Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Everybody saw this coming.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

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

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

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

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

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

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

How stupid are these people?

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

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Not all heroes wear capes.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

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70Comments

  1. 1.

    patrick II

    That is an absolutely tremendous pumpkin. I think my all-time favorite.

    I have heard that Trump may be a popular Halloween costume this year, but if I see a kid dressed as trump I will hand him his candy as opposed to letting him grab as many as he wants out of the bowl.

  3. 3.

    MomSense

    How did the awful put pumpkin in everything start? Pumpkin spice latte? Beer? I don’t understand how someone would drink a coffee and think that it could use some pumpkin.

  5. 5.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @MomSense:

    You are talking to the wrong person, because I bought pumpkin toaster pastries, ginger-pumpkin ice cream sandwiches, pumpkin tortilla chips, and pumpkin salsa at Trader Joe’s the other night. (Obviously, the last two are more about the savory side of pumpkin and are not “pumpkin spice” flavored.)

    G says that he thinks Trader Joe’s accepted a bet to put pumpkin into every product they carry, and they’re getting pretty close.

  6. 6.

    Mike J

    @MomSense: Probably pumpkin bread, which has been around for centuries.

    Pumpkin spice is a different thing entirely. Cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, all the stuff you’d use in a pumpkin pie. I think the Indians have been making similar drinks for a long, long time before it became trendy to complain about what other people enjoy in the US.

  8. 8.

    rikyrah

    I am officially obsessed with the new Star Wars movie. I had to find a way to justify watching the trailer repeatedly, so I’ve spent the morning watching ‘ reaction videos to the trailer’ on Youtube….I need help..LOL

  9. 9.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    Also, too, I’m a little cranky because I can’t get a freakin’ Star Wars t-shirt I like for tomorrow. Apparently everyone who is remotely my size bought them all up, because I could only get a ladies (aka juniors) medium or a men’s XXL in the one I wanted. WTF?

    I am a 36D. A juniors medium is not remotely going to fit, especially not in a work environment.

  12. 12.

    rikyrah

    Jeb done pissed off a country now…LOL

    …………………

    France mocks Jeb Bush over ‘bombastic nonsense’ about the country’s work week.

    http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/france-mocks-jeb-bush-over-bombastic-nonsense-about-the-countrys-work-week/

    When Republican presidential candidate and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush called out Sen. Marco Rubio at the third GOP debate Wednesday night, he may have insulted a nation. Bush, attacking Rubio for missing a string of Senate votes, said his rival needed to show up to work — which he said wasn’t that hard, given the Senate’s “French work week.” But CNBC reported his comment didn’t sit well with the French ambassador to the United States, Gérard Araud.

    Araud took to Twitter Wednesday night to defend the idea of a French work week, a tradition adopted in 2000 that sets the legal maximum of employee hours at 35. He noted that despite the requirement, French people spend an average of 39.6 hours a week — less than the Germans, who work 39.2.

  13. 13.

    patrick II

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):

    Maybe the XXL? I have seen pictures of models (ok, I look at pictures of models too often) wearing very over sized t-shirts or football jersies as a dress/shirt while wearing jeans, It seemed to work for them.

  15. 15.

    MomSense

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): @Mike J:

    Eating warm pumpkin bread or a piece of pumpkin pie for breakfast with coffee is one of my favorite things. Putting that fake pumpkin spice flavor in beer or latte or whatever else is gross. I’m not even a fan of using canned pumpkin and prefer to use the pumpkin flesh.

    Ginger pumpkin ice cream sandwiches sound yummy and I’ve tried homemade ginger pumpkin whoopie pies with a cream cheese frosting type filling instead of the fluff stuff. They were delicious.

    This weekend I’m going to make a ginger carrot, pumpkin, sweet potato soup.

  17. 17.

    Paul in KY

    @MomSense: When the people that sell this stuff figured out that pumpkins were cheap & large & thus gave good profit by adding a smidgen to these products.

  20. 20.

    Another Holocene Human

    @rikyrah: I don’t find JEB and W’s comments on people’s hours (3 jobs/what a country) to be funny at all. “America” to these people is one big sick joke where you keep the poorest workers like hamsters on a treadmill chasing a carrot they will never catch.

    People DIED a hundred years ago for the 40 hour workweek, and people like W as president used his exec agency power to fritter that away. We are all Uber drivers.

    35 hours is MORE THAN FAIR given that good research has show that work quality and output goes down as the work hours go up. Eating up hours and wasting our lives–for what?

  21. 21.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @rikyrah:

    French people spend an average of 39.6 hours a week — less than the Germans, who work 39.2.

    The copy editors at Raw Story need some remedial arithmetic.

  24. 24.

    low-tech cyclist

    My net-nanny here at work is blocking out imgur.com, so I can’t see the pumpkin, alas.

    Many years ago, when I carved my Jack-O-Lantern for Halloween, I carved an integral* instead of a scary face. I figured most kids would be more scared of math than of the usual run of pumpkin carvings.

    * The integral of e^(-x) from 0 to infinity, if you’re geeky enough to wonder. And nothing wrong with that.

  25. 25.

    scav

    In the target audience, pissing off the French probably ranks only slightly below annoying a) liberals and b) anyone dealing responsibly with facts.

    Anyone else slightly hoping for a hot war breaking out between certain R candidates and certain elements of the media/punditocracy following the most recent debate?

  26. 26.

    Cervantes

    @Another Holocene Human:

    People DIED a hundred years ago for the 40 hour workweek

    If leftists, socialists, communists, and wobblies can be called people, that is.

    Eating up hours and wasting our lives–for what?

    Why, for the further betterment of our far-betters, of course.

  28. 28.

    ruemara

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): soulsister.

    Momsense, I have no idea. It may be the smell, which is nice & fruity. It’s like the watermelon of fall. However, I stand by my dictate that true flavor comes from squashes like the kabocha, delicata or even the butternut. The kabocha “ice cream” which is just whipped kabocha with cinnamon, brown sugar & maple if you’re eating sugar, nutmeg and enough soy or almond milk to make it smooth, plus some rum-to die for.

  29. 29.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @scav:

    Anyone else slightly hoping for a hot war breaking out between certain R candidates and certain elements of the media/punditocracy following the most recent debate?

    If that war ever happened the media pundicrats would win. They have control over how the candidates are seen. But I don’t envision a war. (not with R candidates)

    A D Candidate? Sure. The Dean scream. Dean howls along with a howling crowd. Media isolates his mic. Suddenly “everyone” knows Dean is a howling maniac.

  35. 35.

    Cckids

    @MomSense:

    How did the awful put pumpkin in everything start? Pumpkin spice latte? Beer? I don’t understand how someone would drink a coffee and think that it could use some pumpkin.

    I don’t know how it began, but I am done with it. Pumpkin spice Twinkies? Makes me retch walking by them.

    We don’t eat at Joe’s Crab Shack, but their ad out now is golden. Grumpy old bearded guy talks BBQ; “And we don’t have no damn pumpkin spice!”

  37. 37.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Cckids: The new fad in bbq is “sweet tea barbeque”. My wife thinks it’s scrumptious but I’m too a-skeered to try it. Sounds nasty.

  38. 38.

    jc

    A couple of things this morning, in my rare posting on any of the sites that I read. These are significant challenges, that I don’t see the ‘answer’ to.

    1. It is so obvious that the bubble of the rightwing universe is ‘closed’. Even though the moderators did ask some stupid questions, a lot of what was asked is – ‘look, you have been saying things, that are untrue, and don’t add up, again, and again, and again. This IS the case. What do you have to say about it?”

    And the candidates now know, all they have to do, is to blast the moderators as ‘liberal’.

    As we say, ‘reality has a well-known liberal bias’.

    But, the moderators, and the press, will shrink away from this – they know they are telling the truth, and representing reality – but they never want to be seen as ‘liberal’, so they won’t take a stand for reality. And so right wing, ‘work the refs’, and it keeps on working.

    2. Along with this – you have a situation like Kansas. Everyone hated Brownback, and what was happening in the state, even before he was re-elected. Things were tanking in the state, and all media was reporting it, and voters were unhappy.

    But that didn’t keep voters from re-electing Brownback.

    So – the fact is – Obama has succeeded in so many ways. Brought this country back from the brink of financial disaster, reduced the deficit, found Bin Laden, etc, etc.

    And yet, with a straight face, they lie about how ‘Obama has ruined the country’.

    And the hermetically sealed Right Wing Noise machine, and the cowardice of the media, let them get away with it.

    And, like Brownback, voters are confused about the facts, and vote for the people who are tanking a state’s – or a country’s – finances.

    What are ways to fight this? Fight the right wing noise machine, at an individual level?

    I almost feel we should all start doing ‘mormon-style evangelizing’ – going door to door, dressed nicely, to every single person in the united states, be pleasant, and explain what the current right wing is doing to the country.

    And, like evangelizing, always pleasant, calm, and stating the facts, and the consequences.

    What does anyone here think?

  39. 39.

    Cckids

    @rikyrah: Have you seen the recent “supercut” someone put together? They spliced all the released trailers together in what seemed to be chronological order. SO COOL.

    I think Polygon had it. I can’t link because I’m on my phone, but find it!!

  45. 45.

    Patricia Kayden

    @jc: What if we go door to door to rebut the Rightwing lies but our truths are rejected by Conservatives who love living in their media/Fox News bubble?

    You’re talking about people who hold as true that President Obama was born in Kenya and has no right to be anywhere near the White House. You’re talking about people who reject global warming despite the fact that scientists have vouched for its existence.

    You’re talking about people who accept as valid a doctored video and are fine with their politicians using it to defund Planned Parenthood.

    You’re talking about people who have moved from being anti-abortion to being anti-birth control.

    What makes you think that they will accept the truth just because their neighbors tell them the truth?

    A better idea would be to make sure that the mainstream media is fair in reporting the facts. Everyone doesn’t watch Fox News or read WSJ so let the idiots continue to live in their bubble. I’m sure it feels safe for them to believe lies that support their bigoted, myopic worldview.

  46. 46.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Punchy:

    I got that last year when I wore some leopard-print leggings to an 80s-themed work party. Apparently I still have pretty good legs for a 45-year-old.

    Though I saw a different (woman) coworker a few hours later at wine o’clock and she said, “What are you supposed to be, a pole dancer?” So, yeah, a little too tight for a work environment.

  47. 47.

    Paul in KY

    @jc: I think ridiculing the candidate’s most ridiculous positions works. Not ridiculing the voter, just letting them in on the fact that ‘Candidate A’ is crazy about ‘Crazy Position A’.

    These people want to be seen as serious & are running for the most serious job possible, so laughing at them is like a disinfectant to their BS.

  50. 50.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @WaterGirl: I’m the same way about Batman V Superman. Not because I expect the movie to be any good (although I hope it is). It’s just that Batman and Superman comics played a major role in my childhood, and I’m fascinated seeing them on the big screen.

  52. 52.

    Amir Khalid

    @rikyrah:
    I noticed that, and I thought it was an undiplomatic thing to say. I was counting the days before the French put together a riposte. When Bernie brought up Denmark in the Democratic debate, Hillary had the sense to begin with “I love Denmark” before replying that what worked there wouldn’t necessarily work in America.

  54. 54.

    rikyrah

    Guilty of walking while NON-White.

    Those Black women saw their fathers and grandfathers. They knew which way was up.

    ……………………

    Defense blames Indian grandfather at start of new trial, ‘follow our laws and speak our language’

    The second time around, the opening statements were far sharper, as the defense looked to blame the leg sweep on the victim.

    The U.S. Department of Justice once again seeks to imprison a Madison police officer for up to 10 years for using excessive force in the leg sweep takedown that left an Indian citizen in need of spinal surgery.

    The first trial of Officer Eric Parker ended in a hung jury last month. This time both sides focused much of their opening arguments on the actions of the victim, Sureshbhai Patel, in the moments before the takedown.

    Defense attorney Robert Tuten this time told the jury that the escalation of force was largely the fault of Patel.

    “When you come to the U.S. we expect you to follow our laws and speak our language,” said Tuten. “Mr. Patel bears as much responsibility for this as anyone.”

    …………….

    The first jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of acquittal. That’s 10 males, none black, who favored acquittal. Two black women argued Parker was guilty.

    http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/10/defense_blames_indian_grandfat.html

  55. 55.

    Jay C

    @Peale:

    Perhaps the French work -.4 hours a week. They are so inefficient that work gets undone by them, then they go home.

    Considering that this probably exactly how the Republican base assumes things work in France, well, yeah: no wonder they’d believe the numbers…

  56. 56.

    Elizabelle

    Lotta pumpkins gonna be hanging their heads in shame over their Trumpbellishing this year.

    What did these squashes ever do to deserve that?

  59. 59.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @patrick II:

    I’m no model (to say the least) but I do have leggings that would work.

    Short version is, it would be a Darth Vader “Who’s Your Daddy?” T-shirt worn with Princess Leia Minnie Mouse ears (ie the Princess Leia buns on an ears hat).

  62. 62.

    Patricia Kayden

    @rikyrah: I had heard a little about this case. Why am I not shocked that a mostly White jury is letting the cops off once again? Very sad what they did to that poor man. Seems like civil actions against police forces is the only way to get a modicum of justice.

  63. 63.

    Elizabelle

    @jc: Door to door canvassing is the biggest and best voter contact method out there. Most effective of all (except speaking among one’s peers and families, I would think).

    Makes a huge difference. I hope we start early in 2016; lot of work to be done (particularly in areas with lots of minority voters — they turn out, when motivated internally or through contact, and we need to make sure they are registered and able to vote).

  65. 65.

    Another Holocene Human

    @jc: as for 1., I tend to think of CNBC and other finance people as inhabiting their own closed lalala bubble where freshwater econ works in the real world and greed is good (well, a lot of them know greed is stupid, but cupidity is the meaning of life).

    However, it seems they don’t inhabit the same bubble as the RNC. Now, we knew this, because CoC (which is essentially funded by big retail banks) has been spinning its wheels over its drastic loss of influence with GOP legislators in DC. But it’s still impressive to see it underlined in this way. Some of the worst shills for Wall St (and CBoT, which isn’t, in fact, in NYC–true story) were up there asking questions of the GOP hopefuls and RNC PR BS was unimpressed.

  69. 69.

    PurpleGirl

    @Patricia Kayden:

    You’re talking about people who have moved from being anti-abortion to being anti-birth control.

    Actually, they were always anti-birth-control. They’ve moved to being anti-sex and anti-intimacy, even for married people.

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