Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

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

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Be a wild strawberry.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

When we show up, we win.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

Finding joy where we can, and muddling through where we can’t.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Reality always gets a vote in the end.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

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Archives for 2014

Open Thread

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I’m trying to be pleasant to people because you all said I should be nicer and people will be nicer, so when I was ordering some gut bomb wings over the phone, this happened:

Employee: What would you like?

Me: One order of medium wings, two orders of hot, extra celery.

Employee: Are you a frequent diner?

Me: Yes. I often have 3-4 small meals a day, and that’s not even including snacks!

Employee: {SILENCE}

Employee: {MORE SILENCE}

Employee: It will be ready in 20 minutes.

It’s the first time I could actually feel contempt over the phone when no one was talking. At any rate, Shawn’s buddy from Maryland is here for the weekend, so I figured we do some wings and then grill tomorrow.

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Oooh Baby, You Are So Talented!…

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…And they are so dumb.

“They” in this case refers to the mouthpiece for he whom Charles Pierce indelibly dubbed the C-plus Augustus, one Dana Perino, who complained that in some photographs of President Obama’s visit to Stonehenge, ” he’s standing alone.”

Ma_Yuan_Walking_on_Path_in_Spring

Why is  this a problem for the former White House Press Secretary, who, in that job, got to watch her boss amble past a global financial melt down?  It’s obvious!

I don’t think that’s a good optic. [via TPM]

You know what’s scariest about this latest Fox News craptasm?  Perino was actually the least insane voice in the conversation.  The other two hacktaculars on air with her were upset that Obama had the effrontery to stop by the monument at all, where as Perino, at least, thought it OK for a President to get a few minutes at the site.

But dear FSM, give me strength.  I take a couple of messages from this bit of foolishness.

First, again, Peak Wingnut lies in Cantor territory:*  it infinitely retreats, to be approached but never reached.  Second, last time I looked there were actual problems in the world, here at home and abroad as well.  Just one or two.  Our society formally locates the process of addressing such problems in our political system.  It would help if those who interpret politics for the public actually connected their analysis to anything real.

Instead, we get a Stonehengegazi.**

When future historians wonder just how it was we were able to trigger the afterburners in the power dive of our republic, the transcript of this little snippet will give them a clue.

*Georg, not Eric.

**Saw that in a tweet. Wish I’d thought of it myself. Actually, no I don’t.

Image:  Ma Yuan, Walking on a Path in Spring, before roughly 1225.

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Open Thread: State of the (Maybe) 2016 Contenders

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Yes, I am a Warren fangirl, but no, I still don’t think she’s planning to run for President in 2016.

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, on the other hand, seems to be — at the very least — campaigning for the 2016 VP slot. Ed Kilgore at the Washington Monthly:

Even as Hillary Clinton prepares for the unofficial opening of her 2016 presidential bid as co-headliner, with her husband, at the final Harkin Steak Fry on September 14, another campaign is reportedly underway. No, it’s not the much-desired Elizabeth Warren or the eccentric Brian Schweitzer or the ever-steady Bernie Sanders who seems to be gradually gearing up, but instead outgoing Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, per this report from the Wall Street Journal…

If you want to understand the substantive case O’Malley’s people will be making for him, last year’s WaMo piece by Haley Sweetland Edwards remains the gold standard…

That 2013 profile is indeed most informative — includes lots of detail on O’Malley’s mayoral career, explaining how he made his rep as “a real manager type”, for good and bad. Near the end of the long piece:

…More importantly, in recent White Houses, vice presidents have often taken on key managerial roles in the government. That proved disastrous in the case of Dick Cheney, but Al Gore, who was responsible for driving the largely successful Reinventing Government program in the ’90s, did a much better job. Joe Biden, who spearheaded the project tracking stimulus spending, which has been successful in minimizing fraud, also did well. O’Malley, given his history, would be a natural fit for that role—a fact he’s probably aware of. In April, chafing at accusations that he was too far left, he began referring to himself as a “performance-driven progressive,” and describing his management style in an interview with Bloomberg as a “fundamentally different way of governing.”…

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Meanwhile, Senator Kristen Gillibrand has a book to sell:

… In her sixth year in the Senate, working out of Clinton’s former quarters in the Russell Senate Office Building, Gillibrand has carved out territory including military and middle-class issues, and fashioned an image as a tenacious fighter for women. Now, she has taken another step along the modern-day passage to the presidency: writing a political memoir. With an introduction by Clinton, “Off the Sidelines: Raise Your Voice, Change the World” is due out Sept. 9. Like Gillibrand’s political action committee of the same name, it exhorts women to take the lead in politics, in business and at home. “I wrote the book to encourage women to use their voices,’’ she says…

… Only after earning a degree at the UCLA School of Law and landing a job at the international law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York City did Gillibrand get involved in politics.

“The voice that inspired me to take my life in a new direction came in a pink suit,” she writes. On Sept. 5, 1995, first lady Hillary Clinton spoke in Beijing at the Fourth World Conference on Women, forging the phrase that became a mantra for women worldwide: Human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights. Hearing about the speech made Gillibrand wish she had been there and had been part of the conversation. And it brought back her childhood dream of being in politics, like her grandmother…

Along with broadening her electoral base, Gillibrand has come to be associated with several high-profile issues. She was a leader in the successful struggle to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell.” She was on the front lines of the campaign to gain approval of marriage equality in the New York legislature, and was among the first Democrats to call for bringing combat troops home from Afghanistan. To address the plight of low- and middle-income families, she has fashioned an ambitious agenda that includes raising the minimum wage, affordable day care and universal pre-K education. She established Off the Sidelines as a PAC in 2011 and raised $1 million for female candidates in the 2012 cycle. Her goal is to double that for the midterms this year, and she says she is close to doing it….

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But soon-to-be-no-longer-Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick says he won’t be running in 2016, although he’s not above showing a little leg if the local talking heads beg enough. I kinda wish he’d kept his mouth shut for another couple months, because the main effect I can see right now is to drum up GOTV efforts among the reactionary mouthbreathers of our beloved Commonwealth, and I’d rather not give Charlie Baker (R-Who? Me?) that much help!

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Ghost of Jose Rizal

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Hi Everyone – saying I am a “little” obsessive is probably generous. Ever since my last post about Jose Rizal, I honestly never got off the topic. Since I am writing in a couple of locations, I think I am at a point where the narratives in both blogs are the same, so no more double posting. The essay below would be “part deux” since I had last written here.

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The reclamation of my Filipino identity has naturally led me to Jose Rizal and his works. I have completed his two novels, Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not) and El Filibusterismo. The words Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not) comes from the Latin version of words spoken, according to John 20:17 (King James Version), by Jesus to Mary Magdalene when she recognized him after his resurrection. He said “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father.” Historians have also noted that the title is a reference to cancer of the eyelids as Jose Rizal was also an ophthalmologist.

The novel opens with a letter of a patriot to his country. It is an awareness that something has gone wrong with the health of the nation. The patriot viewed it as a cancer and that in his writing, he would attempt to “lift the veil hiding your ills, and sacrifice everything to truth, even my own pride, since, as your son, I, too, suffer your defects and shortcomings.”

The main character, Crisóstomo Ibarra is much like its author having spent some time in Europe to be educated and then returns home to the Philippines. His hope is to reunite with his childhood sweetheart María Clara and get to know his country again. The first chapter is a dinner party thrown by a family friend Captain Tiago, Maria Clara’s father, attended by the upper echelons of the town which includes Dominican and Franciscan friars described by Dr. Rizal as “…the parasites, spongers, and freeloaders that God, in his infinite goodness, has so lovingly multiplied in Manila.” The party reads as if acted on stage where each character is posturing as something other than the truth.

The novel progresses with what seems like the veil lifting from Ibarra’s eyes as his idealism is corrupted by loss. First it was finding out the circumstances of his father, Don Rafael’s death. Ibarra’s father was accused of heresy and then after a series of other events is imprisoned. Don Rafael dies in prison and his body is eventually exhumed and then thrown in a lake. While Ibarra performs extraordinary acts of beneficence, like building a school, his intent grows darker with vengeance towards the priest that rendered Don Rafael’s fate.

In addition to this story, Dr. Rizal includes snippets of the lives surrounding Ibarra where the absurdity and abuses of the clergy and those in power are evident. The most important vignette is the intersection of Ibarra and a man named Elias. At some point Elias forebodes that “Without freedom there is no light…You don’t see the preparations for struggle, you don’t see the cloud on the horizon. Combat begins in the sphere of ideas, to descend into the arena, which will be colored with blood”.  In the end, their fates are intertwined and the reader becomes uncertain which man is the fugitive and which is the patriot.

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He Could Have Been A Contender

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Well, no, he couldn’t, not really.

I’m talking about Bobbie Jindal, and I’m of the opinion that there never was any there, there.  But up until his never-to-be-forgotten impression of Kenneth the Page the usual suspects spent a lot of bytes talking up this New Republican™ epitome of competence, intelligence and non-old-white-maleness.

Not anymore, of course, for an over-rich list of reasons, not the least of which is that after spending several years in close proximity, those who know him best, his constituents, have come to loathe him.

Still, give the man credit.  He’s hit bottom, but does he give up?  No! Not Bobby Jindal. Now’s the time he grabs a shovel.

His latest?  This [via Think Progress, a few days ago, actually,* h/t Brad Delong]:

Louisiana’s state school superintendent John White supports Common Core, an effort to foster interstate consistency in education standards. So does the state board of education. So does the state legislature, for that matter, which passed a law in 2012 enabling the state to opt in to Common Core standards. Indeed, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) actively pushed for this 2012 law, which he signed. Recently, however, Jindal decided that he actually opposes Common Core…**

 So Jindal has turned to what has become the lastrefuge for conservative officials and activists who can’t get what they want through a legitimate lawmaking process. He’s suing the Obama Administration in federal court. [links in the original]

OK, so far, not impressive.  This is garden variety stuff:   the ability to forget in an instant any previous held position is part of any ambitious Republican’s mental toolkit.

Laughing jester

But Jindal, famously (once) one of the “smart” ones** goes for All-Star goofery with the reasoning underpinning his suit:

The crux of Jindal’s lawsuit, however, is that the grant programs that reward participation in Common Core somehow violate the Constitution and federal law because they force Louisiana to enter into an entirely voluntary program that it did, in fact, enter into voluntarily. 

Yup. That’s it.  Bobbie Jindal haz a sad ’cause that nasty Kenyan Socialist Mooslim™ allowed him to choose to do — or not do — something he once thought he wanted to do, but doesn’t anymore.

Now that’s professional-grade horse shit — and, in what should give anyone, ever, considering pulling the elephant lever in any election for the foreseeable future — this, my friends, is a once seriously considered contender for the GOP invite to the big dance in 2016.

*So I’m slow.  Sue me.  Use Bobbie J.’s lawyer.

**I’m not even remotely convinced by the common core, myself (I guess I read too much Diane Ravitch).  But that’s not the point, is it.  I didn’t go haring after federal cash to implement in my living room, no did I?

***self-selectedly so, too.

Image: Anonymous, Netherlands The Laughing Jester, 15th C.

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Snarky headline here

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Seriously, this story gave me writer’s block. I thought about a play on ‘swingers’ but I avoid puns and puns about golf should be included in stand your ground laws.

It is Friday and everyone else is mountaineering or learning parkour, so I will just outsource today’s blogging to the deserving folks at RawStory.

A former teacher at the California University of Management & Science (CalUMS) filed a lawsuit against the school’s president for, among other things, firing him after he complained about having to change the failing grades of the president’s numerous lovers, Courthouse News Service reports.

According to the lawsuit filed by Keunjun Choi, CalUMS founder and president David Park fired the golf professional — who taught a class in the “The Golf College of California University of Management and Science” — after Choi refused to change the grade of a 45-year-old woman who failed to attend the classes required to pass his course.

Park allegedly ordered Choi to give the woman an “A” or be terminated. He relented, the student was given an “A,” and then she was hired by Park to serve as the Dean of Student Affairs. When Park learned that she was having an affair with another man, he struck up a sexual relationship with another student, on whose behalf he also asked Choi to change an “F” into an “A.” Again, Choi did as he was told.

The situation, however, became more complicated when Park began seeing the Dean of Student Affairs again, leading to a romantic love-triangle with Choi serving as an unwilling go-between.

So profound. So rich in pathos.

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Her Celebrity Body, Her Rules

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Maybe you saw the recently leaked iCloud naked pictures of Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, and quite a few more that showed up on the Internet. Maybe you thought the women should just be cool with it because they look good and aren’t celebrities’ bodies basically for public consumption? Well, you’d be wrong. It has been confirmed that the FBI and Apple are investigating what is believed to be the biggest celebrity photo leak in history and is looking at it as a sex crime:

[Jennifer Lawrence is] the cool chick, the fun one, the girl who’s so confident she waves her bingo wings for a laugh on the Oscar carpet. But here’s the thing: While she might own her own fame, we (the public) don’t own her body just because she’s famous. If she chooses to show it to us (as she did under blue body paint in the X-Men movies), then that’s her choice – in the same way it’s a woman’s choice to walk out of the house wearing whatever she pleases. To say that Lawrence ought to “own” the digital sex crime against her just because she’s a hot movie star is like telling a rape victim to own her assault because she put on a cute dress and went to a party.

 It’s enough to make you want to go back to just using stone tablets.

Team Blackness also discussed a NYC human rights lawyer who was arrested while waiting for her kids; more racism, this time in Kentucky; and the passing of Joan Rivers.

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