Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Let there be snark.

Second rate reporter says what?

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Biden: Oh no. We’ve upset Big Pharma again.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

Please don’t feed the bears.

This fight is for everything.

So many bastards, so little time.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Maybe you would prefer that we take Joelle’s side in ALL CAPS?

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

The willow is too close to the house.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Open Thread

Late Night Open Thread

by | 65 Comments

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I take one evening off, and the blog grinds to a halt.

Preliminary news report, from Wesley Lowery at the Washington Post:

A 44-year-old Colorado man was arrested late Thursday night on charges of arson and being a felon in possession of firearms in connection with the Jan. 6 pipe bomb explosion outside a building that houses the Colorado Springs chapter of the NAACP.

According to court documents, Thaddeus Murphy, 44, admitted to placing the homemade explosive device outside of the building, but said that he was not targeting the civil rights organization. Rather, he said, the explosive was meant to target a tax services accountant who also once worked out of the same building…

The explosion became a national story in part because few media outlets covered it initially, prompting outrage from activists who insisted that it had been a targeted attack against the civil rights organization. However, FBI and local officials remained careful with their wording, insisting that they could not definitely conclude that the NAACP branch had been targeted.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the Colorado Springs NAACP chapter president Henry Allen, a former police officer, said he was skeptical that the explosive was intended for the tax preparation office, noting that it has been years since the accountant had an office in the building.

“Criminals are people that will say anything to lessen the sentence,” Allen told the paper. “It’s up to the courts on how they interpret things. It’s up to the prosecutor on the federal level, if they want to take this guy as gospel.”

Doesn’t sound like a criminal mastermind, but then, the haterz seldom are…

Reader Interactions

65Comments

  1. 1.

    burnspbesq

    Struggling to find a reason to buy that guy’s story. Return preparers are generally not high-value targets.

  2. 2.

    srv

    IDK about you, but I can’t get enough of Jindal, Rudy & Dinesh. What a life we live here!

    For anyone wanting to step out of the echosphere, David Brooks hits it out of the ballpark tonight. You can almost sense how much he’s going to miss Rational Obama.

  5. 5.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    Ugh. Another night at work and I can’t wait until my training period is over. It’s really disturbing to spend eight hours with someone who, 95% of the time is friendly, helpful, competent, supportive, and doing a good job training you in, and the other 5% of the time is saying truly horrifying things.

    Everyone else on the post is not only a right wing nut, but also an Iraq vet. Their comments about Iraqis are utterly appalling. It’s easy to see why combat infantrymen adopt these kinds of attitudes; it must be kind of hard to set out every day prepared to kill people without convincing yourself that you hate them. That doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable to listen to them rant.

    There’s no way to respond to them. It’s not just that they have the ideologues refusal to actually listen to those that disagree with them. It’s that they have fallen completely down the hole of the fallacy of overprivileging first hand knowledge. There’s no way to get them to understand that the elements of Muslims and Iraqis that they got to see up close is only a small part of a much greater whole. This is absolutely not unique to these guys, Iraq vets, or conservatives. It’s a very human fallacy.

    Just because you’ve been there doesn’t mean that you really understand. In fact, it may well mean that you’ve been badly misled by a distorted image of reality. Saying, “Believe me, I’ve seen it up close,” is frequently a completely bullshit argument to authority. Not always, but often enough that it shouldn’t, in and of itself, be persuasive.

    In the meantime, I get to listen to people go on AT LENGTH about how Obama hates America because he isn’t willing to authorize killing every Iraqi and Syrian that would oppose us imposing our vision for the area while, in the same sentences, trying to convince me how evil ISIS is because they kill every Iraqi and Syrian who would oppose them imposing their vision for the area.

    I’m driving up to Bemidji (a three and a half hour drive) with an individual that I find pretty annoying to watch a two hour hockey game and then drive back just because I need to spend some time with friends that aren’t going to try to convince me that they are evil.

  6. 6.

    tsquared2001

    It’s striking that what was SUPPOSED to be blown up is the vital element in the story rather than the fact that disaffected bombers live among us.

  9. 9.

    burnspbesq

    .@Morzer:

    No-one expects the Obama IRS Inquisition

    Nor should they. With the way Congress has slashed its budget the last few years, it can barely process returns, much less run around all inquisitizing and shit.

  11. 11.

    Amir Khalid

    @srv:
    I heard a lot of words from David Brooks, but I didn’t get a sense that he was actually saying anything.

  12. 12.

    ? Martin

    @burnspbesq: Should be easy enough to check out. He said the guy did his taxes, the guy can probably verify if there were complaints. I don’t think your first complain is usually a pipe bomb.

  14. 14.

    Little Boots

    I do love how brooks plays the game though. everyone’s a dick right up to that line when you are allowed to do anything about it. then, everyone draw back, and rethink.

  17. 17.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    I have another interview next week, this time at the division I actually want to work in. Getting my hair cut and colored tomorrow and then the interview is on Friday. I’ll be watching cartoons this weekend to prepare for it. No, seriously, I actually need to do that.

  20. 20.

    srv

    How many times do I have to explain it to you people?

    Trying to explain his controversial comments that President Obama doesn’t love America, Rudy Giuliani said Friday that he believes the President has been influenced by communism and socialism.

    “Look, this man was brought up basically in a white family, so whatever he learned or didn’t learn, I attribute this more to the influence of communism and socialism” than to his race, Giuliani told the Daily News.

    “I don’t (see) this President as being particularly a product of African-American society or something like that. He isn’t,” the former mayor added. “Logically, think about his background. . . The ideas that are troubling me and are leading to this come from communists with whom he associated when he was 9 years old” through family connections.

    It’s like y’all are dense or something.

  23. 23.

    piratedan

    @srv: does that mean that we should consider David Brooks something like a paid panderer to the 1% because that was the environment that he grew up in and that they have unduly influenced his judgement or is it just that they have their hand so far up his ass that he’s simply a realistic mouthpiece?

  27. 27.

    Redshift

    @srv: Unless you’re Guliani, posting an extended quote from him isn’t “explaining.”

    What’s your point? Is it still “Guliani is old, so he shouldn’t be held responsible for anything he says, and criticizing him means we’re against free speech, so the First Amendment means we should all shut up”?

    Because that wasn’t at all hard to understand the first time, and “explaining” it again doesn’t make it any less asinine.

  29. 29.

    burnspbesq

    @srv:

    Rudy needs to re-learn the First Rule of Holes.

    Rudy was an absolute kick-ass U.S. Attorney in the 1980s. He could have just gone to work for a big firm and quietly taken down $2million a year for the rest of his life. But NOOOOOOOOO!

  32. 32.

    Amir Khalid

    @srv:
    From what I know of Lolo Soetoro’s personal history, which I admit is limited to his stepson’s recollection in Dreams From My Father, this talk of childhood communist or socialist indoctrination doesn’t seem plausible.

  34. 34.

    Yatsuno

    @burnspbesq: Why dick over only a few hundred people at most when you could dick over 15 million plus and possibly more?

    @burnspbesq:

    With the way Congress has slashed its budget the last few years, it can barely process returns

    Traffic at walk-in is fucking INSANE. No one wants to call because they can’t get through. There is stuff slipping through the crack and billions is getting uncollected. Oh and if you actually DO get caught, good luck getting anyone in collection because their staff is decimated. It’s a fucking nightmare and it will get worse if there is a CR after this October. Like I may lose my job worse.

  38. 38.

    Little Boots

    @Redshift:

    doesn’t work presidential, but pretty much every fucking congressional, it does work. the problem is not the politicians, the problem is the people.

  40. 40.

    Little Boots

    hillary is barely a start, but at least a start.

    the left needs to get three things:

    nobody loves us.

    we have been right about most things, but nobody believes us.

    America does actually like the rich.

  42. 42.

    BruceFromOhio

    Cats in a fracking handbag, its no people of color at the cinema love-in, Ron Paul, D’nesh the D’fuckup, and Christie the BULLY.

    All we lack is an O’Reilly thread on Who Loves America More Than My Testicles, You Commie Slut.

    Meanwhile, back at Casa De FromOhio, the debate rages: is the difference between -14 F and 14 F twenty EIGHT degrees, or twenty NINE degrees? Knives were drawn, and much ribs and vodka consumed. There was also euchre.

  46. 46.

    ruemara

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): lol, if you need any cartoon assistance for the interview, I’m here for you. Good luck, though. And in all seriousness, if you need cartoon culture stuff, I’m open.

    I’m mentally preparing myself for Comic-Con tickets tomorrow. At least I hope to finally be able to purchase some tomorrow. If I can get out of the digital waiting room of doom. Go me.

    SQUEEE! Doc McStuffins! I love her! Double plus good luck.

  47. 47.

    Amir Khalid

    @BruceFromOhio:
    The way to settle it is to make a number line with a zero point, and then count it off. Which gives the definitive answer: it’s a difference of twenty-eight degrees. Duapuluh lapan darjah. Achtundzwanzig Grad. Vingt-huit degrés. Veintiocho grados.

  48. 48.

    Betty Cracker

    Can’t sleep, so I’m watching CNN, and they’re reviewing fairly detailed plans of an upcoming Iraqi Army campaign to retake Mosul from ISIL. The plans include a rough timetable, troop strength estimates and plans to cut off supply routes, etc. I’m no military strategist, but it seems like a bad idea to telegraph such plans.

  49. 49.

    Violet

    @Betty Cracker: Is Geraldo Rivera giving awy the locations of all the troops? Oh, wait. He’s on Fox now, right? I can’t keep them all straight.

    Speaking of Fox, I asked the people in charge of such things at my gym if they could please change the channel on the large overhead TV from Fox News. I told them I found it offensive propaganda and I was shocked they had it on. I think they were shocked I called it that.

  51. 51.

    Betty Cracker

    @Violet: I can’t abide it for more than a few seconds at a time either. Well, except on election night 2012. We were watching the returns on CNN or MSNBC, and my daugher said, “Hey, let’s see what they’re saying on Fox!” So we got to see Rove’s meltdown live. It was glorious.

    @BillinGlendaleCA: That is a good song. I’d forgotten all about it.

  52. 52.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Betty Cracker: Bit of trivia, in Mind Games, the woman saying “John, John” is May Pang. She was Lennon’s girlfriend when he and Yoko separated in 73-74.

  53. 53.

    SRW1

    @Amir Khalid:

    To cite my old geometry teacher:

    Und da machen wir erst mal eine Planfigur.

    He stated this in a distinct accent (Saxon), which is why it has remained a very vivid memory. He was also damn right about the usefulness of it.

  58. 58.

    RSA

    @Amir Khalid:

    The way to settle it is to make a number line with a zero point, and then count it off.

    Which can be done in one’s head with smaller numbers. What’s the difference between -2 degrees and 2 degrees?

  59. 59.

    Buddy H

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Be careful. I know it’s your right to express your opinions as well, but if they decide you’re “unamerican” and “not supporting the troops (them)” you may become a target, and find yourself out of a job. I’ve never seen a progressive person sabotage a co-worker, but I personally witnessed a right-wing dude wage a campaign against a black girl in my office. She ended up quitting. She complained to management about his racism, but they shrugged her off. When she left, he gloated all day.

  60. 60.

    Frankensteinbeck

    I was willing to grant that his target was exactly who he said, and he was just a grudge-bearing shit, but

    noting that it has been years since the accountant had an office in the building.

    makes it seem rather unlikely.

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):
    I love cartoons, dated an animator, and researched the industry when I was trying to get into it. I’ll be happy to answer any questions I can, but it *is* a big topic.

    @BruceFromOhio:
    28. 14 is the distance from 0 to 14, not from 1 to 14. When you count to 14, you never say the 0 even though that’s where you start. So if you count from -14 to 14, the first number you’ll say is -13 and you’ll count 28 steps. I’m guessing that in the cold light of sobriety, this was all obvious again.

    @burnspbesq:
    The rich save lots of money if the IRS can’t audit them, and poor conservatives have been selfish shits who resent paying into society way back to when they called it ‘the revenoo’. It’s typical of how the interests of the MBA and cultural conservative wings combine.

  61. 61.

    D58826

    riminals are people that will say anything to lessen the sentence,” Allen told the paper. “It’s up to the courts on how they interpret things. It’s up to the prosecutor on the federal level, if they want to take this guy as gospel.”

    maybe this guy is right and then sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!

  62. 62.

    Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)

    @ruemara:

    Thanks! It’s probably not the Doc herself, but that’s the division I’m interviewing with. My preference was to stay with my current one, but this was my #2 choice, so I’m pretty excited.

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I’ve been in it myself as an admin for a while now (at the Giant Evil Corporation) and I’m hoping to break into the side that’s creative but doesn’t require drawing talent. They’ve moved to using actual screenwriters to do the scripts instead of storyboard-only, so there’s still hope for us writers who can only draw stick figures.

  63. 63.

    Buddy H

    @Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Have you seen the film “The Reluctant Dragon”? Fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the Disney studios, circa 1940. Look for Alan Ladd in a tiny part as he introduces the “Baby Weems” storyboard. And some actual, legendary animators make appearances, playing themselves, as well as the gentleman who portrayed Donald Duck.

    The film didn’t do well, and the strike was going on during its opening. I think Walt called all the strikers communists and tried to ruin their careers.

  64. 64.

    Bill Arnold

    @Yatsuno:

    Oh and if you actually DO get caught, good luck getting anyone in collection because their staff is decimated.

    It’s as if the Republicans want the the U.S. to have Greek levels of tax evasion.
    (Has anybody tried this line on a talking heads show yet?)

  65. 65.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Buddy H:

    I haven’t seen it in years, but I should probably watch it again since I know a lot more about the history thanks to my current job. Among other things, I got to hear the director of “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” tell a story that ended with his face pressed into Angela Lansbury’s (fully clothed) crotch. I wish I could remember what he said her response was, but it was funny.

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