me yell at him. But that’s another issue in and of itself.

And where is the audio of the 911 call? I’d like to hear what exactly was said. And before you judgmental pricks start saying the actress should have been calmer, remember that black people go through this sort of crap EVERY single day, so she has every right to be agitated for both having some jackass call the cops on her and the cop being all sarcastic and condescending to her.

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Department of Missing the Point

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New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand discussed her harassment at the hands of her Senate colleagues, and explained why she didn’t immediately castigate her peers for being cads.

As a male, and not one to often be hit with remarks about my body (except my mother and my doctor- “You really need to lose some weight”), I think her logic makes a lot of sense, and I’m betting a lot of you out there who have gone through this sort of humiliating experience will agree her description of events is not only plausible, but pretty much mimics your encounters with harassers. This is a prime moment for everyone to reflect on the fact that the Mad Men guide to women in the workplace is not what we are striving for as a nation. Unfortunately (or should I say completely predictably), our media betters have completely missed the damned point:

cnnfail

Sigh, CNN. Take it away, Booman:

A U.S. senator from New York says the f-word on video. Politico, not quite realizing that New York is populated by New Yorkers, clutches pearls in horror.

Here’s a clue, morons. The gentle lady from New York was talking about the inability of her male colleagues in the Senate to decide whether it’s a good thing she’s working out so she won’t get porky or a bad thing because they like their women chubby. Apparently, there’s no shortage of people who badly need to be told to go fuck themselves.

Exactly. This and Anne Laurie’s post this morning remind me of the old days of endless debates about blogger civility and the glorious existence of Shrillblog, when what mattered to our media betters was not the fact that bloggers were right, but that they used four letter words to demonstrate their point and outrage.

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“I’m now insurable, fuck you Obamacare?”

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That is the message the National Center for Public Policy Research is trying to tell in a “research” “brief” that is dripping in bad faith or crap analysis.  I’ll get to that part later, but now let’s look at the part where a woman is blaming Obamacare for making her insurable in her tale of Obamacare woe:

Pam Hopmann, age 63, lives in Chesterfield, Missouri….For years, Pam was covered under her husband’s employer-based plan. When he retired, she stayed on his plan for an additional 18 months via a federal law known as “COBRA.” That ran out in January of 2013…..When she looked for coverage on the individual market, she was unable to get a policy because of a congenital heart condition. [my emphasis]

She was able to get coverage through the temporary Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP) created under ObamaCare for people who are high risk. She paid about $400 a month in premiums and had a $1,000 deductible, which she found reasonable….

But in September of 2013, she received a notice that her PCIP plan would be cancelled at the end of the year.

“My husband and I started trying to sign up for insurance on the exchange….

She ended up choosing a gold plan, a “$10 Copay PPO” policy from Coventry Health Care. She qualifies for a monthly subsidy, but even with that she is still paying a higher premium of $544 a month. She also has a higher deductible of $1,750.

So unpacking this Ms. Hopmann had a pre-exisiting condition.  She was uninsurable on the underwritten individual insurance market as no insurance company was willing to take her on medical risk.  For nine months, she was in a high risk  bridge program funded by PPACA, and then went onto the Exchange where she was able to get significantly subsidized insurance without having to pass through medical underwriting.  Her Exchange plan is slightly worse than her high risk plan.  And for that she is pissed off.

At the individual level, this makes sense.  She had something good and she lost it.  It does not matter that this was the program design.  It does not matter the House GOP was unwilling to increase funding for high risk pools even at the opportunity of gutting a significant chunk of the Exchanges.  It does not matter that in the counterfactual universe of no PPACA, she is uninsurable as no insurer who is not state mandated to take all comers/act as insurer of last resort is going to write a policy for a 63 year old with a cardiac condition.  It does not matter.  She had something good and now has something less good. 

Now if the wingnut welfare landing pad NCPPR was interested in arguing that Exchange subsidies should be significantly richer so Platinum level benefits are the default, this story could be made in good faith.  That is not the argument they are making.  The NCPPR is arguing that this woman is getting screwed by Obamacare despite the fact that in a non-PPACA world, she is uninsurable until she limps across the line for Medicare in two years.

  And worst of all, this is not even the biggest piece of bullshit that they are throwing into the public discourse.

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread: In Praise of Incivility

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paul krugman is tired

(D.B. Echo at Another Monkey)

.

My hero, Professor Krugman, on “Wild Words, Brain Worms, and Civility“:

…[P]icturesque language, used right, serves an important purpose. “Words ought to be a little wild,” wrote John Maynard Keynes, “for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking.” You could say, “I’m dubious about the case for expansionary austerity, which rests on questionable empirical evidence and zzzzzzzz…”; or you could accuse austerians of believing in the Confidence Fairy. Which do you think is more effective at challenging a really bad economic doctrine?

Beyond that, civility is a gesture of respect — and sure enough, the loudest demands for civility come from those who have done nothing to earn that respect…

…[T]he worst [kind of bad faith], as far as I’m concerned, involves refusing to take responsibility for your actual statements. “The failure of high inflation to materialize doesn’t mean that I was wrong, because I only said that there was a risk of inflation”. “When I said that Obamacare spending adds a trillion dollars to the deficit, I wasn’t misleading readers, because I didn’t actually deny that the ACA as a whole reduces the deficit.” And of course, people who engage in that kind of bad faith screech loudly about civility when they’re caught at it.

When there’s an honest, good-faith economic debate — say, the ongoing controversy about the effects of quantitative easing — by all means let’s be civil. But in my experience demands for civility almost always come from people who have forfeited the right to the respect they demand.

***********
More, of course, at the link. Once we’ve all shared a metaphorical cigarette, what’s on the agenda for the day?

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Late Night Open Thread: That Steak Fry

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(via Jim Newell at Salon)

Asked and answered, as the expression goes. Hillary had an unobjectionable, if thoroughly anodyne, response to the DREAMers: We should elect more Democrats. It’s not the answer they were looking for, and it’s not the answer the media wanted (because it’s hard to twist into either disrespect or slavish agreement with the current President), but it’s not like she dropped her burger and ran away choking, either.

I think Dave Weigel has the best take I’ve seen:

… The reader may be surprised to learn that Clinton did not reveal her 2016 plans to a reporter on a ropeline. Nor to the other reporter who asked. Actually, it appeared as though Clinton was following the plan of every other 2016 candidate—pacing herself before the midterms, making a decision after them. It’s almost unheard of to announce a presidential run before the previous cycle’s midterms are over, and the only guy who’s broken that recently was Mike Gravel, who did not become the nominee…

The Hillary 2016 campaign is a minor problem for Democrats. They are generally ready to nominate her. Some of them want a progressive challenge that moves her to the left, or at least keeps her honest. Far, far fewer believe that the party needs a savior, because it already tossed her aside for one of those.

Hillary 2016 is a far bigger problem for the media, which simultaneously is ready right now to cover her like a nominee—200 reporters!—and yet so palpably bored with how she talks, and runs.

The media needs eyeballs, in order to sell advertising. The Media Villagers need entertainment, and it’s worth their sinecures to be caught watching — or mocking — the simple pleasures of the True Heartlander (reality tv and YouTube), so they want the political equivalent of a bear to bait or a bull to lance. It’s gonna be a long slog to 2016.

And yet: We do need to elect more Democrats!

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Public Relations Bloodbath

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Apparently Urban Outfitters is feeling some well-deserved heat, so they offered a limp non-apology:

Urban Outfitters sincerely apologizes for any offense our Vintage Kent State Sweatshirt may have caused. It was never our intention to allude to the tragic events that took place at Kent State in 1970 and we are extremely saddened that this item was perceived as such. The one-of-a-kind item was purchased as part of our sun-faded vintage collection. There is no blood on this shirt nor has this item been altered in any way. The red stains are discoloration from the original shade of the shirt and the holes are from natural wear and fray. Again, we deeply regret that this item was perceived negatively and we have removed it immediately from our website to avoid further upset.

The patented “I’m sorry this offended you, but…” non-apology apology appears to have only riled up the intertrons, and what is happening to their facebook page is a thing of beauty:

uo4

uo6

And it is like that on EVERY single post (many more pics below the fold). I honestly have no idea what these clowns were thinking. Clearly, in the aftermath of the DiGiorno #whyIstayed PR disaster and other similar stupidity, it is becoming obvious that every company needs the equivalent of an ombudsman before products go to market. We can call it the OHHELLNOman. I’ll even do it for you for a small price.

Here is how it would work. Every single thing in the design and creative process would remain exactly the same, but before you take an item to the production and marketing phase, you would bring it in to me. I’ll be in a room playing video games or surfing the internet or blogging or playing with Lily (who will come to work with me) or maybe just wasting time looking out the window (I will have a window), and you bring the product in, and if I see something like the Kent State shirt, I’ll yell “OH HELL NO!” or “ARE YOU FUCKING OUT OF YOUR MIND” or “DOES YOUR MOTHER HAVE ANY CHILDREN WHO LIVED” or some variation, and then I will rip up the design and chase you out of the room bludgeoning you with a whiffle ball bat while threatening your entire bloodline.

I would offer my services for a low price- say $250k a year and stock options and maybe an Urban Outfitters shirt in XXXL (you fucking dickheads). And before you think that is too much money for my job (and in fairness, all I would really be doing is looking at something and saying to myself “Would someone post this on 4Chan or Reddit or Fark?”), it is going to cost Urban Outfitters tens of millions of dollars and consulting fees to unfuck this football. Not to mention, your social media department will be more productive, because they won’t have to spend the day apologizing on twitter and other social media platforms.

Think about it. It’s a win/win for you all. You save money and don’t piss off the entire fucking country.

I’m here to help, morons.

On a side note, I can’t believe we made it almost thirteen years without a “Go Fuck Yourself” category.

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Fare Thee Well, Tony Auth

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faretheewell tony auth

That was the very last Tony Auth cartoon on my daily GoComics page, back on July 1st. I knew Auth was old enough to retire, but I didn’t realize why he was no longer drawing. From his “own” paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Tony Auth, 72, of Wynnewood, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and mainstay of The Inquirer‘s editorial page for four decades before resigning in 2012 to become a digital artist, has died.

Mr. Auth had been under treatment for metastatic brain cancer. David Leopold, his friend and curator, said he died at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania on Sunday, Sept. 14, four days after his supporters announced a fundraising effort for an archive devoted to his work at Temple University.

Mr. Auth’s remarkable career began in 1971 when the fledgling artist from California flew in to Philadelphia to interview for the position of editorial cartoonist…

Over the next 41 years, Mr. Auth would use his rapier wit in thousands of carefully rendered drawings to kindle discussion on the political and cultural currents of the day. Few could view an Auth cartoon and stay mute…

In recognition of his body of work, a retrospective was assembled and shown from June through September 2012 at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown. Over 85,000 attended.

As he went through Mr. Auth’s drawings, [guest curator David] Leopold was struck by their optimism. “I think the common idea people have of a cartoonist, is that they have a lot of bile at the world. Tony is not full of bile; he is a very happy, nice guy.”

Leopold said: “He might not show us, or our leaders, at our best, but there is always his hope, that we will all be better.”…

Michael Cavna, the Washington Post‘s cartoon/graphic-arts specialist, “Colleagues salute Pulitzer-winning Philadelphia journalist as a singular, big-hearted artist“:

… “I’m so profoundly saddened by the news of Tony Auth’s death, I find it difficult to put my feelings to words, but leave it to say that we have lost one of the true greats of American editorial cartooning,” Clay Bennett, the Pulitzer-winning Chattanooga Times Free Press cartoonist, tells The Post’s Comic Riffs.

“Every once in a while, an artist comes along with a singularly unique voice and a style that seems derivative of no one before him,” Bennett says of his friend. “Tony Auth was such an artist.”…

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