Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

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

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Let there be snark.

This really is a full service blog.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

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

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

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

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

In my day, never was longer.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

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Reader Interactions

78Comments

  9. 9.

    debbie

    Glenn Beck’s scrambling about with his chalkboard, warning that Putin is setting up Russia as the Third Roman Empire and girding for a final war with ISIL.

  11. 11.

    MomSense

    He’s a creepy looking dude with dead eyes. Now he has the shiny botox/filler face. Natural aging looks better than all of those cosmetic procedures and surgeries.

  13. 13.

    Betty Cracker

    @Comrade Mary: Do we have any evidence that he was banned aside from his claim? If not, I don’t believe it. He’s full of shit about everything else.

  18. 18.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @MomSense: Saw an interview with Martin Short. He said men shouldn’t have work done:

    I’ve always felt that with men you can’t do cosmetic surgery because nobody says, “Who’s that 34-year-old dude?” They say, “Who’s that 64-year-old who’s been in a fire?”

  19. 19.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Comrade Mary: I thought the person who was banned was the one who constantly attacked everything Zandar said or did here. Same person possibly?

  21. 21.

    JPL

    When I first made an offer on my house, they asked for a delay in responding because the ex-wife had a bad botox treatment. It can happen to anyone.

  26. 26.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Germy Shoemangler: No. Spinwheel is Zandar’s personal troll. who apparently has some complex IRL beef with Zandar. Bob in Portland (nee Bob in Pacifica) is a long-time commenter given to very lengthy and repetitive tinfoil-hat-style posts, almost LaRoucheian in their complexity. Since the beginning of 2014 he’s been very vocally opposed to the post-Yanukovych Ukrainian government, and often comes here to recycle RT.com and ITAR-TASS propaganda. Their styles are completely different.

  29. 29.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Germy Shoemangler: I was trying to explain, in a pithy comment that got eated, that the person you are referring to and BiP are two different people, with different writing styles and different obsessions. But maybe certain proper names (nyms) can’t even be mentioned.

  31. 31.

    PurpleGirl

    @Gin & Tonic: You forgot to mention that BiP also accused just about anyone who didn’t like the Russians of being Nazis. That also included us since we didn’t exalt him as public intellectual he thinks he is.

  32. 32.

    Gin & Tonic

    @raven: You know, when you write a comment, then it vanishes, then you write something about that fact, then the original gets fished out of moderation, the intervening (impatient) comments end up looking foolish.

    I’ll go have more coffee.

  33. 33.

    debbie

    @MattF:

    Yep, I think that’s pretty much what Beck was saying. He’s also saying that France is ISIS’s real target because France stopped the Moors in the 13th century. Glenn’s so worried about France (odd hearing that from a conservative) that he’s planning on taking his kids there this summer before it changes permanently for the worse.

  34. 34.

    Cervantes

    @Comrade Mary:

    How does she make you anxious?

    I don’t know her personally and cannot comment on her reliability but here’s an excerpt from something she wrote a few years ago that I found interesting:

    And then came Barack Obama. I admit I didn’t fall in love right away, it took me until the general election to dive into that kool-aid and get it. I guess I was annoyed at the wave of support he got because he was some rock star, a Messiah, when that shouldn’t matter. John Kerry should have gotten the same amount of support in 2004 because of what was at stake if Bush got four more years, and he did, all because John Kerry couldn’t give a speech that wasn’t the color of oatmeal or make a decision without a focus group. I resented the Obamamaniacs for not being there sooner, for needing a rock star before they got that active, that instrumental. I sat this election out, knowing full well what I was missing, and I was jealous that the fight was so much more electrifying this time around because of the leader. Though I am thrilled Obama has turned so many people on to public service–he isn’t the only one we need right now.

    Today I go to Washington to experience the inauguration, to be with my fellow Americans. And today I write a letter to my former self, the one who lost a four-year relationship working long hours on that campaign, who felt so sure of victory on that campaign, who learned to stop worrying and love John Kerry, on that campaign. I write that letter to you because since then, the impossible has happened. And it’s going to have to keep on happening to turn this world around. What I’m saying is, don’t go in fear, don’t go in isolation, open your heart to the impossible.

  36. 36.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Gin & Tonic: Different blogs have their own levels of tolerance for misbehavior, I notice.

    For example, Chauncey Devega doesn’t take any shit. He’ll engage a troublemaker for a bit, but once they become abusive and repetitive, they’re OUT. He made some thoughtful remarks once about gun control, and got a slew of psychotic threats.

    Tom Degan has a persistent troll who posts under a variety of names. He goes as far as to steal the names of other (genuine) posters. He’s not a smart troll; basically cutting and pasting stuff about the east coast snow “disproving” global warming, and Hillary being fired during watergate. He calls anyone who disagrees with him a “radical progressive fascist/communist”. Tom Degan either has a no-ban policy, or doesn’t know how to block an IP.

    BoingBoing used to have a hilarious, witty moderator who’d mock the hell out of anyone who misbehaved. Any troll would find himself “disemvoweled”.

  37. 37.

    Ruviana

    My favorite nickname for Vlad was “Puddin'” from the late great Molly Ivens (who’s been gone almost 10 years! So think about how long Vlad’s been around) but I gotta say, I love Pooty-Poot.

  38. 38.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Germy Shoemangler: B-J sets the bar very, very high. I generally think that’s a good thing.

    I’ve engaged with BiP a fair amount, probably more than most people here would consider prudent, but largely in the interest of correcting mis-information.

  40. 40.

    Betty Cracker

    @Ruviana: George W. Bush is apparently responsible for Pooty-Poot. Coming up with nicknames should have been the highest level of responsibility he ever held in his life. The world would be a better place.

  41. 41.

    The Moar You Know

    Um, wow, holy crap, yeah, that’s some work he’s had done there. Looks like shit, he was too old to begin with.

    I’ve seen really good work – the kind that Hollywood A-listers get and that you never hear about – but the key is to start getting it done in your early thirties so no one notices that you’re not aging.

    It isn’t often I say something like this, but the world would be better off when Putin’s dead.

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): He’s not helping the world a whole lot, is he?

  42. 42.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Betty Cracker: I believe he was a genius at inventing nicknames. Turdblossom? Who doesn’t stand in awe of that?

    Without the burden of family, wealth and politics, he could have been one of our more savage humorists.

  43. 43.

    PurpleGirl

    @OzarkHillbilly: Sounds like a very good film about a gutsy lady. I will have to find a theater in NYC where I see it.

    When I was reading the article the thought occurred to me that most/many people outside of France (or who don’t speak French) don’t know what Le Marseillaise is about. It’s a rousing marching song that talks about killing the ruling class. (I’ve always loved the scene in Casablanca where Rick gives the band permission to play it for Viktor Lazlo.) I went looking a translation of the lyrics one year.

    ETA: There are good reasons why a government might not want its people to sing the song.
    Marchons, marchons
    Qu’un sang impur
    Abreuve nos sillons

  44. 44.

    PurpleGirl

    @Germy Shoemangler: I don’t know if Teresa and Patrick at Making Light were the first to use disemvowelling of trolls but it could get hilarious at times. A few years ago there was a thread there which had a number of trolls complaining that Teresa and Patrick were hacking their computers by disemvowelling them. The thread lasted over a weekend and was it ever a joy a read.

  45. 45.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Germy Shoemangler: That would have been Teresa Nielsen Hayden at BoingBoing.

    One of the front pagers there used to run a RoundTable on GEnie where flame wars were moved to a topic called Dueling Modems. Some of us would hang out there and grade the flames. As with everything else in those days, the various Eastern European judges would score performances absurdly low.

  47. 47.

    Comrade Mary

    @Cervantes: If you read her feed, she seems pretty pessimistic about Russia backing down on the Ukraine and how much the country seems to cling to Putin as a symbol of stability. I don’t know if she’s right, and she may yet swing back to something closer to the lovely optimism that you quoted, but her feed is not exactly reassuring right now.

  48. 48.

    Cacti

    @Woodrowfan:

    interesting, the Russian paid-trolls have “gone silent.” And BiP disappeared at the same time. verrryyyy interesting…

    I thought I read in a previous thread that BiP got the banhammer for his relentless spamming.

  51. 51.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Comrade Mary: pretty pessimistic about Russia backing down on the Ukraine and how much the country seems to cling to Putin as a symbol of stability

    That is certainly an accurate description of the prevailing mood in Ukraine now.

  54. 54.

    PurpleGirl

    @Amir Khalid: After reading the article at Wikipedia, I’ll agree with you on that. But I first read the translation without knowing the background of how and why it was written. From just the translation, it still seems to tell me to kill the ruling class.

  57. 57.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @PurpleGirl: Modding trolls and flame war participants by ridicule dates back at least to the SFRT, which was Jim Macdonald’s baby, in the late 1980s. The ML crew is both talented and experienced.

  60. 60.

    catclub

    @MattF:

    Every dollar that goes to a troll doesn’t go to an oligarch. QED.

    Every dollar that goes to certain oligarchs is also going to a very large troll. Think Adelson.

  61. 61.

    gelfling545

    @PurpleGirl: It became famous for it’s use in the French Revolutionary era. It was sung by those who traveled from Provence (Marseille), no small journey in those days, to join the revolution and who were very definitely applying it to the nobility. Another interesting song from that era is Ça Ira (Les aristocrates à la lanterne!). They make their intentions quite clear.

  62. 62.

    gogol's wife

    What depresses me most is that I’m mildly relieved that Putin is alive. It just seemed as if whatever/whoever might have done him in would be much worse.

  63. 63.

    schrodinger's cat

    @gogol’s wife: Where do you think Russia is headed? He seems to be quite popular in Russia. My Russian friend who lives in upstate NY, who is pretty liberal in general, is big Putin fan. I don’t get it. Mother Russia is certainly her blind spot.

  66. 66.

    gogol's wife

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I have no idea where Russia is headed. And I have the same experience you do, that people who hightailed it out of there years ago are over here cheering him on. It’s disgusting. Sometimes I think the only sane people there are my friends, but then there are thousands of people in Moscow and St. Petersburg who are just like my friends, and go out to protests despite the dangers. All I can do is pray!

  68. 68.

    Zinsky

    One of the biggest foreign policy mistakes of the past century was the U.S. not helping Russia set up a real democracy after the collapse of the USSR in 1989. Instead, we sat idly by while former KGB vermin like Putin took over the levers of power. That was on Bush the Elder’s watch. The other great foreign policy mistakes occurred on his idiot son’s watch.

  69. 69.

    Patricia Kayden

    Y’all are some hilarious people! It’s good to laugh sometimes. Thanks Putin (and Obama).

  70. 70.

    Elie

    @Zinsky:

    Are you serious?

    How was that even going to be even remotely feasible?

    Give me your back of the envelope thoughts of how we would a) provide a means for transferring from a totalitarian regime to democracy in some one step shift AND provide a pool of uncorrupted, non previously soviet affiliated candidates for electoral office?

    Yeah.

  71. 71.

    Cervantes

    @Elie:

    It was possible but the US government was never going to be the agent of that kind of change — mixed motives and all that.

  73. 73.

    Brachiator

    @Zinsky: I am not sure that the US or any other nation could have help Russia set up a real democracy. Nation building seems to work better in theory than in practice, when the country involved does not have any internal tradition or democratic infrastructure that you can build upon.

  74. 74.

    sharl

    @Zinsky: There actually WERE attempts by the Clinton Administration to help in democratizing post-Soviet Russia. A bit more on that below; one could say that those efforts were misguided or executed poorly (or both), but I basically agree with Brachiator @72: nation-building almost never works, unless maybe in the case of one rich and powerful industrial nation (e.g., U.S.) supporting the rebuilding of another (former) industrial nation that has been shattered/broken (e.g., post-WWII Germany, Japan). I don’t know of any case in history where one powerful country helped rebuild another country that was also powerful (though less so, and in crisis to boot), as well as having a “national ego” of a size that matched ours, along with a cultural exceptionalism that also matched ours in intensity (though maybe different in its nature, I suppose).

    Returning to those effort by the U.S. to help democratize* post-Soviet Russia (*as the U.S. defined/understood that concept), a key name to use in Internet searches is “Strobe Talbott”, who was Clinton’s point man in that effort. This search

    (reform or reforming or reformed) AND Russia AND “Soviet Union” AND (democratize OR democratization OR democracy OR democratic) AND “Strobe Talbott”

    yielded 6900 hits when I just ran it, and it included some fairly hefty reports, such as Blitzkrieg Reform and U.S. Democracy Promotion in Russia: The Yeltsin Years (27pp).

    By the way, Strobe Talbott wrote a book (natch), The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy, and the review that showed the highest number of people voting it as helpful (21 out of 26) gave the book a lowly 1-star rating. I didn’t follow all this closely back in the day, but this critical review rings a distant bell for me, in bringing up some of the criticisms I can only dimly recall from those days:

    Strobe Talbott’s latest book does not add much to the understanding of Russia or the role played by the Clinton administration (of which Talbott was its most senior Russia hand) towards that country.
    Talbott will not be remembered by the Sovietological community for those things he describes in his book, which seem superfluous and self-glorifying. He will be mostly remembered for three events. The first is the billions of dollars wasted of U.S. aid money that he personally oversaw to Russia. The government of Viktor Chernomyrdin (whose personal fortune is estimated at over 10 billion dollars) squandered much U.S. aid money yet Talbott ignored the many warning signs and continued to advocate lending and aid to the Chernomyrdin government with the excuse that Russia is too big to lose.
    Second, Talbott will be remembered for the disdainful way in which he treated the genuine Russian democrats that could have given that country a chance, while assisting former communist officials. Talbott famously under-cut the Russian reformers in 1993 when he quipped that “Russia needs more therapy and less shock,” referring to the program of “shock therapy” that the reform-minded finance minister Fyodorov was trying to implement. Fyodorov later mentioned that Talbott had “stabbed us in the back.” Later that year, the head of the largest pro-democracy movement in Russia, Galina Starovoitova, pleaded with Talbott for assistance in convincing a foreign TV star popular in Russia, to appear in commercials to help the democrats in the December 1993 parliamentary elections. Talbott refused to even return her calls. However, both the U.S. ambassador in Belarus (David Swartz) and the democratic leader of that country at that time (Stanislau Shushkevich) accused Talbott of using U.S. aid to help communist politicians there.
    The third event that makes Talbott memorable are the widespread suspicions and accusations of his prior involvement with Soviet state security, the KGB. Some suspect that Talbott may have collaborated with the KGB to portray the USSR in a favorable light as Time Magazine correspondent (which he did) in exchange for access (which he had). Talbott was evasive in his confirmation hearings at the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the specific issue of his contacts and relation with a KGB agent named Louie.
    These three events are not explored in his self-glorifying book, which is why those seeking to understand those tumultuous times read instead some other book, such as the account by former ambassador Jack Matlock.

    Like I said, I’m not sure we could have been much help anyway, even if everything Talbott and his fellow neoliberal interventionalists had the best possible plan and executed it flawlessly. But doing nothing also posed risks of its own, including to a sitting President – I doubt that Clinton, or any other POTUS, would want to get the blame for “losing Russia”, so at least the illusion of doing something would at least give the White House something of a defense against political critics.

  75. 75.

    sharl

    Hmm, one link too many put my wordy comment into moderation. Just gonna leave it to hopefully be liberated at some point.

  76. 76.

    sharl

    By the way, part of the history of the Ukraine mess was due to the U.S. very much wanting all of the nukes to be moved to Russia after the breakup of the USSR. The Soviets had a lot of nukes forward deployed in Ukraine in anticipation of a possible NATO attack from the west. I had forgotten this, but there was concern that a newly independent Ukraine would not be sufficiently stable to provide proper security/custodianship of those weapons. As a child of the Cold War, MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), and all the related scary stuff, I well remember this being a very serious issue back in the day.

    The Trilateral Process: The United States, Ukraine, Russia and Nuclear Weapons

    UKRAINE GIVES IN ON SURRENDERING ITS NUCLEAR ARMS (RW “Johnny” Apple, Jr., NYT, 1994)

    From Putin’s perspective, with a crappy Russian economy and corrupt leadership by his self-dealing cronies, appeals to nationalism, Slavic pride and xenophobia (where the U.S. is the most convenient big bad wolf) appear to help alleviate the domestic pain quite a bit, or at least provide a politically expedient distraction. Ukraine makes a great stage for him to show how strong and tough Russia still is, especially given the historically intertwined relationship among the people of those regions.

  78. 78.

    Elie

    I have to say that as I looked harder at Putin on one of the videos of his “re-appearance”, he does look paler and a bit “bloated” facially. May be plastic surgery or skin landscaping, but I doubt it. He does not look well to me (obviously I could be wrong). He looks like he has really been sick — like for real… He is around the magic age number for a heart event… and the stress he has been under plus habits of dietary luxury may not serve him well.

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