John Oliver is a genius.
I love the DC statehood song at the end (sorry, Betty).
This post is in: Domestic Politics
John Oliver is a genius.
I love the DC statehood song at the end (sorry, Betty).
by Tim F| 56 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Serious question: someone tell me who the hell cares enough to commission oppo research about Lindsey Graham. Although life often proves me wrong, I have a hard time with the idea that some compelling national interest moved a reporter to spontaneously scan through the Air National Guard service records of the lowest polling Republican candidate for President (nutshell version: not much service to record). It seems more likely to me that someone cares enough about a guy who would lose the Republican nomination to Chelsea Clinton that they spent what must have been a couple thousand dollars to dig up this nut and tip off the Post.
You know what? I bet it’s Trump.
Chat about whatever.
***Update***
Of course I’m kidding. Trump wouldn’t be that subtle.
This post is in: Election 2016, Proud to Be A Democrat, Ever Get The Feeling You've Been Cheated?, Our Failed Media Experiment
"We shouldn't be talking about Trump because he'll never win. Let's talk about Biden's possible run." Your very serious media.
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) August 3, 2015
I’d forgotten which “reporter” had her fingerprints on this old hit piece…
That time Maureen Dowd destroyed Joe Biden's presidential hopes http://t.co/rj4rgtzEr9
— Paul Blumenthal (@PaulBlu) August 2, 2015
… On this side of the Atlantic, many Presidential campaign strategists of both parties greatly admired the way it portrayed Mr. Kinnock, who subsequently lost to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, as a man of character. Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, a Democratic hopeful, was particularly taken with it.
So taken, in fact, that he lifted Mr. Kinnock’s closing speech with phrases, gestures and lyrical Welsh syntax intact for his own closing speech at a debate at the Iowa State Fair on Aug. 23 – without crediting Mr. Kinnock…
… Which sets the gilded frame around Dowd’s vile weekend fanfic of a dying Beau Biden imploring his dad to save us from the dreaded Hillary: The important question, for MoDo and her enablers, is not Is this true? or If true, is it important? The important question is: Will this get me style points at the next Beltway party?
And — once again — it worked! For Maureen, at least!
Flashback to mid-July, when Draft Biden reported raising just $78k in the second quarter http://t.co/aN8Si2u4dA
— Gabriel Debenedetti (@gdebenedetti) August 3, 2015
Clintonites decline to wear anxiety on their sleeve re Biden, via @Annie karni http://t.co/aEZXG3gV0L
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 2, 2015
She’s the new Queen of the Cocktail Weenies!
Back in the real world, Nate Silver is depressingly sensible…
Joe Biden's running what you might call a Schrödinger’s Cat campaign, neither wholly in the race or wholly out of it. http://t.co/RJSWBasix0
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 3, 2015
Sure, Joe Biden has every right to run for President in 2016, and there are people who very badly want him to run in 2016… some of them not even in the anyone-but-HER or GOP-ratfvckers or purity-pony demographics. Whether he wants to run, or whether he could get enough votes if he did run, that’s a separate issue entirely.
Right now, as Fivethirtyeight makes clear, Biden’s the best possible “insurance policy” for the Democrats. If something happens to Hillary (a lightning strike, some crazed stalker at a campaign event outmaneuvers the Secret Service), we’ve got a tested candidate ready to roll against whatever loon or empty suit eventually claws to the front of the Republican clown car. Otherwise, Joe can keep promoting President Obama’s agenda, serving as a voice of reason (and wit!) in the Senate, and generally reap the well-deserved rewards of a lifetime of public service.
And if I thought Maureen Dowd retained any semblance of the sense of shame the nuns of her Catholic childhood worked to inculcate in her, I’d warn her she should retire before she turns into the next-gen Peggy Noonan.
This post is in: Open Threads, Science & Technology, Decline and Fall
#RobotLivesDontMatter
https://t.co/DnSaT95ZUN
— Billmon (@billmon1) August 3, 2015
Americans destroy poor, sweet Canadian robot that was trying to hitchhike across country. http://t.co/uuO08Ffsh5
— Nicholas Thompson (@nxthompson) August 3, 2015
And just after Scott Walker came through Philly unscathed… The Washington Post reports:
The team behind hitchBot, the talking, tweeting, hitchhiking robot that tries to traverse continents on the kindness of strangers, had always thought of their project as a social experiment. After all the bad press and post-apocalyptic stories that questioned whether humans could ever trust robots, they wanted to pose the opposite problem: Can robots trust humans?
This weekend they got their answer. Robots can’t rely on us. Or at least, not Philadelphians.
The endearing droid that had thumbed his way across Germany, vacationed in the Netherlands and made the improbable 3,600-mile trek across Canada without incident survived just over two weeks and 300 miles in the United States. On Saturday its creators announced that hitchBot had been vandalized beyond repair and abandoned on a street in Philadelphia…
The Boston Globe (HitchBOT was a big hit with us gnerds) ran a story (with video) about the little robot over the weekend. On the other hand, the haterz in Phillie — and at Gawker — can only find their true potential in being the assholes they are.
***********
Apart from sad commentary, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Open Thread: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice ThingsPost + Comments (81)
by John Cole| 36 Comments
This post is in: Assholes
Facing three felony counts of securities law violations, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was arrested, fingerprinted and photographed Monday morning for alleged violations that took place when he was a state legislator.
Indicted by a Collin County grand jury last week, Paxton surrendered at the county jail in his hometown of McKinney, avoiding assembled reporters by entering through a side door.
He posted three personal-recognizance bonds for a total of $35,000 — no money was required to change hands — before being released about 20 minutes later.
“Attorney General Ken Paxton will plead not guilty to these accusations, and he will demand a trial by jury,” Paxton lawyer Joe Kendall said afterward. “He is looking forward to the opportunity to tell his side of the story in the courtroom.”
Democrats called for Paxton to step down, while Republican leaders asked the public to let the legal process play out.
It’s Texas and he’s a white Republican, so he’ll prolly walk. But for now, fun.
A Brief Pause for Some Temporary Good NewsPost + Comments (36)
by Zandar| 289 Comments
This post is in: Austerity Bombing, Contraception Clusterfuck, Election 2016, Fables Of The Reconstruction, Republican Venality, The War On Women, Meth Laboratories of Democracy
You may recall that one of the first reactions by the GOP over this Planned Parenthood video nonsense was Louisiana GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal trying to revive his moribund 2016 presidential run by immediately calling for an investigation into the organization’s clinics in the state.
Well, seeing as how he only until tomorrow to get his terrible numbers high enough to get into the FOX debate in Cleveland this week, he’s now no longer waiting for the results of the investigation.
Today, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals informed Planned Parenthood it is exercising its right to terminate Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid provider agreement. In recent weeks, multiple videos have surfaced showing Planned Parenthood Federation of America senior personnel and other employees describing how they actively engage in illegal partial birth abortion procedures and conduct these abortions in a manner that leaves body parts intact so that they can later be sold on the open market. Since these videos have surfaced, Governor Jindal has directed DHH to investigate Planned Parenthood’s activities in Louisiana and also sent a letter to both the Louisiana Inspector General and the F.B.I. asking them to assist in the investigation.
According to the Medicaid provider contract between DHH and Planned Parenthood, along with relevant Louisiana law, either party can choose to cancel the contract at will after providing written notice. Governor Jindal and DHH decided to give the required 30-day notice to terminate the Planned Parenthood Medicaid provider contract because Planned Parenthood does not represent the values of the State of Louisiana in regards to respecting human life. Pending the ongoing investigation, DHH reserves the right to amend the cancellation notice and terminate the provider agreement immediately should cause be determined.
As near as I can tell, the figures I can find have about 30% of the state on Medicaid. You figure half are women (if not more) and with 4.65 million people in the state, that’s roughly 700,000 women on Medicaid for Louisiana.
That’s a lot of women who are no longer able to go to a Planned Parenthood clinic for basic services, because of a questionable video.
But what does Jindal care? He’s got a debate to get into and one hell of a last-ditch move to get him a few more percentage points, right?
by Betty Cracker| 111 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Open Threads
It’s super-flooded in my neck of the woods. Here’s an ramp off I-275 in Tampa, which now exits into a freakin’ lake:
[Photo courtesy Bay News 9]In my little town, the ditches, culverts and gutters are full, yards are soggy and some streets are flooded, but it’s way worse in other places. We’ll see what happens at high tide later today.
Thankfully, the rain appears to be tapering off. Open thread!