Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

Republicans do not trust women.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Consistently wrong since 2002

In my day, never was longer.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

This really is a full service blog.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

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150Comments

  2. 2.

    Benw

    Just read the Think Progress article saying how the SC ruling on the EPA regulations is not as bad as I first heard. So that seems good. Otherwise the whole family is down with some sort of achy/puky virus so that is bad.

  3. 3.

    jl

    If the GOP is merely acting crazy and manic to please the primary voting base, it’s turning in a bravura performance. Deserves an award.
    I hope they are thinking about cutting the theatrical run short, since if they do not, general voting population will believe they are serious and that the GOP has gone stark raving mad, or at least are unhealthily obsessed.

    But, it is very difficult to turn down the box office take on a smash hit with your cult fans.

    Below is amusing mishap at a Confederate flag pickup truck white solidarity parade:

    Confederate Flag Parade Gone Wrong(er)
    talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/confederate-flag-parade-dalton

  4. 4.

    srv

    I wonder were George Washington would have ended up if his patriot militias had just had swords and axes. Imagine what America would be like if everyone was as well educated and erudite as Andrew Sullivan.

    We’ll debate these questions in the Queens’ English at Happy Hour.

  5. 5.

    Germy Shoemangler

    sad news…

    TOKYO — Tama the stationmaster, Japan’s feline star of a struggling local railway, was mourned by company officials and fans and elevated into a goddess at a funeral Sunday.

    The calico cat was appointed stationmaster at the Kishi station in western Japan in 2007. Donning her custom-made stationmaster’s cap, Tama quietly sat at the ticket gate welcoming and seeing off passengers. The cat quickly attracted tourists and became world-famous, contributing to the railway company and local economy.

    Tama, who had turned 16 in April, died of a heart failure on June 22. During Sunday’s Shinto-style funeral at the station where she served, Tama became a goddess. The Shinto religion, indigenous to Japan and practiced by many Japanese, has a variety of gods including animals.

    In one of several portraits decorating the altar, Tama posed in a stationmaster’s hat and a dark blue cape. Sake, as well as watermelon, apples, cabbage and other fruits and vegetables were presented to the cat. A stand outside the station was heaped with bouquets, canned tuna and other gifts left by thousands of Tama fans who came to pray from around the country.

  6. 6.

    Pogonip

    After learning about the snooty Northwest Front, I wondered if there was any good old-fashioned amiable eccentricity left, so I wandered the Internet, et voila! I give you the Free State Project, which wants 20,000 neighborly folks to move to New Hampshire, where–well, it wasn’t entirely clear what they intend to do after that, but they do plan to do it together. They don’t care what your religion is, you don’t have to show your pedigree, and according to the article, they’ll help you move in. This is the kind of amiable nuttiness that has always flourished in America, and I’m glad it hasn’t been eclipsed by the mean you-all-have-cooties kind.

  7. 7.

    jl

    ” I wonder were George Washington would have ended up if his patriot militias had just had swords and axes. ”

    Is that a straw dichotomy argument?

  8. 8.

    Amir Khalid

    @srv:

    Imagine what America would be like if everyone was as well educated and erudite as Andrew Sullivan.

    And as hysterical, and as silly, and as intellectually pretentious …

  9. 9.

    Tommy

    I have a question for you all about guns and regulations. It seems any regulations on guns is a no go. That if you have to say register for a gun or have more background checks that is just what the government will use to come take your guns away from you.

    I mention all the time here everybody I know owns guns. Most use then to hunt. I work to geek out on videos games, read a book, or post here. Most people I know work to hunt when they have free time.

    If I step out on my backporch I can see more ATVs and boats then cars.

    But to hunt you need a permit. Those permits require a name and address. I don’t know a single person, even to the far right, that hunts without a permit.

    The NRA or the gun nuts never talk about this. If I want to track down people with guns, this might be a place to start.

    The logic just doesn’t hold.

  13. 13.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Pogonip: Donating stuff to the animal shelter would be a great idea. From what I understand, they’ve got a new cat trainee taking his place. So the tradition continues…

    I remember I used to live near a bookstore that had two cats living there. One would sit by the cash register and allow himself to be petted at check-out time. The other would roam the aisles and demand to be petted by anyone browsing books. It was a magical place, and we were sad when it closed.

  16. 16.

    Roger Moore

    @Pogonip:

    I give you the Free State Project, which wants 20,000 neighborly folks to move to New Hampshire, where–well, it wasn’t entirely clear what they intend to do after that, but they do plan to do it together.

    They want to turn it into a Libertarian paradise.

  17. 17.

    muddy

    @Tommy: I find that they talk about it plenty. What they say is that guns are not for hunting, they are to defend your rights against tyranny. The only right they’d ever stand up for is the right to keep the guns though.

  18. 18.

    Elizabelle

    The Snooze Hour political discussion: Jindal will make “big bold statements” to gain traction among religious conservatives.

    Maybe that’s Snooze Hour for “batshit crazy?”

  19. 19.

    trollhattan

    @Amir Khalid:
    The Widener Library sure as hell wouldn’t hold us all, not to mention the looming Oakeshott shortage.

    No thank you, good sirs!

  20. 20.

    Germy Shoemangler

    Another 19th-century fable from Ambrose Bierce:

    The Cat and the King

    A Cat was looking at a King, as permitted by the proverb.

    “Well,” said the monarch, observing her inspection of the royal person, “how do you like me?”

    “I can imagine a King,” said the Cat, “whom I should like better.”

    “For example?”

    “The King of the Mice.”

    The sovereign was so pleased with the wit of the reply that he gave her permission to scratch his Prime Minister’s eyes out.

  23. 23.

    Brachiator

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    Tama the stationmaster, Japan’s feline star of a struggling local railway, was mourned by company officials and fans and elevated into a goddess at a funeral Sunday.

    But thousands turned out. And how often does a cat get to become a Shinto goddess?

    Tama the cat: 3,000 attend elaborate funeral for Japan’s feline stationmaster

    Japan’s most famous cat, who saved an obscure railway line in rural Wakayama prefecture from financial ruin, earns posthumous status of Shinto goddess.

    In an outpouring of grief usually reserved for the passing of a cultural icon, thousands turned out at the weekend to bid a final farewell to a cat credited with saving an obscure Japanese railway line from financial ruin.

    An estimated 3,000 people, including railway officials, attended Tama the cat’s Shinto-style funeral on Sunday, days after she died of heart failure aged 16 – the equivalent of about 80 human years.

    Some nice photos accompany the story.

    theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/29/tama-the-cat-3000-attend-elaborate-funeral-for-japans-feline-stati…

  24. 24.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @trollhattan: Maru is a youtube sensation, while Tama did the hard work of greeting citizens personally. But Maru is not without charm. The camera loves him.

  26. 26.

    Tommy

    @Roger Moore: I hate to admit I watched the reality TV show Utopia. They had one devoted libertarian on the show. In a matter of days if not hours he blew everything up.

    He didn’t seem to even grasp the concept when you have limited food you need to ration it. Hard to watch. I rarely can almost default to some libertarian views but learned long ago to stop that thinking because it doesn’t work in the end.

  29. 29.

    Brachiator

    Apparently, anti-vaxxers are not going away quietly:

    “One of the big tropes [in the anti-vaccination movement] is that [pro-vaccination forces] are trying to silence their opponents,” says Dorit Reiss. She’s a law professor at UC Hastings who’s written extensively on the legal issues surrounding vaccination, including the personal exemption fight. “Remember, we’re talking about a movement who is persisting in their beliefs—and I think they’re very sincere in those beliefs—in the face of abundant data. The only way they can explain it all away is if there’s a grand conspiracy to hide the truth, and everyone who goes agains them is part of that conspiracy.”

    jezebel.com/meet-the-new-dangerous-fringe-of-the-anti-vaccination-1713438567

  30. 30.

    jl

    @Tommy:

    Not sure I heard of the Utopia show or not. Read this in wki:

    ” The female cast members avoid the trap of being portrayed as catty and vicious; as a result, they are granted no personalities at all, just a penchant for swimming naked … ”

    Sounds pretty sad and adolescent, but never mind. I’ve decided to watch it anyway for a riveting and informed experiment in the merit of rival political ideologies. That’s the ticket!

  31. 31.

    cahuenga

    Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby, two key players in the George W. Bush administration, are teaching a course this fall on decision-making in the 2003 Iraq War.

    The course, titled “The War in Iraq: A Study in Decision-Making”, will examine some “key strategic decisions” during the war, according to a description by the Hertog Foundation in D.C., which will offer the week-long course.

    Jeebus, they’re like zombies. Neocons never stay down.

  32. 32.

    the Conster

    Listening for 5 minutes to NPR, and Mississippi is going full metal wingnut over the SSM ruling. They had some crackpot on talking about how the founders established this country to further Christianity, there is no separation of church and state anywhere in the Constitution, and he’s gathering his fellow crackpot pastors together to game plan out how to deny SSM even if it means not letting anyone get married in their churches. He was told that the law doesn’t make anyone marry gays in their church – it’s a rule that pertains only to the secular government licensing authority, and he says that makes no difference because it’s the same thing. These people are literally crazy and immune to all facts and logic. It’s either terrifying or hilarious.

  33. 33.

    Tommy

    @Roger Moore: That maybe true. I don’t know. My brother married into this huge, far right family. His wife is sane. Her siblings, not so much.

    They are hunters. They have smokehouses. Gosh I love my blood sausage I get from them :).

    One kid is a nationally ranked marksmen. They think the government if not tomorrow, then soon will come to take away their guns.

    I keep telling them I am a raging liberal, if there was a club, and there isn’t a club, I’d have a card and the secret handshake. I can assure him we are not coming for his guns! He doesn’t believe me.

  35. 35.

    jl

    @Brachiator: I agree, desire to freeload off the benefits due to cost born by others can be a very sincerely held belief. In my weaker moments, I hold similar very sincere beliefs in other areas.

    And I think that being strategically cagey about whether the objection to childhood immunization is really due to personal religious beliefs or conscience, or an argument with scientific consensus, with barely hidden accusations that there is a big scientific conspiracy in favor of immunization and to lie about the risks, is a good way to build public support.

    /snark

  36. 36.

    Germy Shoemangler

    Another 19th-century fable by Ambrose Bierce

    The Archer and the Eagle

    An Eagle mortally wounded by an Archer was greatly comforted to observe that the arrow was feathered with one of his own quills.

    “I should have felt bad, indeed,” he said, “to think that any other eagle had a hand in this.”

  41. 41.

    Baud

    @efgoldman:

    Sounds like neocons are paying neocons to network with young neocons who are paying for the opportunity to network with older neocons.

  43. 43.

    realbtl

    @Roger Moore: As a Montana resident I would disagree. Most of the folks who hunt up here would say “Why the hell would you arm yourself to go to Walmart?”

  44. 44.

    different-church-lady

    @cahuenga:

    The course, titled “The War in Iraq: A Study in Decision-Making”, will examine some “key strategic decisions” during the war, according to a description by the Hertog Foundation in D.C., which will offer the week-long course.

    Hard to believe it’s going to take a week to say, “Here are all the things we did. Don’t do any of them.”

  45. 45.

    trollhattan

    @cahuenga:
    Ah so, a Wingnut Welfare gig, not at a university or anything. Foundation started by this guy.

    Anybody dumb enough to pay for it will be getting their money’s worth.

  46. 46.

    Tommy

    @jl: I really think the concept had some value. But yes the women seemed to always be running around without a lot of clothes on, if any at all. I got no issue with being nude, but I tend to not want to be nude around people I don’t know :).

    What I found interesting was they, on purpose, put a lot of people with different views on the world together. It was stunning they couldn’t even agree on the basics. You know how to eat. Water. Just the basics.

    I am an avid hiker/camper. I grab my pack and I can live for days if not weeks and months on my own. That they couldn’t get even the most basic things down was hard to watch.

  47. 47.

    Baud

    Sigh. Another slew of witty comments lost to the FYWP ether because of a mistyped email address.

  48. 48.

    cahuenga

    @different-church-lady:

    I have a feeling it will be more like: “Well it didn’t work-out like we planned… But who could have predicted?” And all the while denying there was any credible resistance to their brilliant plan.

  53. 53.

    jl

    @Baud:

    I thought no one really cared about the email address. I’m in moderation, maybe because I typed the email address

    ‘fywp at bjblog.gov’.

    That seems to be a perfectly good email address to me. Could that be the problem?

  56. 56.

    Baud

    @jl:

    I think if the nym and email address don’t match up, the comment gets tossed. At least that’s been my experience.

  57. 57.

    jl

    @Tommy:

    ” I am an avid hiker/camper. I grab my pack and I can live for days if not weeks and months on my own. That they couldn’t get even the most basic things down was hard to watch. ”

    I fancy (knock on wood) that I have the same hiking’camping expertise. Did the people on the show know the first thing about camping? If not, would not make much difference whether they agreed on anything or not.

  59. 59.

    Tree With Water

    @different-church-lady: I’m currently reading a WW2 biography that is, hands down, the most entertaining and informative I ever expect to read about any of the principal actors of the era. It entitled Beetle-The Life and Times of General Bedell Smith (D.K.R. Shawcross; University Press of Kentucky; 2010). Smith was a mustang with a reputation as Ike’s hatchet man. I’ve read a ton about WW2, but never fully appreciated the fact of it being one continuous albeit ultimately successful exercise in disaster management.

  60. 60.

    Roger Moore

    @realbtl:
    I think you’re agreeing with me, not disagreeing. My point is that the NRA has at least two groups, hunters and gun nuts, and they don’t have too much overlap. The national leadership is clearly dominated by the gun nuts, but there are still a lot of relatively sane hunters in the organization. The kind of people who buy guns to hunt with are not, for the most part, the ones who are worried about the government coming to confiscate them.

  62. 62.

    Tommy

    @Germy Shoemangler: I have started to go to my local barber to shave my head once a week and not do it myself. They have two cats. One of them jumped up on my lap as I petted her. She said I am sorry, that doesn’t happen. She hates people.

    I am like it is all good. I got this cat thing. They really, really like me.

  65. 65.

    Tommy

    @jl: They had no clue. Not even read a single book. I would never venture out for a second with almost any of them.

  66. 66.

    the Conster

    @efgoldman:

    It really is puzzling – how can they have come through an accredited law school without grasping, and reading, all of the case law and analysis about the establishment clause of the First Amendment? I just keep thinking that everything they learned went out the window when Obama was elected. I can’t attribute it to anything else other than mass hysteria about the black guy being the boss of them, so the entire Constitution has to be disregarded because… reasons.

  67. 67.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Tommy: I have a similar story. Visited friends with a shy cat. Cat never comes around when guests are there. After a while I noticed a tiny face peering at me from behind a chair. My host laughed “He never comes this close.” I said to the cat “Whatchu doin? Whatsamatter?” Cat came closer, started vocalizing at me loudly. I “replied” by asking him “What? What? Yeah?” A long conversation between cat and human.

    Before long, the cat was rubbing next to me and then on my lap. My hosts were amazed.

  68. 68.

    realbtl

    @Roger Moore: @Roger Moore: As a Montana resident I would disagree. Most of the folks who hunt up here would say “Why the hell would you arm yourself to go to Walmart?”Oops, you are right. Reading fail.

  69. 69.

    jl

    @Roger Moore:

    ” I suspect that there isn’t a whole lot of overlap between the hunter and paranoid ammosexual wings of the NRA. ”

    There are old hunters and crazy hunters, but no old crazy hunters?

  70. 70.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud: Just sorrow at your FYWP shutout.

    Happy camper, actually. Very happy about the redistricting USSC decision. The EPA one is not as stringent as it could have been. Do we know that Oklahoma is able to obtain execution drugs? I’d heard that’s getting steadily harder …

    Drinking liberally.

  71. 71.

    trollhattan

    Tweet from an astronaut with hi-def slo-mo video of the SpaceX launcher exploding. [Note to self: while on ISS, don’t have the fam send any irreplaceable items on resupply flight.]

  72. 72.

    burnspbesq

    @efgoldman:

    A friend who works in Austin and lives in Williamson County advises that county clerks are ignoring AG Butthead.

    Also too, the Supremes granted a stay in the Texas abortion case, so two-thirds of the state’s approximately 20 remaining providers will not have to shut down at COB tomorrow.

  74. 74.

    Tommy

    @the Conster: I have a MA in Journalism. I had to take a few classes in law. First Amendment. Now I am no legal expert but what I was taught, and the case law was often complex, was also very straightforward if you read it.

    I often come back to the book from one of my classes. “The First Amendment and the Forth Estate.”

  75. 75.

    Baud

    @Elizabelle:

    Thanks. I’m sad too. I feel like those comments could have guaranteed us the election. But at least I know you guys weren’t ignoring me. That’s something.

  76. 76.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Elizabelle: I never understood conservatives who are so convinced “The State” can’t be trusted to do anything right; they view it with suspicion and distrust… and then they’re fine with The State putting a citizen to death.

  77. 77.

    Amir Khalid

    Schadenfreude is not a becoming state of mind, especially during Ramadhan. God forgive me for my reaction to this story about EL James.

  81. 81.

    the Conster

    @ShadeTail:

    11 years of SSM in Mass., and NOTHING HAPPENED. It’s just so fucking hilarious to watch all these crazy nutjobs lose their shit over nothing happening to them.

  82. 82.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Germy Shoemangler: Or the ones who use the state DMV as their example of why you can’t trust “government” to do anything right, and use this to justify devolving federal functions to the states.

  83. 83.

    Felonius Monk

    @Baud: I’m holding a moment of silence in honor of your missing comments. Our world has been made poorer by their loss. May they rest in peace in the vast reaches of our electromagnetic universe.

    OTOH, you sure they weren’t jacked by some Chinese hackers — been a lot of that going around lately.

  86. 86.

    jl

    @the Conster: Eleven years is a short time in the annals of human history. Justice Roberts is concerned that we are departing from the wisdom of the Aztecs, Medieval Europe and ancient China, and maybe marriage is just the beginning. So, maybe disaster is just around the corner.

    Come to think of it, in California how long since we did a human sacrifice, burned a witch, or bound a high class wife’s feet? And look, here we have a thousand year drought.

  88. 88.

    Baud

    @jl:

    I’m glad Roberts dissented. It means history will be less likely to mischaracterize him.

  91. 91.

    Cacti

    @jl:

    I liked Judge Richard Posner’s evaluation of the Chief Justice’s dissent:

    Ah, the millennia! Ah, the wisdom of ages! How arrogant it would be to think we knew more than the Aztecs — we who don’t even know how to cut a person’s heart out of his chest while’s he still alive, a maneuver they were experts at.

  94. 94.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @jl:

    Come to think of it, in California how long since we did a human sacrifice

    Maybe not in CA, but there have been a lot of human sacrifices recently.

  96. 96.

    Baud

    Based solely on the guy from Reason on Chris Hayes just now, libertarians oppose the SSM ruling.

  97. 97.

    Anne Laurie

    @Pogonip:

    This is the kind of amiable nuttiness that has always flourished in America, and I’m glad it hasn’t been eclipsed by the mean you-all-have-cooties kind.

    Oh, I’ve had my eye on the Free State Projecters for years now. They’re bog-standard Libertarians, a little more footloose than the average Paulite:

    Back in 2003, a libertarian-leaning group called the Free State Project decided that this small state could be a liberty lover’s paradise if enough like-minded people settled here. (The movement, by the way, tends to attract white males, according to Carla Gericke, the group’s president, a white South African who has lived for many years in this country. “I’m the token African-American,” she joked.)

    A dozen years in, the Free State Project is about three-quarters of the way toward achieving its goal of having 20,000 people commit to relocating to the state, after which it will “trigger the move.”…

    Some of the adherents have made earnest efforts to turn themselves into local nuisances, but as of now the farthest the “Porcupine People” have moved the political awareness needle is from “harmless” to “mostly harmless”.

  99. 99.

    Ruckus

    @Matt McIrvin:
    Especially since the two states that I’ve used for DMV stuff, CA and OH have worked great, especially CA (OK it’s the BMV in OH).
    I talked with a guy at the VA today, he’s how horrible it is, still there getting his care but it’s horrible. Told him I’ve had great care there. Yes I sometimes have to wait but the care is still good. I wonder if their expectations are too high or mine too low. Or maybe it’s just they refuse to be observant because being an ass with preconceived notions is easier. Or their nature.

  103. 103.

    Baud

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I may have misheard, but I think the guy said he disagreed with the result. It was said in passing, so I didn’t hear his rationale. The topic was focused more on the GOP politics on SSM.

  104. 104.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Omnes Omnibus: Like a fucking Lannister! I could see Tom Brady as a Lannister. Bellichek is a Bolton, though, at least a Greyjoy.

  105. 105.

    Cacti

    @Baud:

    Isn’t it amazing how often the libertarian definition of “individual liberty” seems to exclude the same groups of people disliked by the Republican Party?

  107. 107.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: The mere fact that it makes no sense doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. We are talking about libertarians here. Anything is possible.

  108. 108.

    Pogonip

    @Roger Moore: For a Libertarian paradise, 20,000 neighborly folks wouldn’t work. You’d need 20,000 greedy assholes. I suspect they’ll end up rethinking the Project.

  109. 109.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @realbtl:
    ‘Because there are blacks there, and I want them to be afraid,’ is the usual reason.

    @cahuenga:
    I suspect not. Using Cheney as my standard, the class will have no connection to reality you can comprehend. It will be all about how they successfully met challenges because their ideals were correct and they were take-charge, leader type people. It will seem as if they don’t even know what a clusterfuck Iraq was. Most importantly, they will believe everything they say, and so will most of their students.

    @Germy Shoemangler:
    Assume that they are mean-spirited racists. It’s all consistent if you do. They complain about the government because it forces them to stop discriminating. Current reactions to marriage equality are a fine example. They are STILL pissed about desegregation. But they tend to think that blacks and criminals are the same thing, so their paranoia doesn’t flare up and they’re free to cheer and laugh when someone is put to death.

  110. 110.

    jl

    @Baud:

    If said in passing, he may have mispoken.

    Even so, a guy from supposedly libertarian Reason mag’s main expertise is GOP politics and politicking, not individual liberty and implications for policy on same sex marriage? Did I get that right?

  115. 115.

    danielx

    @jl:

    I hope they are thinking about cutting the theatrical run short, since if they do not, general voting population will believe they are serious and that the GOP has gone stark raving mad, or at least are unhealthily obsessed.

    That particular horse left the barn some time ago.

    The GOP is perceived by the general population to be a captive of both its bases: 1) the godbotherer/racist/etc base and, 2) more recently, the Kochs and others of their ilk who are out to buy the kind of government they want. They’ve always been the party of 2, it’s just they no longer care if anyone actually notices the men behind the curtain or not. Those guys wear suits and ties and at least look civilized even sound civilized (mostly), as opposed to the denizens of group 1. The latter are the ones who vote in GOP primaries and attend GOP primary debates so they can egg the candidates into biting the heads off live bats, a la Ozzy, to prove their loyalty to the Cause.

  116. 116.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @danielx:

    They’ve always been the party of 2

    I disagree. Until recently, there’s been great agreement and very little conflict between what 1 and 2 want. They haven’t had to choose. As the debt ceiling votes show, when the two pull in different directions the party is paralyzed and the business side come crawling to Democrats to save them.

  117. 117.

    LWA

    @Anne Laurie:
    So wait, they don’t actually have 3/4 of the 20,000 people already moved there, they have 15,000 people committed to move….?

    What sort of commitment, a double pinky swear ferreals?

  118. 118.

    Pogonip

    @Anne Laurie: Sounds like the nut-group roundup I read may have whitewashed the Free Staters a bit (no ton inpended). They really did sound amiably eccentric in the good old fashioned way. Maybe theyl evolve to that.

    It occurred to me that a place desperately needing not 20, but 200,000 neighborly folks is Detroit.

  119. 119.

    ultraviolet thunder

    Looks like I missed some stuff traveling today. I’ll be in Mexico for a while and mostly away from internets, but I gather that SCOTUS has played their hand and no more surprises are in store.
    I wonder which southern state will be the last to give up and issue same sex marriage licenses. My money’s on Alabama. Roy Moore is a real hard case.

  121. 121.

    jl

    @danielx: I hope you are right and that the GOP is already discredited, at least by voting population that turns out for presidential elections.

    “they can egg the candidates into biting the heads off live bats, a la Ozzy,”

    I thought Ozzy bit the heads off of live doves (or pigeons?) for his act. But, leave it to the GOP to take it a step further.

  122. 122.

    trollhattan

    @Amir Khalid:
    “Is it true that you’re actually just a burlap sack full of bad ideas and spiders?”

    I couldwill go the rest of my life without coming up with anything that awesome.

  128. 128.

    maeve

    @Roger Moore: @Roger Moore:

    I suspect that there isn’t a whole lot of overlap between the hunter and paranoid ammosexual wings of the NRA.

    Agree – I know hunters who are fed up with NRA insistence that allowing armor piercing bullets and automatic weapons are protecting their gun rights.

  129. 129.

    danielx

    Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby, two key players in the George W. Bush administration, are teaching a course this fall on decision-making in the 2003 Iraq War.

    Yet another sad case of life imitating the Onion.

  130. 130.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Pogonip:
    I’m afraid that the stated goal of the Free State Movement is to crowd out the natives in a small area, so they can remove all laws, regulations, taxes, and government services from that area by outvoting whoever already lives there. No, it will never grow into something nice.

    @Baud:
    I’m guessing he’ll fail because he’s too incompetent to put together a real campaign organization. That was the story of the 2012 nomination process. Romney won by facing a gauntlet of people so breathtakingly stupid that they couldn’t remember to sign up for the ballot on all 50 states. It was a triumph of ‘In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.’

  131. 131.

    danielx

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    You’re right, and I should have reversed the order of the two groups. In former times, you could pretty much predict the path of the Republicans by following the money. Candidates followed Nixon’s dictum about running as far to the right as possible during primaries, then running as quickly as possible back to the center (whatever that is) during the general election. Nowadays, after thirty years of being steeped in bullshit and teh crazy by Faux, Limbaugh, Malkin, etc, that technique won’t work because the wingnut inmates have taken over the asylum and won’t let them run back to the center, not any of the klown kar passengers show any signs of wanting to do so.

  133. 133.

    Anne Laurie

    @Pogonip:

    It occurred to me that a place desperately needing not 20, but 200,000 neighborly folks is Detroit.

    Part of the online balloting behind the original Free State Project proposal was picking a state with “good employment prospects”; NH scored well because so many of its inhabitants freeload off Massachusetts. There were also various weasel-worded check-offs concerning “like-thinking neighbors” and “convivial social climate” (I’m quoting from memory because I can’t be arsed to dig, but you can look around on Google if you like.) I am not the only cynic who interpreted those questions to mean “No poors, and especially no not-white poors” — y’know, the wrong kind of moochers. NH is not so lily-white as Vermont, but it’s a lot whiter than Detroit (or the state of Michigan in general).

  134. 134.

    Anne Laurie

    @jl:

    I thought Ozzy bit the heads off of live doves (or pigeons?) for his act. But, leave it to the GOP to take it a step further.

    Traditional sideshow geeks bit the heads off live chickens, or pretended to. Way I heard the story, Ozzy would bite the heads off rubber bats during his big stage shows. One night, someone threw a real (dead) bat on the stage — Mr. Osborne either did or did not realize it was a ringer, depending on who you believe.

  135. 135.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @danielx:

    not any of the klown kar passengers show any signs of wanting to do so.

    Bingo. The rot goes all the way up. The best example of this is the Koch Brothers, the greedy shits who pour millions, quite probably billions into US politics. They are Birchers and crazier than shit-house rats.

  136. 136.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @cahuenga:

    Have to say I never heard of the Hertog Foundation. But I googled its founder:

    Roger Hertog (born 1940 or 1941) is an American businessman, financier and conservative philanthropist. Born and raised in the Bronx borough of New York City, New York, Hertog pursued a career in business….

    Please tell me how it’s possible to be born in the mid-20th century in fucking NYC and not know what year you were born. And as one who is only a year (maybe two years!) younger than Roger, I assure you there’s no percentage in being coy about one’s age at this point.

  139. 139.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Felonius Monk:

    I’m holding a moment of silence in honor of your missing comments.

    Between grieving the defunct opposite-sex marriages of many of my friends, and now mourning Baud’s missing comments, I’m experiencing a severe case of compassion fatigue.

  140. 140.

    Pogonip

    @Germy Shoemangler: Nothing like a good cat conversation. CAT: (Peers warily). POGONIP: (blinks slowly). CAT: (pricks ears, interested). POGONIP: (blinks, turns away). CAT: (investigates). POGONIP: hi, kitty-cat, whassup?

    And 9 times out of 10 I’ll get a meow or at least a “prrt” sound in response.

  142. 142.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    A small part of me thinks Trump has a shot at the nom.

    Charles Foster Trump? Naw. He lacks discipline, and cannot mount a sustained effort to campaign. He hasn’t shown any ability to attract any campaign or political advisers. His actual connections to the Republican Party is nil. And after a while, he will not want to keep spending his own money to chase the dream of becoming president.

    He’s not even the poor man’s Ross Perot. And his bluster is clearly wearing thin.

    I hope he stays in the race longer, just so he can suck the oxygen out of the room with respect to the other candidates. But he’s done. And the funny thing is, he doesn’t have the smarts to realize it.

  143. 143.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ruckus: It’s actually the RMV here in MA. The last time I dealt with a branch location they weren’t bad at all, but I have terrible memories of waiting for hours and hours ages ago at a big old office in Boston. I think these memories tend to linger for decades after they’re obsolete.

  144. 144.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Brachiator: Trump is an entertainment. Like I said, I think the real right-wing-Sanders in this race is Ben Carson. He doesn’t have an actual shot at the nomination, but he’ll hang on as the favorite of the ultraconservative true believers for longer than Cruz or Huckabee. He has a passionate fan base.

  146. 146.

    danielx

    @jl:

    He did actually bite the head off a (real) bat on stage one night, alive or dead I can’t say. It was a one time thing, as he became fairly ill afterward.

    You could conceivably get Ted Cruz or Mike Huckabee to bite the head off a bat if it was painted rainbow colors and labeled liberal, and possibly Chris Christie if the head was deep fried. You’ll never see Jeb! or Walker indulging in strange gastronomy, their backers want their puppets healthy.

  147. 147.

    NotMax

    @SiubhanDuinne

    It is eminently possible for there to be conflicting dates..

    Besides the obvious culprits of fire, flood, accidental destruction of records, date being illegible, etc., if he were born at home (possibly with a midwife in attendance), then a birth certificate might have been filed much later, even years after the fact.

    If his parents were ultra-Orthodox Jews, the same might apply, a birth certificate becoming relevant to him only when he left the shelter of a religious enclave.

    Not casting aspersions, but if his birth mother was unmarried she may have been whisked off to one of the homes for unwed mothers operating at the time, among which it was not unknown to fudge data on a birth certificate or issue a new one, especially if a wedding occurred reasonably soon after the birth.

    Likely leaving out other possibilities as well.

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