Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

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

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

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

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

So many bastards, so little time.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

“woke” is the new caravan.

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

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80Comments

  3. 3.

    Pee Cee

    And the Lord spake, saying, “First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it.

  5. 5.

    germy shoemangler

    Our cat would be appalled/fascinated/terrified/hungry.

    We have rabbits in our yard. Big things. They are city rabbits, they aren’t afraid of my wife while she gardens. Big buck rabbit stands there staring at her while she weeds.

  7. 7.

    bemused

    Our son and dil got a puppy on Easter sunday and informed us by sending a photo of adorable Samoyed puppy wearing a pink and white bunny hat.

  12. 12.

    Eric U.

    one of our dogs was a rabbit killer up until they figured out he was no longer on a chain and had free run of the yard. The rabbits thought they knew exactly how far his chain stretched, but they sometimes made mistakes. I was always a little surprised by the brinksmanship. The dog would take a really sneaky path to get to them, starting out in the wrong direction so that the chain was at full length by the time he got to them. Now that we have an electronic fence, they have moved on to the neighbors yards.

  13. 13.

    Tommy

    Just got back from voting. All very local stuff. Forgone conclusion Democrats will almost sweep every seat. In about 60% of the races, a Democrat is running unopposed.

    More worried about the largest town in my district (pop. 90,000) about 15 miles from me. Democrats have been in control of the entire city government since like the Whigs (not really, but close). I don’t know what to think from the polls and the local media. I mean it isn’t like MSNBC is on the ground here or a national polling firm. But it Republicans might take control of the City Council and the School Board.

    Basically in November we lost our House seat to the Tea Party (they don’t call themselves that here). First time in 70 years a Republican won the seat. This has kind of empowered the far right to think they can do it on the local level.

    The Unions, and Unions matter a heck of a lot here, have said they will GOTV today and pick the darn Democrats up and put them on their backs to carry them across the finish line if needed. It appears to be needed.

    They might have to do more then that, because looking at the weather maps mid-afternoon until after the polls close we are going to have thunderstorms, 50+ MPH winds, and the potential for golf ball size hail.

    I sure hope they got the vote out early ….

  14. 14.

    Olivia

    And look at the size of the arm that is holding it. That woman’s forearm is nearly the same thickness as her leg.

  16. 16.

    Tommy

    @Eric U.: When I lived on Capital Hill in DC a friend a few doors down had two Greyhounds. Super small yard. He said when he first moved in his backyard became a squirrel graveyard. Multiple dead squirrels a day.

    I guess the squirrels had a Town Hall meeting and they decided a “No Go Zone” was his backyard, including the top of his 10 foot high fence. He said he had been years and years since a squirrel was killed.

    I’d say animals, even squirrels are smarter than we realize :).

  18. 18.

    Luthe

    One of my goals in this world is to own a bunny of that size. Flemish giants they’re called.

  20. 20.

    Tommy

    @Mustang Bobby: Hell yeah. When my grandfather passed away many years ago I got his birdfeeder. Old, but super cool. Metal pole. About halfway up there is a steel cone about the size of a basketball hoop. Feeder on the top.

    If it was in the middle of a field it is in fact squirrel-proof. I placed it away from any trees.

    Squirrels were like dude, watch this …. and they now run up the power/electrical line that goes from a utility pole to my house and jump off of it and onto the bird feeder. I still put feed in there if for no other reason then (1) I don’t really mind squirrels, kind of like them and (2) They are earning their meal.

  21. 21.

    Pogonip

    @Tommy: Now I know how to cope with squirrels–adopt a greyhound! Next time we move we’ll shop around for a place with a fenced yard
    .

  23. 23.

    Mike J

    @Cervantes:

    Just out of curiosity: what are some of your other goals?

    Move to Delaware for six months, learn the language, live like one of the locals….

  24. 24.

    Tommy

    @Luthe: I saw that bunny pic yesterday. I’ve never had a dog but want one, and all the ones I am thinking of getting will be large if not huge. 100 pounds plus as adults. Doesn’t bother/worry me in the least I could have an animal in the house about my size or larger (I am 128 pounds). That if they lost it for some reason and attacked me (that would be on me as the owner BTW) I might be the loser. Heck I dated a women years and years ago with a pot belly pig that was pretty large.

    But that bunny pic kind of freaks me the fuck out on like ten different levels. Can’t put my finger on exactly win, but I fear I might have nightmares about it in the coming days.

    It is at this point I should not I have this totally ugly bush/shrub in the front of my house. I want to tear it out, but a family of bunnies have lived there for years and years, since I bought this place. I like bunnies. Just not ones almost my size.

  25. 25.

    rikyrah

    Party politics: Two small tents, with most Americans on the outside

    By Bill Schneider

    April 5, 2015

    The big tents are shrinking. Republicans and Democrats used to take pride in calling their respective parties “big tents” with room for a diversity of views. That tradition has ended for Republicans. It may be on its way out for Democrats as well.

    Some liberals are celebrating the fact that retiring Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada will soon be replaced by Senator Charles Schumer of New York. That’s because Nevada is a swing state. “By choosing leaders outside the party’s home turf,” Ari Melber wrote for Politico in 2010, “Senate Democrats up the odds that their standard-bearers will be distracted by close races — caught between the politics of their constituents and the national party.” Reid squeaked by in his 2010 reelection race with 50.3 percent of the vote.

    That’s not likely to be a problem for Schumer. New York is a deep-blue state. Schumer won with 67 percent of the vote in 2010.

    The main reason the tents are shrinking is that the number of swing states is diminishing. Congressional Republicans increasingly represent red states and congressional Democrats blue states. Thirty percent of Democrats in the House of Representatives now come from just two states — New York and California.

    http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/04/05/party-politics-two-small-tents-with-most-americans-on-the-outside/

  26. 26.

    Hal

    Thank glob Missouri might ban snap recipients from buying steak and seafood. Funny how everyone who complains about snap recipients has seen them buying lobster, but most people have no idea who their senator or congress person is.

  27. 27.

    Tommy

    @Pogonip: I have a former co-worker that rescues Greyhounds. Last count he has 14 (on a 5 acre farm in SC). First off they are the most lazy, laid back dog I’ve ever seen. They will sleep more than a cat and never walk around the house faster than a slow gait.

    They run at the track because they are beat and tortured.

    But bunnies, squirrels, well they will take them out wholesale if they are given the chance. There is a reason at a Grey Hound track they chase a “fake” bunny on the inside of the track.

  28. 28.

    D58826

    @MattF: Well not everyone at WAPO – David Ignatus

    The most compelling argument President Obama made Thursday for the nuclear framework deal with Iran was also the simplest one: The pact, once concluded, would be preferable to any realistic alternative.

    It’s not a perfect agreement and certainly not a permanent solution to the threat an aggressive Iran poses for Israel and other nations in the Middle East. But the framework delivered more than many skeptics had feared.

    What is really troubling about this is the GOP/Democratic quislings desire to take legislative pot shots at the framework. The framework is a work in progress. No one says its the done deal. If Congress gets its way then every time a president tries to negotiate with a foreign government he will have a third party (i.e. congress) as part of the negotiations. The Constitution and numerous SCOTUS decisions placed foreign policy under the executive branch. Now Congress wants to change the terms of the framework.

    Lindsey Graham wants the interim agreement to be extended into the next presidents term even though it is set to expire on June 30th. This is the same interim agreement that Graham and others condemned as a Munich sell out when it was signed. If this agreement is destroyed then we will have officially out sourced our middle eastern policy to Bibbi and told the rest of the world that anything the president (at least a democratic one) is worthless.

  31. 31.

    Cervantes

    @rikyrah, quoting Bill Schneider:

    That tradition has ended for Republicans. It may be on its way out for Democrats as well.

    Right. It took a “may” but the conclusion is clear: Both sides do it.

  32. 32.

    Peale

    Education reform in China: I think one of the things that always fascinates me about China is how there is no such thing as small reform. Everything always results in the displacement of tens of millions of people. In this case, closing 250,000 rural schools means 33 million students in boarding schools. I wonder though, if China isn’t in the same situation the US found itself in in the 1930s and 1940s when rural one-room schools started to be consolidated into unified school districts and regional high schools.

  34. 34.

    Tommy

    @Hal: Oh don’t get me started on this topic. After the dot.com thing I lost my job. Went from make $150,000/year with the best benefits you could imagine to nothing. I figured I could work, also too “proud” to take government aid, so I took a job working the night shift at a 7/11 type store in a lower income area.

    In Illinois our SNAP program is called Link.

    I learned that Link didn’t allow anybody to buy a food that could be heated in the store. We didn’t have anything I would call healthy in the store, but the closest thing we had was Landshire sandwiches.

    Technically they could be heated in the store, so we could not sell them on a Link card.

    You could buy chips, soda, a frozen pizza, candy but not a tuna sandwich on wheat bread.

    And Illinois is supposed to be a liberal state ….. but working that job made me more liberal not less.

  35. 35.

    boatboy_srq

    @D58826:

    It’s not a perfect agreement

    Honestly, if I hear one more time that this kind of target diminishes some worthwhile effort to insufficiency, I’m going to go USPS on the speaker. Perfection is a nice vision, but in reality something that gets even a little closer to that perfection should be lauded instead of ripped apart for its imperfection.

    Not to mention that at least for the next 21 months this particular crop of Congresscritters will go through contortions worthy of a game of Twister just to keep from agreeing with the Blah President, so allowing Congressional “approval” for anything is little more than an invitation to have all that work destroyed just to satisfy the Reichwing tantrums over not getting Their Guy into the WH.

  36. 36.

    bemused

    @raven:

    I remember that and easy to see the Sammy in him esp as a puppy.

    Our kids will be up visiting in a couple of weeks with the puppy. We have two Samoyeds so it should be a fun doggy weekend.

  38. 38.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Hal: As a long time Miserian, I wonder how it is that all these people complaining about welfare queens buying lobster and steak with their EBT cards know what an EBT card looks like? Considering that MO is #17 in percentage of populace that use them, my guess would be “personal experience.”

    (seriously, I don’t even know what they look like because I have better things to do in the checkout line than watching to see how my neighbors pays for their groceries, like looking to see the latest on Brad or what Kim got for her baby’s first b-day, or…)

  39. 39.

    Tommy

    @bemused: Cut, cut, cut.

    As a raging liberal but also somebody that made a ton of money before I didn’t know many if any lower income people. Sad but true. I had NO idea how shitty things were (why I am more of a liberal now).

    They couldn’t buy a tuna sandwich or a ham and cheese on their Link cards. The bus stop, they had to make two changes to get to an actually grocery store, which was only about 12 miles from where they lived. The buses didn’t run past about 7:15 PM on weekdays and not at all on the weekend.

    I’d call this area I worked in the “projects” of my area. Not like in Chicago or a major metro area of course. But so many 2-3 story “cheaper” apartment complexes. They used that gas station I worked at as their grocery store many days. All they had.

    Given that is FUBAR.

  42. 42.

    bemused

    @Tommy:

    Sometimes I think it wouldn’t bother these far right republicans one bit if we had people begging for food on the streets in every town in the country. They’d be annoyed that they’d have to encounter that while doing their shopping but I don’t think they’d be ashamed at all.

  44. 44.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @D58826: They don’t want to go on the record about whether we should be fighting ISIS though. It’s infuriating.

  45. 45.

    rikyrah

    @bemused:

    Sometimes I think it wouldn’t bother these far right republicans one bit if we had people begging for food on the streets in every town in the country. They’d be annoyed that they’d have to encounter that while doing their shopping but I don’t think they’d be ashamed at all

    It would not bother them at all. Because they are evil people.

  46. 46.

    rikyrah

    @bemused:

    Our GOP in Minn want to cut $1.1 billion from health and human services. Bastards.

    Our new GOP Governor wants to cut $1.5 billion here in Illinois.

    It’s utterly ridiculous.

    But, we can’t dare raise taxes.

    I truly despise the GOP. I hate them, plain and simple. There are no decent Republicans.

  47. 47.

    D58826

    I remember when the right wing lost its mind when The Great and Powerful Ronnulus the First (and I hope the last) signed the treaty with Goby. I don’t remember the GOP in Congress trying to micromanage the negotiations. Reagan did the negotiating and then the Senate got the chance to vote on the treaty. Just like the Constitution provides.

    I saw an article the other day that said someting like 80% of the international agreements negotiated by the president are executive agreements and not subject to congressional review.

    But I realized these rules only apply to Obama.

  48. 48.

    AnderJ

    Apparently, the rabbit weighs 3 stones and 7 lbs or for us continental Europeans 22 kilograms, while large types of rabbits apparently (wikipedia warning) weigh about 8 kilograms on average. So it seems that this rabbit is a bit over 2.5 times the average of a large type of rabbit. Not sure whether I would call this rabbit a giant on this basis especially given the knowledge that weight increases exponentially in relation to an increase in length (roughly a factor ^3)…

  49. 49.

    bemused

    @rikyrah:

    They seem to have a great fondness for punishment.

    A very liberal and very vocal guy I know got pretty steamed up talking about welfare with some old classmates. One woman, a Baptist, spouted the same old pick yourself up by the bootstraps stuff, she didn’t grow up with much but doggone it, she worked hard, blah, blah and was very resentful of people who are on assistance. The liberal guy said so what do you want to do about them, take them out and shoot them? Like I said, he is very vocal! There was some gasps but nobody had an answer to that.

  50. 50.

    AnderJ

    Then again, it would not be delicious link bait if you go all sciency on the rabbit’s a$$

  51. 51.

    D58826

    @bemused:

    Sometimes I think it wouldn’t bother these far right republicans one bit if we had people begging for food on the streets in every town in the country. They’d be annoyed that they’d have to encounter that while doing their shopping but I don’t think they’d be ashamed at all.

    Police swat teams should solve that problem

  53. 53.

    Freemark

    @FlipYrWhig: You beat me to it. I live in a conservative area and am a white middle-aged man, So all of the conservatives assume I hate Obama just like them. They all keep telling me how they saw those welfare people buying steak and lobster. For the last few years when I go grocery shopping I tried to see if it might be true, at least occasionally, and I have never seen it. As soon as one of those conservatives assholes says anything now I literally tell them they are “full of sh– or crap if it’s in public. Pictures or you are lying.” I’ve pissed off more than a few strangers and acquaintances. Most of my real friends, especially the few conservatives, know enough not to say anything that stupid around me.

  54. 54.

    beth

    @rikyrah: Here’s a chilling statement from a NC legislator :http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/03/north-carolina-abortion-_n_6999732.html

    McElraft said she would prefer providers learn how to perform the procedure via “other options,” rather than in university hospitals, arguing that taxpayers didn’t want public funds to be used toward the training.

    “There are opportunities for doctors to learn this,” McElraft said, according to WRAL. “Abortion physicians learn from all kinds of training — spontaneous abortions or miscarriages. Sometimes, you learn how to act in an emergency situation.”

    Sure, I want my doctor to learn how to handle my medical emergency while I’m in the middle of having said emergency. Wouldn’t everyone? Oh I see you’re having a heart attack? Let’s just try a few things and see what works, shall we?

    This country gets stupider and stupider by the moment.

  56. 56.

    boatboy_srq

    @bemused: They would indeed be annoyed. And they’d demand more LEOs to police all the vagrancy, and more prisons to contain the “offenders.”

  57. 57.

    Peale

    @Freemark: My nephew, bless his heart, posted up some kind of conservative tripe about how he gets mad whenever he sees some welfare queen with three kids before she’s eighteen buying food at the store. I’m pretty certain that there isn’t any person in his high school with three children and given that the town only has 5,000 people, if there were, he’d know who they were. But no, he sees these welfare queens all the time. It must suck to be 17 and delusional.

  58. 58.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @AnderJ:

    They are definitely playing with perspective in that picture, but there are large rabbits out there. They’re more the size of a Jack Russell terrier than the size of a German Shepherd, though.

  59. 59.

    rea

    @Hal:everyone who complains about snap recipients has seen them buying lobster, but most people have no idea who their senator or congress person is.

    For all they know, that could be their senator or congress person buying lobster with SNAP

  61. 61.

    bemused

    @rikyrah:

    Rep Matt Dean chairs House Health Care Committee and wants to move 95,000 Minnesotans in MN Care to MNSure (ACA) where they could buy a private plan…with what I have no idea. At the same time Dean has another bill that would abolish MNSure and move Minnesota to federal exchange in 2017. Like I said, no shame.

    We do have Dem Gov Dayton and Dem controlled Senate but heaven help us if we turn all Republican controlled.

    MN has $1.9 billion surplus which republicans want to be returned to taxpayers. They have a lot of plans for that money so doubt much would actually go to taxpayers. The MNGOP still has a lot of debt that they’d like to get rid of.

    And of course, they want to cut taxes.

  63. 63.

    SuperHrefna

    @rikyrah: My stepfather talks about how, back in his parents’ day there were good, liberally minded Republicans. But my stepfather is 84 years old.

  64. 64.

    Mathguy

    @Tommy: I have two whippets, and they are true hunting dogs, no gun needed. One has taken out two woodchucks and dozens of rabbits in our yard. The squirrels, on the other hand, learn quickly and don’t mess with them.

  65. 65.

    J R in WV

    I guess the accusation that Republicans don’t know anything about female-only organs and how they work, and sometimes fail is really true after all.

    I’m not a medical person of any description, other than that I have male parts, and my wife has female parts, and we both are learning about those parts as we live with them.

    Yet somehow I know that what a Republican Wing Nut Job would call an abortion is really called dilation and curetage [not sure of some of that spelling, but it is doctorese for opening the cervix and scraping out the uterus] which is a fairly common procedure for women of all flavors.

    D&C is used for all sorts of female problems having little of nothing to do with pregnancy, as well as for saving the life of women who have serious life-threatening problems with their pregnancy.

    Not teaching medical students how to save the life of a woman having a fatal problem with their pregnancy would be, well, just wrong.

    I find it horrible that elected officials would make false statements evidently without any investigation into the truth of what they are saying. I must suppose that they don’t care about saving the lives of women, who obviously don’t count for much in the serious religious beliefs of these wack-job clowns in the Republican party.

    Yet supposed Christians continue to vote for Republicans who appear to be wilfully ignorant of issues they intend to legislate upon! Like other commenters here I draw the conclusion that modern conservative
    Christianity has disposed of most of the words of Christ as not applicable to modern life. Like love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek, rich man into heaven less likely that the camel through the eye of the needle, etc, etc.

    Not Christian at all in my view. Perverted distorted heresy to most true Christians, I believe. I have had this discussion with people I would respect as real Christians, and they don’t believe in most of the perversions I hear from the Republican and conservative Christians, so I think I am on the money here when I call these folks heretics.

  68. 68.

    Lurking Canadian

    @bemused:

    And of course, they want to cut taxes.

    Tax cuts always raise revenue. Unless there’s a surplus. In which case, they lower revenue to “give the people back their money”.

    On topic: so that’s where General Woundwort ends up.

  71. 71.

    Epicurus

    Not to belabor the obvious, but that “big bunny” is spelled “P-H-O-T-O-S-H-O-P.” Nice try, Betty.

  72. 72.

    PurpleGirl

    @Cervantes: Close. It’s

    Dilation and curettage

    I hope that legislator never needs a D&C to stop bleeding or some other problem. She could easily bleed to death if doctor didn’t know how to do one.

  73. 73.

    D58826

    @J R in WV: I read somewhere that after Roe the number of reported D&C’s went down dramatically, esp. among teenagers. Seems doctors were performing abortions but labelled them as D&C. Everyone knew what the game was but it was sort of don’t ask don’t tell. middle and upperclass women will simply resort to the D&C dodge. Poor women will either use a coat hanger or have the baby and then be shamed by the pro-lifers who insist that the baby be boprn but have not interest in seeing it get feed or receive medical care

  75. 75.

    mike in dc

    I see the General survived the encounter with the dogs in Watership Down, not much worse for wear. His demeanor appears to have improved though.

  76. 76.

    ecks

    @Tommy: bang some spikes sticking out of the top of that bird feeder (nice big nails will do), and the squirrels will learn to stop jumping on it off the electricity wire.

  77. 77.

    Matt McIrvin

    @bemused: What they have is the old “beg at your church” line:

    ATDAS: “You don’t understand the Republicans we have in the South, and in Texas. You know of Northeastern and Left Coast Republicans. Even Midwestern Republicans–especially Bob Dole–actually think that sick and disabled people, even if they are poor, should be able to get the health care that is good for them, without having to beg. That’s not the case with Republicans down in Texas. Republicans in Texas think that if you can’t pay the doctor out of what is in your pocket and from the insurance policy you bought, then you need to go beg at your church. And only after you have begged at your church, and begged sincerely and abjectly enough, might your church find itself paying for you out of Christian charity–the benefit of which is to save their souls, not your body!”

    […]

    Me: But what if you don’t have a church!

    ATDAS: “Then you should go join one, shouldn’t you? That’s a benefit…”

    http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/10/maeve-reston-reports-from-hugo-oklahom-obamacare-meets-extra-resistance-the-view-from-the-roasterie-xii-october-16-2013.html

    Of course, those “Northeastern and Left Coast Republicans” who thought differently are mostly gone now.

  80. 80.

    Freemark

    Loved Watership Down. Also read Plague Dogs which makes Watership Down look like a laugh riot.

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