Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

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

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Republicans don’t trust women.

No one could have predicted…

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

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

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Archives for January 2015

Our Failed Police Establishment

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Here are two pictures. One from today at the funeral of Officer Liu where Patrick Lynch’s goon squad ignored the Police Commissioner and turned their backs on the mayor, one from NYE in Pittsburgh where the police chief took a picture with citizens vowing to work to end racism within the Police ranks:

NYPD Officers Shot

pittsburgh4n-1-web

Now. Take a wild guess who is apologizing. Congratulations, you win the internet:

In an email to the entire city police bureau, Pittsburgh Police Chief Cameron McLay is responding to criticism of his appearance in a photo on Twitter in which he holds a sign challenging racism. The sign read, “I resolve to challenge racism @ work. #EndWhiteSilence.” The chief’s message to the rank and file came after a critical email from the president of the union representing city police.

“It appears my having been photographed with a sign supporting racial justice at work and (opposing) ‘white silence’ has offended some. If any of my PBP (Pittsburgh Bureau of Police) family was offended, I apologize. You are very important to me and I would never hurt you purposefully,” McLay wrote.

The chief explains in the email that during a stop in a coffee shop at the city’s “First Night” New Year’s Eve celebration, he ran into a group asking people of all races to join in a discussion about racial inequality and injustice.

“We spoke for a few minutes about how implicit or unconscious bias results in misunderstanding on all sides, and how the need is for dialogue to clear up misunderstanding. They asked for me to take a picture holding a sign,” McLay wrote.

“The sign indicated my willingness to challenge racial problems in the workplace. I am so committed. If there are problems in the PBP related to racial injustice, I will take action to fix them,” the chief wrote.

“I saw no indictment of police or anyone else in this sign, but I do apologize to any of you who felt I was not supporting you; that was not my intent,” McLay said in the email.

McLay’s message followed an email sent to him earlier Friday by Pittsburgh Fraternal Order of Police President Howard McQuillan.

“…The recent Twitter photo has restarted the rebuilding of a wall between the Chief’s Office and the rank and file, that we have been working tirelessly to tear down for some time now. We need to repair the department’s morale, then work our way outward to the community,” the union president wrote.

“…Our current Chief of Police (is) insinuating that we are now racist, merely by the color of our skin and the nature of our profession. I say enough is enough!” McQuillan wrote.

I’m now of the opinion that America’s police force is mainly composed of the whiniest, wimpiest gits on the planet. And stupid as hell, to boot.

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Long Read: “Dying in the E.R., and on TV… “

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I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for medical dramas (all 15 seasons of ER, House M.D., Mercy, Trauma, even early Gray’s Anatomy). But I can’t bear to watch “docudrama” medical shows, for fear of just such a story as this one from the NYTimes:

Anita Chanko could not sleep. At 4 a.m., on an August night in 2012, she settled onto the couch in her Yorkville living room with her dog, Daisy, and her parrot, Elliott, and flipped on the DVR. On came the prior night’s episode of “NY Med,” the popular real-life medical series set at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, starring Dr. Mehmet Oz. Mrs. Chanko, 75, was a fan of the show and others like it.

“It starts off, there’s a woman with stomach cancer and her family, and then there’s somebody with a problem with their baby, I think it was a heart,” she remembered. “And then I see the doctor that treated my husband.”

Mark Chanko, her husband, died 16 months earlier, in April 2011, after being struck by a sanitation truck while crossing a street near his home. The doctors and nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center tried in vain to save his life.

On the TV screen, she saw the chief surgery resident Sebastian Schubl, responding to an emergency in which a man is hit by a vehicle. “And then I see, even with the blurred picture, you could tell it was him,” she said. “You could hear his speech pattern. I hear my husband say, ‘Does my wife know I’m here?’ ”…

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Open Thread: Shuckabee

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Elizabeth Titus, at Bloomberg Politics:

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said Saturday he is ending his show on Fox News because he is not ready to rule out running for president in 2016.

“There has been a great deal of speculation as to whether I would run for president,” the Republican said in a statement posted on his website. “If I were willing to absolutely rule that out, I could keep doing this show. But I can’t make such a declaration.”

“I won’t make a decision about running until late in the spring of 2015, but the continued chatter has put Fox News into a position that is not fair to them nor is it possible for me to openly determine political and financial support to justify a race,” he said…

Huckabee… took fourth place in a Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers in October, with 9 percent. Romney was included in that poll and led with 17 percent. The Hawkeye State caucuses, which Huckabee won in 2008, will kick of the nominating race in 2016.

Yeaaaah… Huck’s not running. He’s just taken a lesson from the Gingrich/Cain/Palin School of Political Grifting, where announcing that you’ve chosen to explore the ramifications of campaigning give you increased media shelfspace to market your brand. He’ll be back on Fox no later than October 2015, “analysing” all the other Repub candidates for a bumped-up fee, and sitting next to John McCain on every Sunday talk shows to explain how anyone who complains about the ramped-up eliminationist rhetoric from his Talibangelical marks fellows is the real racist/sexist/homophobe/ratfvcker.

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From the Department of WTF? (Open Thread)

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Can this really be a thing?

tortoise cozy

It’s from a Regretsy tribute Tumblr.

I stayed up too late catching up on the final season of “Sons of Anarchy,” which is an awful, terrible show. I hate every single character — even the children. I’m about half way through it, but if I had any sense, I’d delete it from my library and find a YouTube of people knitting tortoise cozies to watch instead.

Speaking of ways to squander precious time, there are two NFL games on today: Bengals v Colts and Lions v Cowboys. I don’t give a shit about any of those four teams and only actively dislike one (the Cowboys) enough enjoy rooting for their defeat.

Maybe I’ll knit tortoise-shaped chicken cozies instead. Open thread.

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Sunday Morning Open Thread: UMPEECH!!!

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new millenium gang signs knight life

(Keith Knight via GoComics.com)
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Well, this should cause plenty of soiled diapers among the stalwarts of the Wingnut Wurlizter. Per the NYTimes:

HONOLULU — President Obama plans to spend the weeks leading up to his State of the Union speech traveling across the country to promote different themes from it, a new approach by the commander in chief to the annual address to Congress.

In previous years, the administration waited until the day before the speech to disclose what the president planned to talk about, hoping that the element of surprise increased its news value and reach. Typically, Mr. Obama went on the road the day after the address, like the two previous presidents, to push his agenda.

But starting on Wednesday, according to the White House, Mr. Obama will begin a three-day, three-state trip in which he will lay out new executive actions and legislative policy proposals for higher education (Tennessee), housing (Arizona) and jobs (Michigan)…

The administration has not said whether Mr. Obama plans to do any additional traveling after the speech. But officials said they had changed their approach because they wanted the president to contrast with, and perhaps overshadow, Republicans, who will be taking over control of the Senate when the new Congress convenes on Tuesday…

“The president is eager to get to work, and looks forward to working with the new Congress on policies that will make sure middle-class Americans are sharing in the economic recovery,” the White House said. “There are a number of issues we could make progress on, but the president is clear that he will not let this Congress undo important protections gained — particularly in areas of health care, Wall Street reform and the environment.”

I believe this will be interpreted by the GOP as “YOUR CHEERIOS, I AM PEEING IN THEM”.
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Apart from donning our political ear protectors, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up the weekend / the holidays?

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