John Oliver is a genius.
I love the DC statehood song at the end (sorry, Betty).
DC Statehood
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DC Statehood
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Fear and negativity are contagious, but so is courage!
Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers
Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll
T R E 4 5 O N
The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.
Come on, man.
We will not go back.
Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.
Consistently wrong since 2002
The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.
You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.
Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.
“woke” is the new caravan.
🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵
One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.
Damn right I heard that as a threat.
Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.
The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.
Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?
A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals
“Alexa, change the president.”
Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.
Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.
the 10% who apparently lack object permanence
Anne Laurie
Just by way of note, the ‘Schedule’ button on the FWYP Dashboard is working again, Cole.
If anyone should happen to refresh before hitting publish, that is.
Smiling Mortician
John Oliver is doing excellent work. He’s using comedy and investigative journalism (what’s that?) to reveal a lot of unfair and illogical shit.
And hell yes, DC should have statehood. Two senators and a rep, dammit! Just like Vermont or Wyoming! (I’m OK with 51, the flag looks great, so no need for Betty & Mustang Bobby et. al. to be jettisoned.)
Right to Rise
Somebody on the previous thread talked about Jeb and “stupid wars”.
Jeb will have a foreign policy driven by American values, a peaceful face to the world with just a touch of steel. No unnecessary wars, but no capitulation. No deals with Caribbean caudillos, or Mullahs with missiles. A safer, stronger, freer world without blood shed.
Right to Rise
As to DC Statehood, here’s a bold idea: let’s pass a constitutional amendment giving DC back to Maryland, with the stipulation that Maryland gets one extra district drawn in the DC boundaries with a voting Congressman, and one additional vote in the Electoral College.
jl
Maybe it was about the war of stupid inside Jeb!? I’ll go check to make sure.
I still think is DougJ practicing for next year.
Joel
@Right to Rise: A touch of steel, a dash of plutonium… aha, done!
KS in MA
The song is hilarious. John Oliver rules!
JPL
@Right to Rise: Bqhatevwr
Amir Khalid
@Right to Rise:
Bullshit. Jeb has supported the entirety of W’s bellicose and counterproductive foreign policy.
Right to Rise
@Amir Khalid
By 2008, the surge was working and America had won in Iraq. But Obama’s reckless withdraw, supported by Secretary Clinton, put that victory in danger. And ultimately, killed it. If Obama had kept the Bush timetable Iraq would be as stable as it was in 2008. Instead, ISIS rules western Iraq with an iron fist.
JPL
@Right to Rise: You can’ be that ignorant.. Bqhatevwr
Maybe you can
Gin & Tonic
Not bedtime for this fucking putz yet?
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Right to Rise:
Yes, yes, if we’d all just clapped harder, then unicorns and fairy dust would have turned the tide in Iraq and Aslan would have ruled there forever and ever!
jl
Just a few more Friedman Units would have done the trick! Just a few more! Thanks Obama!
I guess the point is that since Dub had victory, that is a good argument for Jeb! bringing in the old Dub gang of lunatics and incompetents to achieve victory again. To bring back the amazingly popular DubStep.
Spoof troll.
Botsplainer
Speaking of stupid, this past weekend, I trained my SIRI to call me “El Conquistador” while in a drunken moment. The bad part was that it ALSO apparently changed my email settings, and my outbound emails all had “El Conquistador” in the “From” line.
I’m hoping the guys I emailed at the dive shop in Puerto Morelos MX have a sense of humor about that when I dive with them in October…
Amir Khalid
Kuala Lumpur, like Washington DC, has been its own Federal Territory since the early 1970s rather than part of a state (KL sits in the middle of Selangor, and until then was part of that state). KL’s local government (appointed rather than elected) is under a Federal ministry.
So the national flag isn’t the only American thing we copied n my country.
currants
@Mnemosyne (tablet): I”m SURE you’re right about that. I’m clapping even now…oh, wait. Past tense….
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: Jeb! was one of the signers of the original PNAC letter. Neo-con to the core.
Right to Rise
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m done here. This is my last post until debate night when I will conduct a live blogging of the debate on these comment threads.
After seven years of turmoil, uncertainty, and division, this country needs someone who is solid, rigid, and strong. Someone that won’t break no matter how hard you hold one. This country doesn’t need any more weakness, or limpness represented by the
Democrat Party. We don’t need division, we need uniting.
What this country needs is Jeb Bush.
Matt McIrvin
@Right to Rise: Tell you what, I’ll agree to making DC a district within Maryland if we also merge Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana into one state, with two Senators, and Reps and electoral votes according to its population. It’d have almost as many people!
PeakVT
Sorry, but DC shouldn’t be a state. It would be a permanent rotten borough that would support every single government spending program, because every government spending program employs people in DC. Even as a liberal/progressive/DFH who thinks government is definitively not the problem (and Christianists are), I can’t support the creation of such an entity. Also, it would continue to lack a “hinterland” – the vast spread of suburbs and exurbs that tend to transfer money to poorer urban centers via state government. Perhaps an adequate commuter tax could be implemented that would substitute for the lack of rich suburbs, but I doubt it.
The best solution to the problem of DC was, is, and will continue to be retrocession of the bulk of the territory to Maryland.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Right to Rise:
Wow. You guys really should buy some little blue pills and stop protecting your erectile insecurities onto the rest of us.
jl
@Right to Rise: OK. But put up a math or science post for us too OK, DougJ. thnx in advance.
Mike in NC
@jl: Definitely DougJ brushing up on his trolling skills. Going to be a long 15 months.
JEB! of course is a feckless moron with zero foreign policy experience, but he’s listening to the same gaggle of neocon cretins who advised Poppy and Dubya.
Benw
@Smiling Mortician: if we make DC a state now, we’ll have 51 for the next 20-30 years. Then we’ll go back to 50 when FL sinks under the ocean. So we’re just planning ahead, so to speak.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: Music threads too.
beltane
That’s gold, Jerry! Gold!
Matt McIrvin
Why the hell not? We already have dozens of rotten boroughs that automatically oppose every single government spending program, increasingly even when they directly benefit. Why is self-interested support for government spending the illegitimate position?
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: Delhi too was a Union territory. It is now a state. I have no idea if that has made any difference in the governance. I think not but since I have never been Delhi, you can take that opinion with a grain of salt.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Matt McIrvin:
Good point. Why not have at least one state that’s automatically pro-government spending to counteract the five or six antis that are already in Congress?
Matt McIrvin
@PeakVT:
…which, of course, Republicans love because it would eliminate at least two safely Democratic electoral votes. Meanwhile, the 580,000 voters of Wyoming continue to get three, and their two actual voting Senators and a Representative.
NotMax
There is no particular rationale for making D.C. into a state.
There is solid rationale for amending the Constitution to grant residents of D.C. full voting representation in Congress as opposed to the limited representation they now have.
Benw
@Mnemosyne (tablet): also, it would be less hypocritical, in that the 5 or 6 most “anti-govt spending” states take in some of the largest federal $ per capita. It would be an openly pro-spending state that receives a lot of federal cash!
SANDERS/DC 2016
Chris T.
… and a pony.
[ETA: goes on the end of you know who’s claims about you! know! who!.]
Roger Moore
@Smiling Mortician:
Even if we need to cut back to keep things at 50, there are much more logical plans than jettisoning Florida. Consolidating states in flyover territory seems like a much more sensible idea. For example, do we really need two Dakotas? Wouldn’t it make sense to combine Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, so that Yellowstone could be in just one state? If we’re going to ditch a state, couldn’t it pretty please be Texas?
Matt McIrvin
@Matt McIrvin: …And yes, for balance, super-liberal (but super-white) Vermont gets two Senators and a Representative too, even though it has barely more people than Wyoming and almost as many people as Washington DC.
Belafon
@Roger Moore: I would recommend keeping Texas. As long as you’ll keep sending troops here, you can send the garbage. I would recommend passing a national voting rights amendment to get Latinos to vote.
Groucho48
@Right to Rise:
If we had won, why did we have to stay?
Chris
@NotMax:
This.
sukabi
@Right to Rise: right, just like his brother. And with most of his advisors just to ensure the same level of peacefulness and sanity.
Benw
@Roger Moore: I grew up in the Western U.S. so I like my states big (by area, not necessary population). All these tiny eastern states kind of freak me out. Maybe we could jam a bunch of them together? I’m looking at you Massachusetts and Rhode Island…
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
They’ll still have size issues to deal with.
gwangung
@Right to Rise: Don’t insult our intelligence.
Put some minimal effort in.
RaflW
@Right to Rise:
Se ya later, DougJ. Won’t miss ya. But if you ‘blog’ as RtR on Thursday, I will hunt you down and full steam you like you’ve never been steamed before.
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
They should also have full control over their own government, rather than having Congress have the power to step in and overrule anything they feel like. If you give them those two things, they’re a de facto state, even if they aren’t one de jure.
Warren Terra
@Benw:
You do realize the opposite argument makes a lot more sense? California has, what, eighty times the population of Wyoming?
Look: our electoral system is basically fncked, because we have 80% Democratic urban areas and 60% Republican areas everywhere else, and determine Congressional districts by geography. But it’s silly to pretend that the problem is the small size of Rhode Island or Delaware, when either has almost twice the population of Wyoming, and a far more complex politics to boot.
lol
@PeakVT:
Should we strip Virginia of its voting rights? It has the Pentagon and CIA so it gets the lion’s share of federal spending in the area.
If DC were a state, it would have the ability to leverage a commuter tax. We might even be able to whip WMATA into shape since VA and MD chronically underfund compared to how much they use it.
At the end of the day, the arguments against amount to “Because we don’t want to”.
It’s a fucking embarrassment.
Matt McIrvin
@Benw: Land doesn’t vote. This is about representation, and by population Rhode Island is about the same size as Montana, and considerably larger than Alaska or either of the Dakotas. (Or Delaware or Vermont.)
jl
@Warren Terra: I kind of agree with BenW, having spend most of my life in them big Western states. But I think it is a prejudice from familiarity. Some of the bigger states, in area, seem just as messed up as the smaller states. From what hear from relatives in big area small population states, they have some Eastern small area small population state problems. Maybe they come more from small population more than small area.
The problems of self-government in a small state were mentioned in the Federalist Papers, weren’t they?
And I propose INDEPENDENCE for Washington DC. Get a popular vote in DC on that, They can go in with Pureto Rico. That will make the ancient lizards in Congress snort.
Eric
@Right to Rise: I agree. But whether it’s one or two extra congressional districts should be determined by the census. And I’d rather keep the Mall, the Hill and White House as a separate federal entity. Since no one had permanent residency there, it wouldn’t disenfranchise any voters.
NonyNony
@Benw:
Eh – Western states have fewer people, making self-governing a whole lot easier in a lot of ways. And then you get the advantage that there’s 250K people per Senator in Wyoming, while there’s 9 million people per Senator in New York. And there’s 500K people per House rep in Wyoming, while there’s 730K people per House rep in New York. Smashing all of the New England states together would only make this even worse.
One man, one vote indeed.
Warren Terra
@jl: I grew up in Seattle, with a hinterland that stretches for hundreds of miles, back before Seattle was nationally known. I also have a hard time taking the geographic entity of Rhode Island seriously, but it’s a million people. That’s still a small population for a state, but a whole bunch of Western states have considerably smaller populations, and don’t remotely merit equal status with Brooklyn or with Queens (each has ~2.5 million people), let alone equal status with all of New York City – but in the Senate they get a voice that equals that of New York State. It’s absurd.
p.a.
@Right to Rise:
Bumper sticker: He’ll Floridate America!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Right to Rise: So Jeb!’s going to be a “Uniter, not a Divider”; I’ve heard that one before…
p.a.
@Matt McIrvin: plus, we’re a unit of measure.
Cervantes
@Right to Rise:
As opposed to his brother’s foreign policy?
James E Powell
@Right to Rise:
How about having residents of DC vote for one of the Virginia senate seats and one of Maryland’s?
Also too, how ’bout either making Puerto Rico a state or letting them have their own country?
Roger Moore
@NonyNony:
OTOH, very low population density makes providing government services very challenging. It simply isn’t practical to have things like hospitals, or even law enforcement, conveniently close to everyone in the state. At the same time, lots of government functions that are critical in densely populated areas are much less important in sparsely populated ones. I think that has a lot to do with differences in people’s attitudes toward government.
ruemara
@Right to Rise: You’re not live-blogging as a commentor. You’re an asshole hogging threads for your particular issue. Thought I’d be helpful and make that clear.
Roger Moore
@James E Powell:
That’s up to them. There have been several plebiscites on the issue of Puerto Rico’s status, and none of them have given a clear majority for either independence or statehood. Statehood seems to be doing better and independence worse recently, but they seem happiest with the status quo for the time being.
Benw
@Warren Terra: yeah, I’m mostly joking. Obviously, in a representative democracy arranging voting by population is far more important than square footage. On the other hand, if we mashed all the NE states except NY and NJ together, at least the Patriots would have a unified fan base, which is the most important thing…
Matt McIrvin
@James E Powell: The Puerto Rico situation is actually more complicated, with regard to popular opinion there. The pro-independence faction is small, but whether there’s a plurality in favor of statehood depends on how the referendum is constructed. Support for statehood is increasing, though, and a clean majority may well be in favor at some time in the near future.
Becoming a state would mean that Puerto Ricans would be subject to federal income tax, but a large fraction of the population would probably not be rich enough to pay it anyway (they already do pay federal payroll taxes).
Mnemosyne (tablet)
Somehow, talk about the new “Fantastic 4” movie in another thread made me think of the long-defunct Superdickery website and — miracle of miracles! — it turns out that it is no longer defunct. It’s up and running and is now taking on bad fan art in addition to its primary mission of mocking old comic books.
This cover and its commentary made me laugh for, like, 10 minutes straight:
superdickery.com/flash-is-reduce-to-tossing-thumbtacks-at-a-guy-on-a-tricycle/
Warren Terra
@Benw:
Great, because there aren’t enough Boston Sports Massholes already. I know whereof I speak, I lived there for a decade.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne (tablet): The Superdickery site used to be crawling with malware. Did they disinfect it?
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Matt McIrvin:
He actually deleted the old site completely and started over from scratch because of the malware and other issues (he preserved all of the images, so the back catalog is on the new site). Apparently there’s a searchable database and everything, but I’m still just paging back through each post and laughing my ass off.
Benw
@Warren Terra: my proposal wouldn’t make *more* awful Patriots fans, it would just allow them the root together as a unified state! I mean, Tom Brady is a big old cheater, is what I’m saying.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Oh, man, he ragged on Sh******y’s comic.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Matt McIrvin:
Explainer post:
superdickery.com/your-burning-questions-answered/
Suzanne
@Right to Rise: This Right to Rise clown is fucking hilarious. Can we trade him for Tommy?
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: There are few more minutes in my B-day, so I will be nice.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Isn’t this basically the reason why red (i.e. more rural) states tend to be “takers” and blue (i.e. more urban) states tend to be “givers” in the federal budget?
In a big city, one water pipe goes to one building that has, like, a hundred people living in it, and the bill gets divided between all of them. In a rural area with people living far apart in their own houses, it’s more like one hundred people paying for one hundred water pipes, which at some point becomes economically not viable, so the only way to pay for it is to collect money from the urban areas and redistribute it for rural infrastructure. (Crude simplification, but it seems like that’s the basic principle).
MikeBoyScout
In the super duper spirit of bipartisan compromise, I’m willing to momentarily forgo DC statehood if we can agree to shitcan Florida ASAP.
Hey @ron_fournier, you onboard???
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: I think you’re mixed up. On your birthday, everyone else has to be nice to you, but you can be as big of a dick as you want.
Birthdays are the shizz.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: I think it’s more about poverty. If you look at a map of federal spending vs. revenue, the states that are the biggest “takers” are just poor states, hobbled by crappy and/or racist governance and without some big revenue generator.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: I try to extend that courtesy in reverse. OTOH, It is past midnight here, so fuck off with your silly advice. Trollop.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
Okay, last comic book cover of the night — what R2R thinks war is all about:
superdickery.com/whats-more-manly-than-man-comics/
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Bite me, fucker.
It’s not my birthday, but this is how I’m celebrating yours.
Suzanne
FWIW, I spent an hour on a roof in almost 110 degrees, then did a weightlifting class for an hour. I feel wrecked.
Mike J
I used to live in a different city. When I left, I lost contact with many of my friends from there. Most people didn’t use the internet, and when you moved to another city, well, you made new friends and only rarely talked to the old. It’s not like you were going to go out for drinks with them.
So today I learned that a year and a half ago one of these friends died. I’ve been walking around feeling like I was punched in the chest. I get to feel doubly bad for her being dead and for me not even knowing it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: I would, but I might catch something. :P FWIW my b-day was great.
BTW, the weightlifting will certainly intrigue some commenters.*
*Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: LOL.
That dude annoys the piss out of me.
Suzanne
@Mike J: Oh, that’s brutal. I’m sorry. Hugs.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: I know. I know.
seaboogie
@Right to Rise: Someone who won’t break no matter how hard you hold one (what)? Your dick in your hand?
Anne Laurie
@Mike J:
Fair warning: The older you get, the more often this is going to happen.
I’m “only” 59, but whenever someone starts a message “Hey, remember X?… “ I flinch.
chopper
@Right to Rise:
Oh, Doug. You’re a national treasure.
Joel
@Warren Terra: when it comes to sports, everyone’s an asshole.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@NotMax: Late to the party, but…
DC is a complex problem for a few reasons:
1) The Federal Government is a creation of the States. Lots and lots of things in the Constitution and in the laws and regulations reflect that. Territories and so forth don’t have the same rights and responsibilities.
2) The federal government owns and controls lots of land and facilities in the District. Jurisdictional issues sometimes come into play when it comes to law enforcement, taxation, etc. (Yes, states have similar issues when it comes to military bases and national parks. But it’s orders of magnitude worse in DC where federal sites are scattered everywhere.)
3) MD hates the retrocession idea because it would give the urban areas even more power, distort the power dynamics in the state, etc. DC hates the retrocession idea because of the “we have more people than the flyover country – why shouldn’t we have statehood?” argument.
Full representation seems to require DC becoming a state or becoming part of a state (MD) again. Republicans generally hate the idea of DC statehood because it would weaken their hand when they know demographics and the march of progress are slowly making their hand weaker over time. States have often been admitted via horse-trading. A few years ago, there was a proposal by Tom Davis to make DC a state and at the same time give Utah an extra “at large” representative to make up for it. I hated the idea (Why should voters in Utah get a rep from their congressional district and an at-large rep? What happened to 1 person 1 vote?). (The extra Utah seat would only exist until the next census.)
The idea of “DC residents shall have representation in the House and Senate as if the district were a state” has some appeal, but it isn’t that simple. The Constitution seems pretty plain that DC is special. It seems to require a Constitutional Amendment to fix.
My ideal solution? Fix the Constitution, admit DC as a state, and do something like make the UP of Michigan (~ 310,000 people, which would be the smallest state by far) an offsetting 52nd state. I don’t see it happening unless the Constitution is changed and there’s an offset.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
ETA:(Who hasn’t seen the Oliver clip yet.)
Cervantes
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Or one could admit DC while expelling … well … you pick.
Denali
@Suzanne,
I’m confused. Do you work for Raven?
ET
@Right to Rise: I have a feeling Maryland wouldn’t want it back…… And anyway that is a seemingly easy solution that really isn’t that easy.
As a DC resident I don’t know what solution would be best but the fact it that it is only ever are real conversation in the DC area and really only sometimes. That means that that not only are the discussions limited and theoretical they are only every occasional.
If anyone want to read with DC area people think and pro/con on all the different options there is a local blog Greater Greater Washington that has a post recently that bounced off this same video.
Fred
@Right to Rise says: “After seven years of turmoil, uncertainty, and division, this country needs someone who is solid, rigid, and strong. Someone that won’t break no matter how hard you hold one. This country doesn’t need any more weakness, or limpness represented by the Democrat Party. We don’t need division, we need uniting”
Sounds like Right to Rise is looking for a male porn star to run the White House. Either that or a lady with a whip and a strap on.
I don’t think Jeb! makes the cut.
Now I must head for the store before the popcorn is all sold out. Them guys at Faux Nooz sure know how to rake in the bucks while screwing the rubes in the GOP.
.
schrodinger's cat
@Denali: What’s raven got to do with it? The endless repetition of family history, the barely concealed misogyny and the bragging about material wealth is not what one wants to read thread after thread.
AxelFoley
@Right to Rise:
Is this the new troll (or recycled one) I’ve been hearing about?
Gus diZerega
@PeakVT: Yes and no. Turning it over to Maryland is better than what we have now, but many red states have tiny populations and two senators, distorting political power in this country mightily. Wyoming, Alaska, the Dakotas, all are without significant cities- mostly hinterlands. Some are smaller than DC. The state of DC would kinds even that out a little bit.
Gus diZerega
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Actually the issue is not as bad as you suggest.
1. The people not the states created the constitution, as the Federalist points out. Further, most states – all but the original 13 – were subsequently created by the national government.
2. The land in many Western states is owned by the nation as a whole. Many of us are very glad that is so.
3. That’s a pretty good reason to give it to MD or make it a state. Either way the nation as a whole benefits. UP people already have the vote- they have no more reason to gripe than a person in Austin has reason to grip about being part of Texas.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Gus diZerega: All good points. But DC isn’t going to become a state unless either:1) its proponents have the necessary majorities in the House and Senate (and a sympathetic President) for a simple bare statehood bill, assuming the Constitution doesn’t need to be changed (a big if, IMO), or 2) some sort of compromise so that DC is “offset” by a new rural-ish or western-ish state.
I think #2 is more likely to get DC statehood quicker than #1.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who would do it differently if he were King, but he isn’t.)
Gus diZerega
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Valid points, alas. But I think making a rural redneck state is in many ways equivalent to the Missouri Compromise in its admission that the country is too divided to be viable on constitutional principles that assume a large amount of consensus for it to work. The NeoConfederates and right wing authoritarians subordinate democratic principles to power, and this would write that principle into law.
Frankly that is why I favor “divorce over irreconcilable differences” (a less scary term that secession) where the hard core Red states would leave the union if they wished.
Cervantes
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
@Gus diZerega:
Good discussion. Thanks.