Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

You cannot shame the shameless.

How stupid are these people?

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Everybody saw this coming.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

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

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

You are here: Home / Archives for 2014

Archives for 2014

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Isn’t It Pretty to Think So?

by | 85 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

At Grantland, Rembert Browne interviews Chris Rock and proves the futility of this daydream:

… There’s a point in the movie[Top Five] when your character, Andre Allen, keeps saying to the journalist, “Can we talk about the film, can we talk about the film?” when he’s asked about personal things. When you are going through this press process, do you ever get to a point where you’re like, “I want to talk about literally anything else but the film”?

No. I mean, I’m selling a movie. And I don’t do press unless I’ve got a movie coming out. Like literally, why would I do press? People always want you to do press. You never see me on Letterman or something unless I have a movie coming out. Your time in front of the camera is finite. It’s not definite. People interviewing you, it’s all finite. You should definitely use it to better yourself…

One thing that came through that you’ve discussed in other press you’ve done is how the film gives a glimpse of what it’s like to be black and famous.

A little bit.

Even being black and having a platform of any kind. This idea that with black fame comes certain responsibilities that other folks don’t have to deal with. Things other white actors don’t have to think about. Was that a conscious thing you wanted to come through the film?

I definitely made a point to tell Leslie to tell me to “Stay black” in one scene. No one tells Brad Pitt to “Stay white.” “Ben Affleck, stay white.” What the fuck are you talking about, “stay white”? I just tried to do a movie in a realistic tone. People always think, What were you trying to say? I’m not trying to say nothing, I’m just trying to entertain people, trying to make things that don’t bore me. Trying to make things that feel authentic. Trying to make a movie that I haven’t seen. In a tone I haven’t seen. That’s what I’m trying to do…

How do you feel, at this stage of your career, about being asked to be a role model?

Be a role model to your kids. You just are. Your kids watch you every day. They kind of do what you do. But the whole “Be a role model to people” [idea] is kind of racist when you think about it. It’s not like, “Get on the back of the bus, n​-​-​-​-” racist. It suggests that my behavior is not natural. It’s like, “Hey I don’t beat my wife because I don’t beat my wife, not because I’m trying to help the race out.” Know what I mean? I read because I want to read. It’s like, you have a negative image of your people as a whole if you’re putting all of your eggs in my basket. Or a basket of my behavior. Really? I don’t smoke crack because I don’t want to smoke crack, not because I’m trying to help out. So you’re saying if I wasn’t famous, I’d just be in jail and cracked up if no one was watching me? No…

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Isn’t It Pretty to Think So?Post + Comments (85)

Friday Night Open Thread

by | 102 Comments

This post is in: 

I was in the back office playing warcrack and blurting out obscenities on twitter and I heard Shawn talking, thought he was talking to me, and came out and found this:

shamelesspets

Steve and Lily are total sluts when it comes to a lap.

Also, I’ve taken to calling Shawn my heterosexual life partner in public because it makes people do a double-take and look at you funny for a second before they figure out what you are saying.

Friday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (102)

Friday Recipe Exchange: Comfort Foods

by | 67 Comments

This post is in: ,

jeffreyw comfort food

I asked JeffreyW to send me some ideas for comfort foods and he included this photo. Yum.
.

From our Food Goddess, TaMara:

I hope everyone had a good holiday. Now it’s time for the Christmas rush. But before I start with those recipes, I thought we’d revisit comfort foods. When things get crazy busy, I fall back on easy comfort foods: soups, mac-n’cheese, slow-cooker meals.

What sparked this idea was a recipe for Macaroni and Cheese Bacon Cups. No, seriously, someone thought of putting macaroni and cheese into cups made of bacon and baking it in the oven. If you’re daring and want to try your hand at it, JeffreyW has the recipe for Bacon Cups here and two Macaroni and Cheese recipes are here and here.

The photo above is easy to recreate (JeffreyW recommends frozen shoestring fries), but he has a recipe for even more elaborate Chile Cheese Fries, click here for recipe and mouth-watering photos.

When cold weather hits and my schedule is full, I want Spicy Potato Soup and Biscuits, recipes here.

Starting next week, I’ll move into holiday recipes, both for the meals and gift giving. For the animal lovers, there is a Bixby update here, but be forewarned when you click through, HE. HAS. GROWN. Although he doesn’t seem to realize it.

What’s on your menu for the weekend? How is the holiday shopping coming along?

Tonight’s feature recipe is very simple and quick to put together.

tamara marinated-pot-roast-final

show full post on front page

Friday Recipe Exchange: Comfort FoodsPost + Comments (67)

Open Thread: Root for Injuries

by | 104 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Still and forever a mucker. Rep. Pete “the Mean One” King, fresh from his stint as an unlicensed medical expert, explains his ongoing “primary campaign” to USA Today:

Nobody thinks Rep. Peter King is likely to be the GOP nominee in 2016, possibly not even Peter King. But the odds are better for Sen. Rand Paul, and that’s why Peter King is in New Hampshire, again and again and again.

“I don’t want the field to be dominated by people like Rand Paul,” King says. “Rand Paul is an isolationist. …This is an extremely dangerous world. We do not have the luxury of hiding. We cannot retreat within our borders. And I terribly resent his implication that the U.S. is somehow the cause of aggression around the world.”

And then there’s Sen. Ted Cruz, another potential 2016-er. “Ted Cruz is a nihilist,” King says. “The whole concept of shutting the government down and also this dogmatic opposition to any type of compromise,” he says. “I can bargain, I can negotiate, I can move the ball down the field.”

So yeah, King, 70, a New York Republican, is thinking about running for president…

… [W]hy spend two years eating chili dinners in New Hampshire? Why not? There is little downside for an elected official to give talks to an appreciative audience of fellow party members. It makes proto-candidates feel good to be considered presidential timber and New Hampshire voters get to fulfill their jealously guarded mission of looking over every person who has ever aspired to be commander in chief.

Though Republicans have vowed to avoid the 23-debate marathon of the 2012 primaries, King could well get into a New Hampshire debate, push for the interventionist foreign policy he believes in, and have an effect….

So instead of 23 debates with 8 or 9 candidates at the first few, maybe we’ll get 8 or 9 debates with 23 candidates. Sounds like a winning strategy! — for us Democrats.

***********

Apart from cheering on the Klown Kar Kavalcade, what’s on the agenda as we try to wipe this lousy, shit-laden week off our shoes?

Open Thread: Root for InjuriesPost + Comments (104)

The CIA Torture Report May Not Be Released After All

by | 123 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

Just yesterday, I had what passes among us devout Cynics as hope. Another Friday doc dump that will live in infamy, per Bloomberg View:

Secretary of State John Kerry personally phoned Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Friday morning to ask her to delay the imminent release of her committee’s report on CIA torture and rendition during the George W. Bush administration, according to administration and Congressional officials.

Kerry was not going rogue — his call came after an interagency process that decided the release of the report early next week, as Feinstein had been planning, could complicate relationships with foreign countries at a sensitive time and posed an unacceptable risk to U.S. personnel and facilities abroad. Kerry told Feinstein he still supports releasing the report, just not right now…

Hill staffers and human rights advocates saw the Kerry call as a stunning reversal by an administration that has publicly supported the report’s release for months. For Senate Republicans, who have warned about the potential fallout for more than a year, the administration is belatedly coming around to agree with their position.

“There’s always a lot going on in the world and the timing of the release of a report like this never convenient,” one senior GOP senate staffer said. “They should have thought about that a long time ago and advocated against the release.”

For the large community of nongovernmental organizations and human rights groups that have been fighting for the release, the administration’s action is a betrayal, and also a sign that the whole issue has been poorly managed…

Any delay would be a huge problem for Feinstein for several reasons. First of all, her staff just completed a grueling months-long negotiation with the CIA over what details would make it into the final release. Those negotiations were personally mediated by President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, who flew to San Francisco several times to negotiate directly with Feinstein.

Second, if the release is pushed off past next week, Feinstein will no longer head the committee, and the incoming chairman, Republican Richard Burr, could very well prevent the report from being released at all. That could negate years of work by Feinstein’s investigators and prevent the report’s conclusions, many of which will be disputed vigorously by the CIA, from ever coming to light…

This is bullshit on stilts — of course it is “never a good time” for the World’s Greatest Nation(tm) to sack up and admit to having tortured people. Shame on my former Senator Kerry for letting this smarmy, craven garbage go out with his name on it, and shame on President Obama for asking him to do so.

As of a couple of hours ago, per Esquire, outgoing Senator Mark Udall hadn’t repudiated the idea that he could read the entire report into the Congressional Record:

Mark Udall: I have made it clear over the last couple of weeks—if the report is not declassified in a way that’s transparent and shines a bright light on what we did, then I will consider using all and any options.

Scott Raab: I’ve heard this before.

MU: And right now, we are at the point where I’m still optimistic that the White House, working with a committee, is going to do the right thing, which is to declassify the report in a way that’s understandable and transparent. And so I’m working through what we call regular order here in Washington. But if, in my opinion, the report is either—obviously, if it’s not released, then I’m gonna use every power I have, because it’s too important. It’s too historic. And we can’t afford to repeat the mistakes to let this slide…

What happened broke faith in the Constitution. It’s made our challenge much greater when it comes to facing the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. And it is morally repugnant. When this report is declassified, people will abhor what they read. They’re gonna be disgusted. They’re gonna be appalled. They’re gonna be shocked at what we did. But it will lay a foundation whereby we don’t do this in the future. That’s been my goal. That’s been my mission.

Goddess grant that I’m pulling a Cole, here — that this is some eleven-dimensional-chess Obama-fu where at least the skeletal, heavily redacted Executive summary gets released as planned. But I most sincerely doubt that. Help us, Obi-Wan Udall, you’re our only hope…

The CIA Torture Report May Not Be Released After AllPost + Comments (123)

Update from Rolling Stone

by | 306 Comments

This post is in: 

What initially started as claims that the author had never attempted to contact the accused (which I still think there is no need for- they’re going to deny it, and in this case no one was named so no one could claim harm) despite the fact that she had, has now morphed into an overall question as to whether any of the story is true:

To Our Readers:

Last month, Rolling Stone published a story titled “A Rape on Campus” by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, which described a brutal gang rape of a woman named Jackie at a University of Virginia fraternity house; the university’s failure to respond to this alleged assault – and the school’s troubling history of indifference to many other instances of alleged sexual assaults. The story generated worldwide headlines and much soul-searching at UVA. University president Teresa Sullivan promised a full investigation and also to examine the way the school responds to sexual assault allegations.

Because of the sensitive nature of Jackie’s story, we decided to honor her request not to contact the man she claimed orchestrated the attack on her nor any of the men she claimed participated in the attack for fear of retaliation against her. In the months Erdely spent reporting the story, Jackie neither said nor did anything that made Erdely, or Rolling Stone’s editors and fact-checkers, question Jackie’s credibility. Her friends and rape activists on campus strongly supported Jackie’s account. She had spoken of the assault in campus forums. We reached out to both the local branch and the national leadership of the fraternity where Jackie said she was attacked. They responded that they couldn’t confirm or deny her story but had concerns about the evidence.

In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced. We were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault and now regret the decision to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account. We are taking this seriously and apologize to anyone who was affected by the story.

Will Dana
Managing Editor

And please spare me the “if this is a hoax, no one will take rape seriously” nonsense. The only people who won’t take rape seriously because of a case of a hoax were not predisposed to take rape seriously in the first place. We’ll see where it goes from here.

Update from Rolling StonePost + Comments (306)