Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

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

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

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

Petty moves from a petty man.

Fight them, without becoming them!

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

People are complicated. Love is not.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

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

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

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

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

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

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Archives for 2014

Thursday Morning Open Thread

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I couldn’t get motivated for a post on the Axis of Terrible — Michael Wolff, Buzzfeed Ben Smith, and one of the Uber douchecanoes — on the grounds that any BJ readers who cared already had plenty of reading material. (Gawker, TBogg, and the usually pro-glibertarian Matt Yglesias agree that “Uber has an asshole problem“; Politico‘s Dylan Byers is an indignant defender of Emil Michael‘s “right” to be a rich-fvck rat-fvcker.)

But the latest development reported in the NYTimes takes the fight to another level:

… Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, sent a scathing letter to the ride-sharing start-up on Wednesday evening, publicly questioning how Uber treats the location and ride history of its passengers.

In the letter, which was addressed to Travis Kalanick, Uber’s chief executive, Senator Franken asked how the company uses the data it collects on the many passengers who use the service on a daily basis, and which of the company’s employees are allowed to view such sensitive information…

The letter comes just days after a senior Uber executive detailed a plan to conduct “opposition research” on journalists who cover the company in a negative light. The Uber employee, Emil Michael, made the comments in a private dinner hosted by Uber last week. BuzzFeed News first reported Mr. Michael’s comments…

The letter ends — curtly but politely — with a request for a response by mid-December.

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Apart from casting a cold eye on the sausage-factory ethics behind the bold disruptive technologies of our new self-pretreneurial share-conomy, what’s on the agenda for the day?

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Long Read: “Benedict & the Cumberbitches… “

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Special for the Crackerdaughter, plus the man’s other fans here. Jada Yuan, at NYMag, on “What fame looks like from inside a meme“:

The ones nearest the front have been camped out for hours, bodies wedged against barricades—a scrum of people ten rows deep, jockeying for position, climbing lampposts for better views, and rendering blocks of King Street, Toronto’s main downtown drag, impassable. “Denzel must be coming,” a middle-aged male passerby surmises, since this is a Toronto International Film Festival premiere. But no, it’s Benedict Cumberbatch, a movie star without a hit movie to his name and a made-for-meme, extreme-Brit sex symbol who plays his most notable roles (Sherlock Holmes, Julian Assange, Star Trek Into Darkness’s Khan) with a powerful whiff of sexlessness.

But neither logic nor common sense seems to apply to the seismic force of female hysteria that follows Cumberbatch ­wherever he goes. It happened at TIFF last year, too, when he was promoting his Assange movie, The Fifth Estate, which went on to become the biggest wide-release flop of 2013. And it’s ­certainly happening now, at the Toronto premiere of The Imitation Game, which is very much not a blockbuster but a World War II period piece about the antisocial British cryptographer (and gay martyr) Alan Turing. By festival’s end, it will have won TIFF’s People’s Choice Award, which has previously gone to The King’s Speech and 12 Years a Slave—a strong predictor that the math movie and its hot-nerd lead actor stand a good chance at the Oscars.

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Open Thread: The Goldberg Variation

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When you’re reduced to Neil Cavuto calling on the Doughy Pantload to defend climate-change denialism, you’re fighting a losing battle. From Media Matters, “On Fox, Pundit From Oil-Funded Group Says Climate Scientists Are The Profiteers“:

Fox News provided American Enterprise Institute (AEI) fellow Jonah Goldberg a platform to attack climate scientists as profiteers who are “financially incentivized” to advocate climate change action, without disclosing AEI’s own financial incentive to undercut action on climate change. AEI has taken over $3 million from ExxonMobil, and once offered money to scientists to write articles criticizing a UN climate change report…

Though host Neil Cavuto did disclose that Goldberg is a fellow at AEI, he did not mention AEI’s ties to the oil industry or its history of offering money to climate scientists to write articles undermining a climate change report. In 2013, The Union of Concerned Scientists reported that AEI received $3.04 million from ExxonMobil between 2001 and 2011. According to ExxonMobil’s website, in 2012 the company also donated $260,000 to AEI…

Video at the link, if you choose to watch it. I’m just amazed the combined Backpfeifengesich didn’t melt the monitor.

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Stupidity and Racism Cost Money for a Change

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Good. More of this:

The health insurance company UCare has pulled its advertising from KSTP-TV because of news report that has been dubbed “#pointergate” on social media.

The Twin Cities ABC affiliate aired a report more than a week ago suggesting that Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges flashed a gang sign in a photo with a young black man.

UCare marketing director Dan Ness said the company canceled its contract with the station through the end of the year.

“It would feel wrong to continue advertising with an organization that broadcast something that truly offended, we felt, many of our members, our coworkers, business partners, friends and family members,” Ness said.

The free market works.

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Open Thread: Announcement from the Oval Office

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As described in the Washington Post:

President Obama said in a video that he will lay out his proposal to overhaul the nation’s immigration system Thursday and will travel to Las Vegas following that announcement to rally support for his initiative on Friday…

“Everybody agrees that our immigration system is broken. Unfortunately Washington has allowed the problem to fester for too long,” Obama said. “So what’ I’m going to be laying out is the things I can do with my lawful authority as president to make the system work better even as I continue to work with Congress and encourage them to get a bipartisan, comprehensive bill that can solve the entire problem.”

According to a senior Democrat familiar with the plans, Obama will announce on Thursday that he is providing temporary protections to up to 5 million undocumented immigrants. His orders will make up to 4 million undocumented immigrants eligible for temporary protective status and provide relief to another 1 million through other means.

In a blow to activists advocating on behalf of young immigrant families, there will be no guaranteed protections for the parents of so-called Dreamers — children protected by Obama’s 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — nor for immigrant agricultural workers, said the Democrat, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Obama has invited senior lawmakers to the White House for dinner Wednesday night so that he can explain his plans to use executive authority to change the nation’s immigration laws, according to several congressional aides….

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said Wednesday that Obama will “no doubt threaten a shutdown” with his upcoming executive action on immigration…. Other leading congressional Republicans pleaded with their colleagues Wednesday to tread carefully, underscoring the mounting concerns among party officials over the simmering outrage from conservative lawmakers and its political consequences, particularly with the Hispanic community….

“We hear there will be a prime time Thursday evening announcement [to preview] and full unveiling in Vegas on Friday,” immigration advocate Dawn Le told other activists in an e-mail, which was later inadvertently sent to a group of reporters Wednesday morning. “Can folks begin to work and plan watch parties for Thursday and/or Friday? Unclear whether Thursday night content will be what is ‘celebratory,’ but Friday will be where we need a lot of energy guaranteed.”…

More at the link, and no doubt all over the interwebs. Speculation from last night was that the President’s order would also include some H-1B goodies for the big tech companies.

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Apart from prepping, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

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Wednesday Afternoon Open Thread: CYA Edition

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I’ve only been admitted to a hospital once (knock wood), and that was to have a baby. Hospital births demand the woman enduring it to surrender any vestiges of modesty for the duration of the event. But it’s about damn time ass-exposing hospital gowns got an overhaul, and in 2014, they finally have:

DETROIT – A Detroit-based health system is rolling out a new patient gown that aims to offer a little more style, comfort and rear coverage.

Resembling a wrap-around robe, the “Model G” gown closes the once-drafty back. The gown was developed by the Henry Ford Innovation Institute. A version of the gown was introduced in 2013 on a few inpatient floors at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Since then, the institute has worked to update the design based on feedback from patients and staff.

I’m glad a sufficiently powerful brain-trust was available to develop this important innovation. Seriously.

Please feel free to discuss whatever.

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