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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

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

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

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Come on, man.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

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

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

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

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Friday Evening Open Thread: Pathological Liars & Narcissists

Friday Evening Open Thread: Pathological Liars & Narcissists

by Anne Laurie|  March 6, 20155:17 pm| 123 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Clown Shoes, Our Failed Media Experiment

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.@DineshDSouza Your life is like if someone said, "What Wouldn't Jesus Do?"

— Kate Forristall (@KateCForristall) March 6, 2015

And a little more bracing vitriol, from Jeb Lund for Rolling Stone. “Go Ahead and Call Bill O’Reilly What He Is“:

A good rule of callout culture is to never target someone for the same things you do. No adulterer is more insufferable, after all, than the fire-and-brimstone minister. But when NBC anchor Brian Williams was exposed for fabricating stories of journalistic heroism, poor Bill O’Reilly just couldn’t help himself. There was Williams, that prick, garnering widespread acclaim for the kind of stories Bill had already been making up for years.

A real American doesn’t tolerate that kind of crap, and Bill O’Reilly is a real American. He has evolved into a post-fact reality, nightly defending a singular nation of fear and confabulation against all enemies foreign and domestic. He is a fiction more palpable than himself, and he can’t stop, because it’s all he has…

This constant churning of preposterous shit runs through O’Reilly’s career like discarded picnic food through geese, a steaming heap of compensatory fantasy meeting defensive wish fulfillment. Media Matters could update daily by debunking The O’Reilly Factor alone. He claimed his tabloid show Inside Edition won two Peabody Awards. He turned a comfortable childhood in the post-war suburban planned community of Levittown (with regular Florida vacations) into an Oliver Twist-tinged struggle, to complete the Horatio Alger arc corporealizing him as the American dream: “You don’t come from any lower than I came from on an economic scale.” Those who would dare wake him from it are met with violence…

The dream subsumes the rest of the world. Fact has been so incorporated into the fictive in O’Reilly’s mind that he genuinely seems incapable of distinguishing between the two. When pressed to defend his Falklands story, he cited Those Who Trespass. “That was the first book that I wrote. Soup to nuts, what happened in Buenos Aires during the Falklands war.”

It’s a novel…

The first unsettling takeaway from the book is that, once laid atop the patterns of O’Reilly’s real life, one is surprised to realize that Bill O’Reilly hasn’t actually murdered anyone yet. The second is this: that the stories Bill tells as fiction are nearly identical to the fictions he tells himself and his viewers. The Nation and Mother Jones might have caught him out on the details, but he was telling us he is a vengeful, unhinged fabulist this entire time…

***********
Apart from a little light pointing & mocking, what’s on the agenda as we start the weekend?

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Reader Interactions

123Comments

  1. 1.

    Cacti

    March 6, 2015 at 5:19 pm

    My favorite O’Reilly yarn is that his corporate accountant father was a lunchpail working stiff.

  2. 2.

    BGinCHI

    March 6, 2015 at 5:22 pm

    Speaking of the creatures in this post’s title, have you all seen this?

    http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/06/ferguson-judge-owes-unpaid-taxes-ronald-brockmeyer

    This is how things work when there is no accountability.

    These fucking people.

  3. 3.

    Turgidson

    March 6, 2015 at 5:23 pm

    Can we get a constitutional amendment passed requiring TBogg to reply to every D’Souza tweet as hilariously as possible?

  4. 4.

    Mike J

    March 6, 2015 at 5:24 pm

    @BGinCHI: I just posted in the previous:

    Brockmeyer, who has been Ferguson’s municipal court judge for 12 years, serves simultaneously as a prosecutor in two nearby cities and as a private attorney. Legal experts said his potentially conflicting interests illustrate a serious problem in the region’s judicial system.

  5. 5.

    jl

    March 6, 2015 at 5:28 pm

    I asked this before, but if Bill is telling the truth about the novel, which of his colleagues did he bump off? That would be news.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    March 6, 2015 at 5:30 pm

    Seems like Al Franken covered this years ago.

  7. 7.

    BGinCHI

    March 6, 2015 at 5:30 pm

    @Mike J: It makes Jim Crow look kind of amateurish.

  8. 8.

    jl

    March 6, 2015 at 5:33 pm

    But I just realized that I do hope Fox News goes ahead and credentials that kind of journalism. Because then I can lecture all you squirts and impudent whippersnappers and things that I have done seen.

    I have seen what nuclear weapons can do to a city! And the humans therein! I have seen the aftermath of a charges against massed muskets! The sunken road at… wherever that was. I seen that. I can lecture you all about all what I have seen, dammit.

  9. 9.

    Jacks mom

    March 6, 2015 at 5:35 pm

    mr jacks mom & me are celebrating our 35 year wedded bliss anniversary tomorrow and he has always wanted a black lab. I found some puppies that are ready for their furever home and so I’m going to surprise him with one. I think I’ll suggest we name him Jade since its our 35th. I’m very excited and also terrified. We haven’t had a dog forever and we have two older cats.
    Someone out there want to try and talk me out of doing this? We have a huge fenced yard and I’m semi-retired. He works from home but does a lot of day travel.

  10. 10.

    Gex

    March 6, 2015 at 5:39 pm

    @BGinCHI: Sadly, I fear he’d prefer the days where you could just have an extrajudicial hanging now and then instead of having to go through the whole charade of due process.

  11. 11.

    chopper

    March 6, 2015 at 5:39 pm

    @Mike J:

    Brockmeyer, who has been Ferguson’s municipal court judge for 12 years, serves simultaneously as a prosecutor in two nearby cities and as a private attorney. Legal experts said his potentially conflicting interests illustrate a serious problem in the region’s judicial system.

    hur de dur de dur, really?

  12. 12.

    trollhattan

    March 6, 2015 at 5:40 pm

    one is surprised to realize that Bill O’Reilly hasn’t actually murdered anyone yet.

    It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

    Now, where did I put my loofah?

  13. 13.

    raven

    March 6, 2015 at 5:42 pm

    @Jacks mom: Outside of a book a dog is man’s best, inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.

  14. 14.

    Amir Khalid

    March 6, 2015 at 5:44 pm

    @Jacks mom:
    How are your two not-young cats going to react to a puppy — boisterous, energetic, noisy, with no sense yet of certain social boundaries?

  15. 15.

    bemused

    March 6, 2015 at 5:45 pm

    @Jacks mom:

    Just dive in. The water’s fine.

    The moment you bring puppy home, you’ll wonder why you ever hesitated.

  16. 16.

    Tree With Water

    March 6, 2015 at 5:45 pm

    Kate Forristall’s rejoinder to DuhZooza is similar to mine when I first heard a politician sanctimoniously feed the “what would Jesus do?” raw meat silliness to the rubes. I forget exactly who it was I first heard do that- maybe Carter- but my immediate response was, “Forget Jesus. A better question is what would Machiavelli do?”.

  17. 17.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    March 6, 2015 at 5:47 pm

    Whom is Kate Forristal and howm might one subscribe to her newsletter?

  18. 18.

    beth

    March 6, 2015 at 5:48 pm

    @Jacks mom: I’ve got a 10 year old Lab and in my opinion there’s no finer breed of dog. However if you have mobility issues or don’t think you’ll be able to get the dog the exercise it’s going to need, I’d say go for a different breed. Lab puppies are just like toddlers – you need to wear them out and let them nap or they will take it out on everything in your home. They need lots of walking, playing and supervised running around (which I learned the hard way one afternoon when she dug up nearly the entire sprinkler system in my back yard – not just the sprinkler heads but the pipes running underground too).

  19. 19.

    SatanicPanic

    March 6, 2015 at 5:48 pm

    @BGinCHI: Oh man. It takes a lot to make me angry at the news, but that pissed me off. I want to go punch something now. damn.

  20. 20.

    trollhattan

    March 6, 2015 at 5:49 pm

    Cash and CarryChristie.

    On Thursday, Gov. Chris Christie’s administration announced it was settling New Jersey’s $8.9 billion lawsuit against ExxonMobil for just $225 million. Just hours later, amid outraged calls for a federal probe of the deal as far too lenient, Christie attended a secretive conference in Georgia organized by an advocacy group that has been funded by ExxonMobil.

    Christie was scheduled to give the opening speech at the American Enterprise Institute’s World Forum at a luxury resort on Sea Island, according to Bloomberg News. Corporate documents show that ExxonMobil has been a major benefactor of AEI, a conservative think tank in Washington whose spokesmen have disputed the scientific consensus on climate change and touted ExxonMobil as a “taxation hero.”

    In 2012 and 2013, Exxon disclosed giving AEI a total of almost $600,000. The Union of Concerned Scientists has previously reported that AEI received $3 million from ExxonMobil between 2001 and 2011. In its past “corporate citizenship” reports, Exxon has touted its support of the group. A former CEO, Lee Raymond, served as the vice chairman of AEI’s board of trustees.

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/christie-appears-at-event-hosted-by-exxon-funded-group-hours-after-settling-lawsuit-with-the-oil-giant/

    Do most Jerseyites understand what he’s doing to them, at their considerable expense? Do they give a fig?

  21. 21.

    Jacks mom

    March 6, 2015 at 5:50 pm

    @Amir Khalid: that has always been one of our main concerns. I’m not sure how they will react so the guy who has the puppies ( there are only two available) is bringing them to our house tomorrow for us to meet them & decide which one we want. I guess we will see what the kitties think at that time too.

  22. 22.

    Tree With Water

    March 6, 2015 at 5:51 pm

    @beth: To think, too, that in her heart she may consider that afternoon to have been the happiest day in her life.

  23. 23.

    Baud

    March 6, 2015 at 5:51 pm

    @Jacks mom:

    Someone out there want to try and talk me out of doing this?

    LOL. Like that’ll happen here.

    Congratulations.

  24. 24.

    trollhattan

    March 6, 2015 at 5:53 pm

    @Jacks mom:
    Go for it! Labs are super-smart and usually eager to please their humans, but of course smart enough to get into all kinds of trouble, too. I’d have one myself if I could figure out how to keep one out of the fish pond–the swimming urge is ENORMOUS. I don’t think there’s a more lovable pooch than a Lab.

  25. 25.

    Belafon

    March 6, 2015 at 5:53 pm

    @trollhattan: Yeah, but environmentalists are the real polluters.

  26. 26.

    Jacks mom

    March 6, 2015 at 5:54 pm

    @beth: I will keep that in mind. We are fairly active people (for our age ;) it might even help my husband lose that last pesky ten pounds he’s been fighting with

  27. 27.

    kc

    March 6, 2015 at 5:54 pm

    The first unsettling takeaway from the book is that, once laid atop the patterns of O’Reilly’s real life, one is surprised to realize that Bill O’Reilly hasn’t actually murdered anyone yet.

    That we know of . . .

  28. 28.

    kc

    March 6, 2015 at 5:56 pm

    @BGinCHI: ‘

    Damn, look how young his bride is.

  29. 29.

    BGinCHI

    March 6, 2015 at 5:56 pm

    @trollhattan: His only visible skill is telling people to shut up.

    It’s just like Kansas.

    Human beings seem perfectly willing to hire someone at great expense to kick the shit out of them. There isn’t even a safe word.

  30. 30.

    bemused

    March 6, 2015 at 5:58 pm

    @Jacks mom:

    Arrange play dates if friends have active dogs or visits to dog park if available. They sure sleep well after wild romps with a doggy pal.

  31. 31.

    BGinCHI

    March 6, 2015 at 5:58 pm

    @kc: His V1agra bill is probably setting him back a pretty penny.

  32. 32.

    PurpleGirl

    March 6, 2015 at 6:00 pm

    @Jacks mom: First: Happy Anniversary! May you and Mr. Jack’s Mom have many more. Second: The Lab was a great idea. Hope he likes the doggie. Good luck with the doggie.

  33. 33.

    askew

    March 6, 2015 at 6:02 pm

    I can’t even pretend to care about O’Reilly. If he goes, another hack will show up the next day who is even worse.

    Seeing Daily Kos create diary after diary spinning the Hillary email fiasco as no big deal after they’ve spent years dragging GOP politicians through the mud for the same thing. And they are really getting desperate in finding things to cling to discredit the media. They are starting to sound like the Unskewed people from 2012.

  34. 34.

    kc

    March 6, 2015 at 6:02 pm

    @Jacks mom:

    Someone out there want to try and talk me out of doing this? We have a huge fenced yard and I’m semi-retired. He works from home but does a lot of day travel.

    I hate to be negative, but since you asked: Friend of mine got a Lab mom and puppy. She had a nice fenced yard, room for them to play. Not only did the mom escape multiple times (chewing through the fence, digging under it, etc), the puppy literally ate the siding off her house. Seriously, all over the exterior of the house, there were large patches of chewed-up or completely missing siding, up to puppy-snout height. Puppy also devoured innumerable shoes, books, magazines, and plants.

    On the flip side, she was eventually going to have to replace the siding anyway . . . at some point.

    This puppy was just cute as heck and sweet as she could be, but boy, what a handful. I don’t know if all Lab puppies are that . . . high-maintenance, but I would proceed with caution.

  35. 35.

    Tree With Water

    March 6, 2015 at 6:05 pm

    @Jacks mom: Old cats love new things. Especially puppies. Go for it!

  36. 36.

    geg6

    March 6, 2015 at 6:08 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Tell that to my Koda. She avoids any and all water, if possible. And she won’t go anywhere near our koi pond. Because…water. Never met a Lab that didn’t like water before but now I have. But she is super smart and totally eager to please. But she never chews anything but her toys and is good about walking on a leash. Didn’t teach her any of these things, but her first mom, Jenna, must have taught her a lot. By the time we got her at 1 yr. and 3 mo., she was perfect! I only can hope Lovey and Thurston will be half as good.

  37. 37.

    Belafon

    March 6, 2015 at 6:10 pm

    @askew: Can you show me one of those links? I know we’ve gone after Cheney for not releasing any emails.

  38. 38.

    PurpleGirl

    March 6, 2015 at 6:14 pm

    @trollhattan: Over the years, it seems that New Jersey residents have one concern. They are convinced that they pay too much in property taxes and taxes in general. They may not consider what they get for their taxes but they are sure they pay too much. Any politician who promises to reduce taxes is loved and elected. (Doesn’t matter if the state then turns around and has to borrow billions to pay pensions or any thing, they want taxes reduced.)

  39. 39.

    trollhattan

    March 6, 2015 at 6:16 pm

    @geg6:
    An exception to every rule, I guess. Koda sounds wonderful.

    My concern stems from a woman with a koi pond and a Lab, who was a very, very, very good Lab and never bothered with the pond or the fish. For years. Then one day the woman comes home to discover most of her fish in a neat line alongside the pond, where her very, very, very good Lab had placed them after fetching them from the pond. Must have been a lot of work!

  40. 40.

    Karen in GA

    March 6, 2015 at 6:17 pm

    @Jacks mom: Since you’re doing a preliminary exploratory meeting to test the waters and fly the puppies up a flagpole to see who salutes and throw ’em against the wall to see who sticks etc., etc., I’d say let your decision depend on how that meeting goes.

    Then we’ll need pics.

  41. 41.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    March 6, 2015 at 6:17 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    hire someone at great expense to kick the shit out of them. There isn’t even a safe word.

    I guess they’ve never heard of ‘Green Balloons’.

  42. 42.

    Germy Shoemangler

    March 6, 2015 at 6:19 pm

    I love Kate Forristall’s response to D’Souza (gesundheit!!)

    I read more of her tweets and I see she re-tweeted a comment from Elon James White.

  43. 43.

    WereBear

    March 6, 2015 at 6:20 pm

    @Jacks mom: My advice? Get them both.

    They can wear each other out. If one understands something, they can tell the other. They won’t be lonely if left in the house. Walks become more fun.

    Be a pack. Dogs love that.

  44. 44.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    March 6, 2015 at 6:21 pm

    @PurpleGirl:

    (Doesn’t matter if the state then turns around and has to borrow billions to pay pensions or any thing, they want taxes reduced.)

    I’ll pay you tomorrow for a burger today.

  45. 45.

    White Trash Liberal

    March 6, 2015 at 6:22 pm

    I’m trying to wrap my head around this HRC scandal. She uses a private e-mail that allows her to control her own archive. This is in keeping with prior SoS prior to Kerry and a law change. The 2007 federal records law states that her government e-mail archives (that which is pertinent to her role as SoS). According to her, she has complied. According to the GOP and Benghazitruthers, she has not.

    NYT steps in and writes a thinly veiled hit piece that her non-government e-mail allows her to dictate the archival.

    The Wurlitzer winds up and the Optics Police come out and accuse HRC of looking bad and engaging in Clintonian crap. John Cole is part of this Wurlitzer.

    I’m thinking and thinking and simply cannot see where the scandal is. There is none. This is just SOP against the Clintons that started with Gennifer Flowers and ended with Whitewater.

    The only potential scandal is her failure to comply with the 2007 law, not the law that existed after she vacated office. There is zero evidence of failure to comply. In fact, all evidence points to the opposite.

    Why am I supposed to be clutching my pearls? That the “appearance” of impropriety, as dictated to us by the very paper of record that helped support EVERY fucking Bush era act, requires that HRC prostrate herself before the public and get ahead of something that doesn’t even exist?

    Fuck that.

  46. 46.

    kc

    March 6, 2015 at 6:28 pm

    Back to the original post, I think “call-out culture” is a “progressive” thing. It hardly applies to O’Reilly.

    Though if Lund can make it stick, that’s fine, I guess, if it hastens the demise of call-out culture.

  47. 47.

    Ruckus

    March 6, 2015 at 6:29 pm

    @White Trash Liberal:
    This.
    THIS.
    THIS!
    And I’m on record here as not being a HRC fan.

  48. 48.

    David Koch

    March 6, 2015 at 6:31 pm

    300,000 jobs created in February.

    Obamacare is a job killer!

  49. 49.

    Howard Beale IV

    March 6, 2015 at 6:32 pm

    Speaking of goggies, TSA reminds travelers to double check their bags before closing them up, lest they accidentally pack their Chihuahua!

  50. 50.

    Baud

    March 6, 2015 at 6:32 pm

    @kc:

    So what is it called when conservatives do it? It’s not like they don’t attack people who say things they don’t like.

  51. 51.

    geg6

    March 6, 2015 at 6:34 pm

    @White Trash Liberal:

    Exactly. I’m no Hilbot, but this whole thing smells exactly like Whitewater to me. And it’s all the same suspects drumming up the “some say” bullshit. Fuck them. The Times especially. It was the Times that ran a million hit pieces on the Clintons in the 90s and which carried water for W’s minions to lie us into war. They are no better than FOX in my book. Look at the fucking columnists they have. These people call Maureen Dowd a liberal and give her prime real estate to trash actual liberals with unhinged, pre-teen level personal attacks, aiming to emasculate Democratic men and painting Democratic women as angry militant but closeted lesbians. Fuck the Times.

  52. 52.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    March 6, 2015 at 6:34 pm

    @White Trash Liberal: As pointed out in the earlier thread on this(I believe by Gin and Tonic), this should be required reading by any reporter or commentator on this: http://www.zdnet.com/article/clintons-little-email-fuss-beyond-servers-in-the-basement/.

  53. 53.

    Baud

    March 6, 2015 at 6:39 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Thanks for that. Interesting read. The media sucks.

  54. 54.

    Cacti

    March 6, 2015 at 6:40 pm

    @geg6:

    It was the Times that ran a million hit pieces on the Clintons in the 90s and which carried water for W’s minions to lie us into war.

    Maureen Dowd won a Pulitzer Prize for “political commentary” for what was essentially a year’s worth of catty remarks about the Clenis.

    I have no great love for Hill and Bill, but damn. The NYT has had a giant hate-on for the Clintons for decades. I’m sure they were only too happy to carry Trey Gowdy’s water on this one.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    March 6, 2015 at 6:40 pm

    @David Koch:

    To be fair, 240,000 of those were lawyers in the Supreme Court case.

  56. 56.

    Betty Cracker

    March 6, 2015 at 6:40 pm

    @Jacks mom: Congrats! I’ll 2nd WereBear’s suggestion to get both pups! We’ve always found dogs are happier in pairs. Sounds lik y’all are home enough to keep them from serious mischief.

  57. 57.

    trollhattan

    March 6, 2015 at 6:42 pm

    @Howard Beale IV:
    Heh! Or themselves.

  58. 58.

    Baud

    March 6, 2015 at 6:42 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    I wonder the Balloon Juice servers are in Cole’s basement. Would explain much.

  59. 59.

    JPL

    March 6, 2015 at 6:43 pm

    @Ruckus: That’s me.

    @Jacks mom: Yeah! Puppy pictures.

  60. 60.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    March 6, 2015 at 6:45 pm

    @Baud: The media needs to talk to their IT folk before writing or talking about IT issues. I know the IT folk aren’t pleasant to look at(looks in mirror) and may smell funny(sniffs), but it’s no excuse for shoddy reporting.

  61. 61.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    March 6, 2015 at 6:46 pm

    @Baud: I’m sure they are with a JRT running the whole thing.

  62. 62.

    Baud

    March 6, 2015 at 6:47 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    it’s no excuse for shoddy reporting.

    Correct. The media’s excuse for shoddy reporting is that they lack ethics when it come to reporting on Democrats.

  63. 63.

    fuckwit

    March 6, 2015 at 6:48 pm

    @trollhattan: FALAFEL!!!!

    OOH SOAPY BOOBS AND FALAFEL…. UNGGH NOW I NEED A TOWEL.

    http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/oreilly-suit-turns-10

  64. 64.

    shelley

    March 6, 2015 at 6:48 pm

    Beginning of the weekend? I have no idea. Don’t know how to cope with no snow in the forcast and temps getting up into the 50’s next week? What crazy Bizzaro world is this????

  65. 65.

    Pogonip

    March 6, 2015 at 6:49 pm

    I think O’Reilly, and Fox in general, are more full of shit than a Christmas turkey–but ever since that ridiculous gang rape story I’ve felt pretty much the same way about Rolling Stone. Fortunately I don’t need them to tell me what an asshole O’Reilly is, I’ve seen his show. He’s that loud obnoxious guy at the end of the bar who ‘s been everywhere, done everything, and won’t shut up about it.

  66. 66.

    jl

    March 6, 2015 at 6:49 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Thanks. Very useful link.

  67. 67.

    Mandalay

    March 6, 2015 at 6:51 pm

    A good rule of callout culture is to never target someone for the same things you do…But when NBC anchor Brian Williams was exposed for fabricating stories of journalistic heroism, poor Bill O’Reilly just couldn’t help himself.

    Bill O’Reilly’s lies were certainly more egregious and blatant than the ones spun by Brian Williams. But I have no idea why Jeb Lund is accusing O’Reilly of targeting Brian Williams. The exact opposite was true – O’Reilly went out of his way to publicly defend Williams:

    ….these people delight in seeing famous people being taken apart. And I just think it’s wrong. I mean, we’re human beings just like everybody else.”
    “If there’s a doubt with Brian Williams, I’m going to give it to him,” O’Reilly said.

    It looks to me like one liar is falsely accusing another liar of attacking another liar. But given that the source is Rolling Stone, hardly surprising.

  68. 68.

    JDM

    March 6, 2015 at 6:52 pm

    @Cacti:

    O’Reilly also seems to be calling his own mother a liar when he claims to have lived in Levittown instead of Westbury, where she said they lived. Then it was claimed that he lived in an “overlapping area” of the two, which according to the map does not exist. Regardless, his statements about being anywhere even approaching poor or lower class is nonsense. My father was in a similar mid-management capacity with a large company, making similar money to O’Reilly’s father, about 60 miles away in Westchester. I could, and do, certainly (and accurately) state that I wasn’t as well off as some of the kids I went to school with (people like Evan Hunter’s kids, for instance) but we were doing fine, as good as most and better than some, and that’s just in the area. That kind of salary was pretty good money back then (O’Reilly’s claim of $35,000/yr. in 1978, if accurate, is approximately $125,000 today). Of course, I didn’t go to a private school like Bill O’Reilly did.

    Really, that last: how delusional do you have to be to know full well you went to a private school and still say “You don’t come from any lower than I came from on an economic scale”?

  69. 69.

    catclub

    March 6, 2015 at 6:54 pm

    @trollhattan: Private profits, socialized losses.

  70. 70.

    Tree With Water

    March 6, 2015 at 6:54 pm

    Catherine Thompson at TPM.com reports:

    “…Missouri Republicans this week began to break their silence about the state GOP chairman’s alleged link to state Auditor Tom Schweich’s (R) suicide…….The floodgates opened Tuesday at Schweich’s funeral service, where former U.S. Sen. John Danforth (R-MO) implicitly rejected Missouri Republican Party Chairman John Hancock’s denials about being involved in an anti-Semitic “whisper campaign.” Schweich had told people before his death that Hancock was telling people he was Jewish, when in fact he was Episcopalian..”.

    I did not fathom the depths of Missouri’s bigotry. In my ignorance, I had thought this mentality had by and large gone with the wind around the time Gregory Peck starred in Gentlemen’s Agreement.

  71. 71.

    jl

    March 6, 2015 at 6:55 pm

    @Baud: I’m still officially suspending judgement on whether this is a big deal or not. If the emails are still there, and she does not play any games with current Obama people in screening them, then I don’t see how anyone is going to care in a few months.

    And I agree that the initial reporting was very shoddy, and that is giving it the benefit of the doubt. I saw some evidence of purposeful equivocation in (purposefully?) sloppy links and references to what were supposedly the regulations in effect at the time, but were not that at all.

    People can complain and yell all they want about what HRC should have could have would have done if she were not a jerk. That is fair game. But the stories alleged more than that, they strongly suggested that she violated laws and regulations, and that is still far from clear. IMO, the more I read, the less sure I am that she did, but admit that I so not know for sure.

    The link in the @BillinGlendaleCA: comment is very useful.

  72. 72.

    kc

    March 6, 2015 at 6:57 pm

    @Baud:

    @kc:

    So what is it called when conservatives do it?

    Not be too flip, but who cares? I’m not saying they don’t ever attack one another (and when they do, I love to point and laugh), but I believe the phrase “call-out culture” is fairly specific to progressive groups, and is oppressively common in some areas. Or “spaces,” or as progressive people might say. Just do a google search.

  73. 73.

    MomSense

    March 6, 2015 at 6:57 pm

    @Jacks mom:

    We may have to petition Anne Laurie for a Sarurday morning puppy support open thread. Puppies are a ton of work but when your puppy greets you wiggling her entire little body you can’t imagine life without her.

  74. 74.

    David Koch

    March 6, 2015 at 6:58 pm

    60 consecutive months of job growth

    The stimulus failed!

  75. 75.

    Baud

    March 6, 2015 at 6:58 pm

    @jl:

    That seems eminently reasonable.

    Or we could burn her as a witch before she turns us all into newts.

    Reasonable people can disagree.

  76. 76.

    Jacks mom

    March 6, 2015 at 6:59 pm

    @WereBear: I just might think about that. I’ve been worried that we will fall in love with both and be torn to choose one. We have a really great dog park and our vet offers a good obedience school. But two puppies…..I think the cats would REALLY disapprove.

  77. 77.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    March 6, 2015 at 6:59 pm

    @jl: I’m having greater difficulty trusting anything from the media about IT. I’m wondering if all of them require assistance in turning on their Macbooks.

  78. 78.

    Howard Beale IV

    March 6, 2015 at 6:59 pm

    @trollhattan: That’s a good story – have to file that one away.

  79. 79.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    March 6, 2015 at 7:00 pm

    @David Koch: The market was quite unhappy with today’s job numbers, so Obama must be a failure.

  80. 80.

    Baud

    March 6, 2015 at 7:01 pm

    @kc:

    I care. By labeling a common human problem as a progressive problem, you make it easy for others to demonize the left. That’s what “political correctness” was all about also.

  81. 81.

    kc

    March 6, 2015 at 7:02 pm

    @Mandalay:

    But I have no idea why Jeb Lund is accusing O’Reilly of targeting Brian Williams. The exact opposite was true – O’Reilly went out of his way to publicly defend Williams:

    Damn, you’re absolutely right. LOL. Did Jeb Lund not even do a simple Google search?

    Poor Rolling Stone just can’t get anything right these days.

  82. 82.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 6, 2015 at 7:06 pm

    @BGinCHI: It’s shit like this that fuels my calling for tumbrel rides.

    Because this shit has GOT to stop.

  83. 83.

    jl

    March 6, 2015 at 7:07 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA: You don’t have to know much about IT at all be able spot confusion in the initial reports. (Edit: do not people at NYT and CNN have IT people the reporters can talk with, or was their some reason to rush into print whatever confused babble was fed to them by their sources?)

    I am not fan of HRC, and really hope she gets at least one strong opponent in the primaries. If she will really be a good candidate, a better one this time than last, such competition will be good for Democrats, as I believe it was in 2008.

    But with any Democrat, and especially a Clinton, you just know there are going to be very frequent trolling attempts. I don’t see the point in people losing their shit at every single one. Supposed scandals that first break into public view with crappy news reports should be viewed with special skepticism.

  84. 84.

    kc

    March 6, 2015 at 7:08 pm

    @Baud:

    Hypocrisy indeed is a human problem.

    “Call-out culture” on the other hand really is a progressive problem, in my opinion, based on my observations. If you can show me that anything similar happens to the same degree and intensity on the right, I’ll be happy to look at your examples, but you’re gonna need to have a whole lot of them.

    I believe the very phrase “call-out culture” originated in progressive circles, to describe what goes on in some progressive circles.

    Frankly, if right wingers went at each other with as much vitriol as progressives do, I’d be tickled pink. But I’m just not seeing that.

  85. 85.

    Denali

    March 6, 2015 at 7:10 pm

    @Jacks mom,

    My daughter had a lab – did not learn how to walk on a leash and was stronger than either of the two huskies that she initially had. He was a nice dog, but not easy to control because he was so strong and energetic. So be forewarned.

  86. 86.

    Mandalay

    March 6, 2015 at 7:10 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA: The author of that link clearly has technical knowledge light years ahead of any journalist in the mainstream media, but the article looked biased in favor of Clinton, especially this part where he glosses over the central issue:

    In terms of records act violations, Clinton has clearly turned in a mass of records. It would be virtually impossible for anyone to determine if they are complete or not, but that is the case with every administration and agency and has been for quite some time.

    B-B-B-B-But she had turned some records in, and besides both sides do it!!!

    FFS, if she had simply used a .gov address there wouldn’t even be a debate over this.

  87. 87.

    kc

    March 6, 2015 at 7:10 pm

    @Baud:

    . By labeling a common human problem as a progressive problem, you make it easy for others to demonize the left.

    “Others,” if they are smart, will not “demonize” the left based on call-out culture; they’ll point and laugh. There’s really no need to “demonize” the left when left wingers are busy demonizing each other.

  88. 88.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    March 6, 2015 at 7:11 pm

    do not people at NYT and CNN have IT people the reporters can talk with

    I’m sure they have an IT department, but those folk aren’t cool and smell funny.

  89. 89.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    March 6, 2015 at 7:13 pm

    @Mandalay: Sure there would, Hatch Act. In addition, she might have had a personal email account(hotmail, gmail, yahoo, etc.), and that MIGHT have had work related stuff. The Hatch Act, as noted in the piece, virtually mandates that politicians have a non-.gov account to conduct political work.

  90. 90.

    Betty Cracker

    March 6, 2015 at 7:13 pm

    @Jacks mom: Integrating puppies into a pack with cats is easier than incorporating grown dogs, we’ve found. The pups are small enough for the cats to put them in their place, and once the pup learns the Fear of Cat, he / or she tends to carry it for life, regardless of final size. The cats can get on surfaces the dogs can’t reach without wings, so apart from mild annoyance, they should be fine. I’m envious: PUPPIES!

  91. 91.

    jl

    March 6, 2015 at 7:16 pm

    @Mandalay: She would have to have used a government account for all of her correspondence and nothing else. Then there would be Hatch Act problems if she had sent or received any emails that might have been interpreted as political.

    Complaining about both-side-do-it-ism hypocrisy if fine for people who want to complain about the personal and political flaws of HRC. i agree with a lot of those complaints.

    But the issue of whether she broke any laws or regulations, or objectively did anything so far removed from precedent as to raise suspicions that she violated any laws or regulations is different.

    Is it too much to ask to separate the two issues. I don’t think mushing them up together will help clarify what happened.

  92. 92.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    March 6, 2015 at 7:17 pm

    @Jacks mom: Or the cats might thank you. two puppies could mean that they would play with each other instead of one puppy continually trying to play with the cats.

  93. 93.

    jl

    March 6, 2015 at 7:18 pm

    @jl: My basic point is that the GOP and places like the NYT will try to smear HRC and scandal monger even if there is no big scandal at all. Why help them out by confusing the two issues?

  94. 94.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    March 6, 2015 at 7:20 pm

    @jl: There’s also the factor(had to get Billo in there somehow) of remote access to the .gov servers for someone who travels extensively. Government IT moves very, very slowly and at great cost. So I wouldn’t expect the state of the art to be present.

    I should note that I personally feel that she should have used a .gov account and ALL(including Congresscritters) government employees should use .gov accounts. Yes, that means rewriting the Hatch Act. And no, I’m not holding breath waiting for that to happen.

  95. 95.

    Cacti

    March 6, 2015 at 7:23 pm

    @JDM:

    Seems that Mother and Father O’Reilly weren’t real sticklers about the church’s teachings on birth control either.

    The children in Bill’s “Irish Catholic” family consisted of him and one younger sister.

  96. 96.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    March 6, 2015 at 7:25 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    The real danger was shown in a video someone posted earlier today of a cat and dog working together to open the kitchen door. Once they start plotting against the stupid hoomans, you are doomed.

  97. 97.

    satby

    March 6, 2015 at 7:27 pm

    @geg6: Biggie didn’t like water either. Not all labs do.
    @Jacks mom: Puppies are LOTS of work, and in rescue we get a great many 10 month old dogs where the previous owner just can’t take the stress any more. Just as the poor pup is settling down and realizing how to obey, they get dumped. It’s kind of heartbreaking, because they don’t know what they did, and because many people aren’t consistant in training them, the pups are a mess to retrain, though they usually do and faster by then. And never leave them outside even in a fenced yard completely unsupervised. They can dig pretty fast and run pretty fast too.

    All that to say if you aren’t ready to take some destruction and puddles with humor, get an older dog. They’re wonderful.

  98. 98.

    Mandalay

    March 6, 2015 at 7:28 pm

    If someone asked you whether you would condemn the stoning of adulterous women, or whether Jews are descended from pigs, you’d think that coming up with the correct answer would be easy.

    Apparently not. Asim Qureshi, the British director of the Muslim rights group Cage, decided that the correct answer to both questions is “I am not a theologian”. A refreshing variation on the Republican mantra “I am not a scientist” I suppose.

    Charities that had previously supported Cage are now putting them on their shit list, and deservedly so.

  99. 99.

    SiubhanDuinne

    March 6, 2015 at 7:31 pm

    @Howard Beale IV:

    “Pack your Chihuahua in your old kit bag
    And smile, smile, smile….”

  100. 100.

    SiubhanDuinne

    March 6, 2015 at 7:36 pm

    @Pogonip:

    more full of shit than a Christmas turkey

    I am so not looking forward to next December 25th.

  101. 101.

    Kropadope

    March 6, 2015 at 7:39 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: At least not at Pogonip’s house

  102. 102.

    Pogonip

    March 6, 2015 at 7:39 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: Hee Hee Hee Hee Hee.

  103. 103.

    Pogonip

    March 6, 2015 at 7:40 pm

    @Kropadope: Hee Hee etc.

  104. 104.

    Pogonip

    March 6, 2015 at 7:43 pm

    As a veteran of multiple puppies, I agree they keep each other amused, but ours were SMALL puppies and we didn’t have to housebreak them ( at that time the custom was to put them up for sale at 6 weeks; modern breeders seem to keep their puppies much longer). 2 large, rambunctious puppies might be too much for old folks? Maybe an older, housebroken dog who likes cats?

  105. 105.

    Cervantes

    March 6, 2015 at 7:44 pm

    @jl:

    Fredericksburg.

  106. 106.

    shelley

    March 6, 2015 at 7:45 pm

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): I liked the video posted earlier of a lioness in a wilderness park opening up one of the car doors. The people inside squealing ‘I didn’t know they could DO that!!”

  107. 107.

    Cervantes

    March 6, 2015 at 7:46 pm

    @Baud:

    And goodness knows, it was all obvious long before that, even.

  108. 108.

    Jacks mom

    March 6, 2015 at 7:46 pm

    Thank you all for the good advice and thoughts on the puppy. I’m not going into this lightly. It is something we’ve discussed for years. We both were full time parents and wage slaves for many years. Now that I have more time at home and my husband is working from home we’ve gotten more serious about adding a pup to the family.

    If we get our new little bundle of joy/chewer of things not intended for chewing/wonderful cat toy/pain in the a$$/puppeh, I will learn to post pictures and regal ya’ll with the joy and suffering of being a dogs hooman.
    No you haven’t talked me out of it ;)

  109. 109.

    Mandalay

    March 6, 2015 at 7:46 pm

    @jl:

    But the issue of whether she broke any laws or regulations, or objectively did anything so far removed from precedent as to raise suspicions that she violated any laws or regulations is different. Is it too much to ask to separate the two issues.

    No, it’s not too much to ask, though I haven’t knowingly done that – my apologies if I did. Any violations of laws and regulations is not the major concern to me. Rather it is that Hillary Clinton is in sole control of deciding which of her SoS emails get handed over to the State Department – that’s just not an acceptable situation.

    As others here have joked, the only way of really knowing whether she is doing the right thing would be to contact the NSA.

  110. 110.

    MomSense

    March 6, 2015 at 7:50 pm

    Will I ever learn not to eat the pizza when it is too hot?

    It was sooo good but the roof of my mouth is not happy.

  111. 111.

    Pogonip

    March 6, 2015 at 7:50 pm

    Has anyone here ever housebroken more than one pup at a time? If so, how’d it go?

  112. 112.

    Misterpuff

    March 6, 2015 at 7:52 pm

    OMG Tweety’s Selma panel is a cluster. Who is this black woman on my screen spewing Rush schtick and making Michelle Bernard look like a liberal? And the white guy was just as offensive with his back handed argument that voting is different than welfare fraud.

  113. 113.

    Pogonip

    March 6, 2015 at 7:52 pm

    @Jacks mom: Maybe you could get a lion. He’ll open his own cat food.

  114. 114.

    JPL

    March 6, 2015 at 7:57 pm

    @Misterpuff: I watched the first segment when female rush said that voter i.d. is not a problem because anyone who receives aid, should have an i.d. I then turned it off.

  115. 115.

    Corner Stone

    March 6, 2015 at 8:08 pm

    @JPL:

    I watched the first segment when female rush said that voter i.d. is not a problem because anyone who receives aid, should have an i.d. I then turned it off.

    That was fucking mind boggling. Why do they keep getting away with saying flying on a plane = constitutionally protected rights.
    Why is no one ready for this line of BS?

  116. 116.

    Corner Stone

    March 6, 2015 at 8:10 pm

    Joe Sestak has a good memorized stump speech.

  117. 117.

    gelfling545

    March 6, 2015 at 8:26 pm

    @beth: An acquaintance realized she’d left her lab puppy alone too long when he ate her back porch. She soon remedied that error.

  118. 118.

    JMT

    March 6, 2015 at 8:40 pm

    @Jacks mom:

    You might want to read this article as you contemplate having 2 puppies:

    I taught dog obedience for 20 years and saw some 2 pup families that did really really well (usually very experienced dog people) and some that had extra problems to deal with (usually first time owners). Then again, I saw the same thing with 1 pup families!

    Remember that labs can be slow to mature: my late beloved lab, the best dog in the world, did not grow up mentally until he was six – but then he was perfect!

  119. 119.

    PurpleGirl

    March 6, 2015 at 10:09 pm

    @fuckwit: And I need brain bleach now.

  120. 120.

    KS in MA

    March 6, 2015 at 11:06 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    That’s why Sharpton likes to talk about James Crow, Jr., Esquire.

  121. 121.

    WereBear

    March 7, 2015 at 8:58 am

    @Jacks mom: Actually, two puppies benefit the cats, too. The puppies play with each other instead of vainly trying to play with the cats.

  122. 122.

    WaterGirl

    March 7, 2015 at 11:41 am

    @WereBear: This is true. My kitty Mr. Bear is infinitely grateful that Tucker no longer pesters him to play now that he has a puppy of his own.

    Although it wasn’t entirely a one way street, Mr. Bear would hide behind the curtains and jump out to scare Tucker. One time he actually did it to me, and I jumped and made the “eek!” sound.

  123. 123.

    Bartkid

    March 9, 2015 at 9:27 am

    >one is surprised to realize that Bill O’Reilly hasn’t actually murdered anyone yet.

    No, that’s not true. George Tiller.

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