Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Consistently wrong since 2002

T R E 4 5 O N

Let there be snark.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

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

This blog will pay for itself.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: At Prey in the Fields of the Lard

Open Thread: At Prey in the Fields of the Lard

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While Don “Il Douche” Trump was out this weekend riling up the Southern rubes for the tv cameras, the rest of the Repub candidates were busy smarming Iowa’s god-botherers. Mr. Pierce reports on “A Particularly Ugly Dinner with Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee and the Gang“:

DES MOINES—On Friday night, seven of the Republican contenders for president gathered around a mock Thanksgiving table on a stage at the front of an enormous ballroom, which was filled to the gunwales even though the year’s first winter storm had come rolling out of Nebraska that afternoon. “Satan,” joked Bob Vander Plaats, “is trying to disrupt our plans tonight. But it was laid on my heart that the people who would show up tonight were the people who really love this country.”

Vander Plaats is the head of the Family Leader Foundation. If you are a Republican candidate for president, and you run afoul of Vander Plaats and his legions, you are not going to get out of Iowa alive. They shake the hay with more enthusiasm, they bang their Bibles more vigorously than just about any group of people anywhere in the country, and they control the caucus process, if anyone does. Which is why the seven people who want to be president were sitting there at the table behind papier mache autumn leaves with Frank Luntz sitting in the Daddy chair at the end…

And, at the beginning, when the gathering was disrupted several times by immigration rights protesters, Mike Huckabee took advantage of the situation to remind people that this never happens at liberal gatherings, as though the Republican party wasn’t the breeding ground in which the very concept of ratfcking was born, and as though there weren’t all those patriots showing up at events early in the president’s term with questions about health care reform and automatic weapons. But the whole point, according to Luntz and the other folks at table, was to demonstrate Christian civility in the campaign, and to show those showboating Leninists at CNBC how to run a political discussion…

There was unction in the extreme, and no little sanctimony, and the now very familiar recitation of the dystopian landscape created by eight years of the Obama Administration and of the nearly unstoppable acceleration of the handbasket taking the country to hell. The Savior was summoned on a number of occasions, not all of them relevant to his gospel mission on Earth. But the real meat on the Thanksgiving table got served up when Luntz wrenched the discussion away from sacred platitudes and into the realm of national security and foreign affairs. The clouds of incense were dispersed. The preacher masks all dropped. To a person, the seven Republican candidates came right up to the edge of accusing the president of the United States of treason and of being in sympathy with the murderers in France and in Mali. Right up to the edge, they all walked. Then they winked and took baby steps back, but everybody in the hall, all of the good Christians who’d come out in the snow, got the message…

Steve Benen, at his MSNBC blog:

… Right Wing Watch explained this week a little about the man who ran the show: “”Not only does Vander Plaats want to remove from office or defund the courts of judges who find in favor of marriage equality, he believes that anything, like gay marriage, that ‘goes against the law of nature’ is by definition unconstitutional . He argues that the government is an institution of God and therefore its purpose is ‘to promote righteousness’ and to apply ‘God’s principles and precepts.’”

And it’s against this backdrop that seven contenders for the Republican presidential nomination – Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Rick Santorum – appeared at last night’s gathering, hoping to earn an endorsement. (In 2008, Vander Plaats backed Huckabee, who won that year’s Iowa caucuses, and in 2012 he backed Santorum, who won that year’s Iowa caucuses)…

So, as I’m sure you’re as happy as I am to note: Losers. Very sanctimonious pious losers, though, who can be counted upon to deplore how all Muslims are hate-driven cultists who let their “faith leaders” trap them in medieval squalor in the name of an authoritarian god.

Because if there’s one word that first comes to mind in connection with Carly Fiorina, it’s “humility”, or maybe “empathy.” Bloomberg Politics:

…[T]he candidates spent most of the evening agreeing with each other and condemning President Barack Obama in what was more conservative rally than debate.

The Republicans called for redefining marriage to be between a man and a woman, restricting abortions and strengthening the traditional family during a forum in Des Moines sponsored by a evangelical conservative advocacy group.

“If the body of Christ rises up in one and votes our values, we can turn this country around,” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, one of the evening’s dominant performers, said in his closing remarks.

Another common theme: the call for stricter limitations on refugees entering the U.S. in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris and an end to what the candidates all labeled as an overly restrained response by Obama….

Obama and Clinton, the front-runner in the Democratic presidential race who served as the president’s first secretary of state, took alternating turns as punching bags during the two-hour session. But Obama was the candidates’ favorite target as they zeroed in on what they view as the president’s reluctance to take on Islamic terrorists.

“He hasn’t even defined what victory means,” said Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. “He’s a bad president.”

Former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania took a darker view. “This president has started World War III,” he said….

vetting refugee baby jesus deering
(John Deering via GoComics.com)

Wholly self-interested Congressman Steve “Pig Muck” King has made his choice, according to Politico:

… Influential Iowa vote-broker Steve King, who endorsed Cruz last week, pointed to a new online NBC poll that showed Carson dropping, and said he attributed that slip to renewed interest in national security and Carson’s struggles with the issue…

“They’ll often say, all politics are local, politics are domestic, domestic politics will elect the next president. I’m not sure that’s right. Not when you see the pictures of the bodies in places like Paris and around the world, Beirut, now Mali today,” King said. “When we see that, and we’re almost guaranteed that’s going to continue until we defeat [terrorists], that makes a candidate that’s strong on foreign policy, strong on national defense…that makes that candidate stronger.”

“Being [from] outside the Beltway doesn’t help with that. Being inside the Beltway, as long as you’re not ruled by that, I think does help,” King said…

At two campaign stops on Friday, followed by an appearance at a conservative cattle call, Cruz tried to highlight just how “studied” on both terrorism and the refugee crisis. And at each site, King stressed that part of the reason he is backing Cruz is that he trusts the Texas senator to play hardball with world leaders, a qualification that resonated with the hawkish mood of the crowds…

Winner(s) of the evening, per NBC News:

… “I have to complement you on the civility and decency you showed each other tonight,” moderator Frank Luntz said…

Sen. Ted Cruz had the sharpest remarks of the night when he accused President Obama of “serving as an apologist for radical Islamic terrorism.”…

The event may have solidified Cruz’ strong hold over the evangelical electorate in Iowa.

He brought down the house at the close of the evening with an impassioned plea for conservative unity that may, come the Iowa caucuses in February, turn out to be prophetic.

“If conservatives come together and stand as one, it’s game over,” he said. “This primary is over if conservatives unite. And if conservatives stand together and unite, the general election is over.”

Not that you want to count You-Know-Who out, not yet…

Reader Interactions

111Comments

  4. 4.

    Baud

    Kevin Drum

    n the wake of the Paris attacks, who do Americans trust most on national security? Thankfully, the answer is not Donald Trump. Surprisingly, the answer appears to be Hillary Clinton. According to the latest Washington Post/ABC poll, she beats all the major Republican candidates, and she beats Trump especially heavily.

    This poll was done at the beginning of last week, when post-Paris hysteria over ISIS had already begun. But it was before the Republican field went completely loony. Has that reduced her lead a bit or opened it up even further? We’ll probably never know for sure.

    http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/11/hillary-clinton-strongly-trusted-national-security

  5. 5.

    Anoniminous

    The average IQ of the average Iowa Evangelical nutcase is the bog standard 100. But they are ashamed of being such intellectual pointy eggheads and so they act like it is 20 points lower.

  8. 8.

    mai naem mobile

    I feel really sad about the Carson/Cruz/Trump xenophobic,islamophobic crap not really getting much pushback from the others and the media. Something really bad is going to come out of this.I’m not talking about political results,I’m talking about a modern Kystallnacht. I don’t mean to say this as hyperbole. I just think this crap is going to end really bad before we turn around. Trump is an ugly ugly person.

  9. 9.

    beltane

    @Baud: Not sure why Drum is surprised by that poll. I’ve said it before: Hillary is a hawk while the Republicans are all cuckoos.

  10. 10.

    Baud

    @beltane: I don’t know if he’s surprised or just trying to rely news. There seems to be a feeling on this blog and probably elsewhere that the Dems will do poorly if national security issues become a more important election issue. With Hillary at least, that may not be true. I don’t know how the other D candidates poll on that issue.

  11. 11.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    I’m hoping I don’t sprain an eye muscle at the Thanksgiving table with my Reagan-worshiping brother. Luckily, it should be football all day and not Fox News, so thank heaven for small mercies.

  13. 13.

    g

    Lets have a few more funny little jokes about shooting people exercising their First Amendment Rights, shall we, Reverend Huckabee?

  14. 14.

    JPL

    @mai naem mobile: Someone is going to get killed. Trump will then say it’s not his fault. The news media might be going after Trump now, but won’t have the will to call the rest of the party on their rhetoric ..

  15. 15.

    g

    “It’s too bad so few people showed up to @bobvanderplaats Family Leader dinner. Next year I’ll try & be there- “

    So Trump didn’t show? But he’s going next year, in late November after the election is already over? Sure he is.

  16. 16.

    dmsilev

    @Baud: They’ll somehow find a way to say Both Sides Do It. Probably dig up some urban myth about Occupy or something like that.

  21. 21.

    Ruckus

    @Baud:
    Sometimes even if you didn’t pick your friends, things work out well. Known one of them for about 40 yrs, we’ve agreed on most everything. It’s amazing.

  23. 23.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): Since Mr. Macy’s sez we can’t have a Thanksgiving on Thursday cause madame works in his sweatshop; we’re having our diner on Wednesday night. We invited a friend(in addition to the kid) over and he’s a Reagan republican. We avoid political discussions.

    I noticed the restoration that GEC is doing to the old air terminal, looks really nice.

  25. 25.

    Frankensteinbeck

    But it was laid on my heart that

    That. Right there. That is a tell. That is important. There are a lot of these idjits, and fifty years ago they could say something damn stupid like that, claiming to speak for God, and would universally be praised for it. They have watched this ego-swelling privilege slip away from them year by year, and now they know if they do it in public, they’ll get funny looks as if they were delusional dumbasses. They are PISSED about this.

  26. 26.

    Mike in NC

    Sure were a bunch of turkeys on that panel.

    The “Sanctimonious Seven”: not a film by Quentin Tarantino.

  27. 27.

    Schlemazel

    @mai naem mobile:
    As I said the other day, A guy saying people of one religion should wear identification and encouraging his followers to beat people who disagree with him . . . too bad there isn’t a historical precedent we could use to see how that would turn out.

  32. 32.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Baud:
    Imagine how great it feels to say that your opinions come straight from God, not even through interpretation or anything, just what you think is because God is speaking through you. Imagine how great it feels to not only be able to do that, but be praised for doing so, surrounded by people who accept it without hesitation. Now, imagine what it feels like the first time someone laughs at you for it.

    That hate is how the fundies feel about liberals.

  33. 33.

    Baud

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Now, imagine what it feels like the first time someone laughs at you for it and isn’t stoned to death.

    Fixed. And, yes, that would be a real buzzkill if it’s not what you’re used to.

  34. 34.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @Ruckus:

    I love my brother other than the Reagan worship, so I usually just have to roll my eyes a few times and pointedly change the subject. It’s not like when my dad would watch Fox News all day and try to relate something from that.

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Part of the deal is that they’re supposed to permit some level of public access, but I have no idea what form that’s going to take. The plans that were presented to the city council were pretty cool.

  35. 35.

    Schlemazel

    @redshirt:
    The Twins had a hard partying 3rd baseman who suddenly became born again. When he made the All-Star game he had “Jesus is Lord” penned on the palm of his batting glove so that when he waved during the introduction everyone saw it. There were a couple of goofball sports columnists that had a very goofy cable show, the next episode they had gloves on that said “Cheeses is lard”. your comment reminded me of that

    EDIT: It just occurred to me that both guys were Jewish, FWIW.

  37. 37.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @Schlemazel:

    Even the German voters were smart enough not to give the Nazis a majority — Hitler came to power because right-wing millionaires arranged his appointment to Chancellor. They thought he could be easily controlled.

    Whoops.

  40. 40.

    opiejeanne

    @Ruckus: We realized last year that none of the RW in the family is left. They’ve either died or been divorced, and we invite similarly liberal friends as well, so there is no fighting over politics. In fact, politics rarely comes up at these dinners.
    In 2008 one of my kids brought a friend along, an Austrian man (supposedly a prince or something) and he overheard a friend talking with me about the upcoming election and decided to join in. Something Ayn Randian fell from his mouth and we just looked at him in astonishment for a second. You’re a Libertarian? Yes, he answered. We smiled and nodded and I shooed them both out of my kitchen. While holding a large knife. My friend was amused. The Austrian thought I was kidding.

  43. 43.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: My only experience with Acer is with their monitors, I have one of their 23″ touchscreen monitors which I like. I’ve never used one of their computers.

  44. 44.

    jl

    Tried to match up the head shots at the dinner with The Last Supper, but couldn’t make sense of it. Rubio’s posture reminds me of somebody, but can’t remember who.

    @Baud:

    ” Everyone knows Occupy cheered when the towers fell. There’s video. I’ve seen it. ”

    Man I was right, you are just as bad a campaigner as Jeb? No one remembers Occupy anymore. Make it Black Lives Matter cheered when the towers fell. That will earn you some media. If you don’t start clearing your stunts with the BJ commentariate first, your campaign is on its own, fella.

  47. 47.

    Suzanne

    @efgoldman: Ho-lee SHIT BALLZ. That is CRAY.

    Everyone in my family is liberal. We just get pissed at each other for other reasons. I am starting the drinking early. Sangria in the morning, wine with the meal, and possibly cocktails at night.

  48. 48.

    Schlemazel

    @Mnemosyne (tablet):
    True enough but then the ol paper hanger didn’t have the marvelous media we have today. There were papers who pointed out the dangers of Herr Schicklgruber and his merry band, I don’t see any doing that today.

  49. 49.

    jl

    I liked when Cruz said if only the conservatives could come together behind the one true conservative candidate, the general election would be in the bag. That was funny. Seems like I heard the same thing from GOP conservatives during the last two presidential primaries.

  50. 50.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): I saw it about 6 months ago while outside the 99 cents store, and I thought they were demolishing it. I check teh Google and it said that GEC was renovating it. I noticed that the city did put in a condition for public access. The tower doesn’t look like it’s done yet, but the rest of the building looks really nice.

  53. 53.

    Schlemazel

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
    Me too, they were the only thing making the local sports scene tolerable most years.
    here is an interesting interview with stretch – I’m going to bed & forgot about the damn link thing – google this:
    mike-gelfands-kq-morning-show-confessions

  54. 54.

    trollhattan

    @Ruckus:
    We attended one a couple weekends ago. LOVED it. Fun people, great food and wine, NO family pressures. I’m a convert. Hope you enjoy yours.

  58. 58.

    NotMax

    @Baud

    Saw the same HP model/configuration* you mentioned at $700 offered at $529 in various Black Friday ads. (Most, if not all, up by now for perusal here.)

    Have you checked Dell’s site? Computer guru friend mentioned the scuttlebutt is some good deals this year for the end of November sales (Black Friday, Cyber Monday).

    *YMMV, but the touchscreen would be a dealbreaker. My fingertip oils are apparently extra-corrosive, to the point that there’s a crater etched into the metallic touchpad of the laptop. FSM only knows what would happen to a touchscreen.

    Oh, and both Acer and also Asus make some darn fine machines.

  59. 59.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Anne Laurie, I’ve tried for about an hour and a half, again and again, and keep getting interrupted, but I just need to tell you, that is possibly the best thread title you’ve ever posted.

    Well done, my friend. Well. Done.

  60. 60.

    Renie

    Why wasn’t ?JEB? there? Anyone here watching The Man in the High Castle on amazon prime? It is really good and definitely worth watching.

  61. 61.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @NotMax: Glass is pretty resistant to chemical abrasion, that’s why they use it to hold caustic chemicals in chem labs. I wouldn’t get a windows laptop without a touchscreen. While Win10 is not a touchcentric as Win8.x, touch does add some nice shortcuts.

  62. 62.

    benw

    In 2008, after Obama was elected, the US was mired in a terrible recession, millions of Americans had no affordable access to health care, and gay Americans were treated like second class citizens. And all the RWNJs said, “please, God, it will take a miracle to save us!”

    But Obama got the stimulus passed and bailed out Detroit, so a second Great Depression was avoided, and the US economy began to recover. But the RWNJs said, “government spending is bad and health care costs are hurting the average American! Please, God, it will take a miracle to save us!”

    But Obamacare was passed and millions of Americans began to receive health insurance, and costs began to not rise quite as fast. But the RWNJs said, “but death panels will kill grandma and anyway, the actual problem is that the bankers’ feelings are hurt! Please, God, it will take a miracle to save us!”

    But Obama got Wall Street reform passed, and even equal pay rights for women, and even though the bankers whined they still got to make a shitload of money. But the RWNJs said, “well, corporations are people, but the real problem is these godless fags destroying the sanctity of marriage! Please, God, it will take a miracle to save us!”

    But the Supreme Court voted 5-4, including two Obama appointees in the majority, that gay marriage was legal. And it turned out that no straight marriages fell apart because of that. But the RWNJs said, “anyway gays aren’t the problem, it’s the evil Muslims about to terror attack our homeland! It will take a miracle to save us!”

    And finally, Cruz, Carson, Rubio, Huckabee, Santorum, Paul, and Fiorina travelled to God and beseeched Him, “we put all of our faith in you! Why didn’t you send a miracle to save us?” And God looked down and said, “you ignorant, racist cowards, I SENT YOU OBAMA.”

  64. 64.

    oldgold

    Vander Plaats is the head of the Dutch Reformed political cabal headquartered in northwest Iowa.

    These reactionary wooden-shoed Calvinist will all show up and all caucus for Cruz in January as sure as their damn tulips will bloom in May. Cruz will finish no worse than second.

  69. 69.

    opiejeanne

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): I had not met any prior to meeting Oskar (maybe he was a count) and thought it was the Austrian part of the equation that was the problem. He really understood nothing about economics, from what he said to us, and it kind of gets up my nose being lectured on what is wrong with my chosen politicians by someone who is not eligible to vote here.
    My daughter brought him along because he had cut himself off from his mother and siblings, according to him, and until we met him we were sympathetic about him having no family, but as we got to know him we noticed that he had almost no friends and wondered if his family was really the wronged party. He was a diabetic on an insulin pump and refused to regulate his diet, choosing instead to increase his insulin dosage so he could have a big piece of the most sugary dessert available. He could have had a slice of pumpkin pie which is not too bad but he chose instead to have the pecan pie, a bit slice. It was hard to watch him do this.
    Other than his John Galt rant in the kitchen he was a perfectly fine guest. The few people he thought were his friends (other than my daughter) wandered away when MS laid him off, and he went back to Austria. She kept in touch and visited him when she was in Austria a couple of years ago, but the most recent news she heard was that he had been institutionalized for mental problems. She tried to keep in touch after that but her letters went unanswered and some were returned to her.

  75. 75.

    The Pale Scot

    @opiejeanne:

    increase his insulin dosage so he could have a big piece of the most sugary dessert available.

    I try to keep my carb budget limited on scotch; and a few potatoes. “Would I rather have a wee nip or a cupcake?”

  77. 77.

    mclaren

    Still waiting for the faith-based Aztec candidate who demands the right to freedom of religion by cutting out his infant daughter’s heart with an obsidian knife.

  81. 81.

    mclaren

    @Mnemosyne (tablet):

    Even the German voters were smart enough not to give the Nazis a majority — Hitler came to power because right-wing millionaires arranged his appointment to Chancellor. They thought he could be easily controlled.

    Not quite.

    First, the NSDAP twiddled the rules so that the communist votes in the Reichstag got discounted. That upped the NSDAP’s margin, but still not enough for a majority. On 6 November 1932, the NSDAP lost two million votes from the previous election in July, leaving them only 33 percent of the vote. Hitler negotiated with Hindenberg to form a coalition government and that got him into the Chancellor’s position. But he still needed to cement his position.

    The next step involved using the S.A. (brownshirt paramilitary groups) to physically intimidate voters during the next election. That worked, but the NSDAP still didn’t get a majority. Finally, there was a fire in the Reichstag. It got blamed on communists and Hitler managed to ram through legislation giving the acting government special powers. Even after that, the Reichstag was needed to ratify the actions of the Chancellor. What the NSDAP really needed was special emergency legislation that gave the Chancellor power to directly enact policies without passing them by the Reichstag. To get that passed, the NSDAP pulled out all the stops and stationed S.A. goons right in the Reichstag chamber, who informed the elected representatives that if they did not vote for this new emergency legislation, they and their families would be murdered by S.A. goons.
    That did the trick.
    But this is far from a “rise to power by legitimate means.” A paramilitary guy in a brown shirt standing behind you when you vote for a piece of legislation with his hands on his gun holster, with orders to shoot you if you vote the wrong way, is not exactly a democratic process.

  82. 82.

    opiejeanne

    @The Pale Scot: I was diagnosed with Type 2 a couple of years ago, was very good about my diet, and now I test as Not Diabetic, but they’ve kept me on the Metformin. I look at the carbs available and decide how I’m going to use them; if I’d rather have a small piece of good chocolate or the potatoes. If I don’t eat a certain minimum of carbs I’ve noticed that I feel a bit crummy.

  83. 83.

    mclaren

    @efgoldman:

    That’s nothing. I knew a guy (casually, as an acquaintance) down in Southern California. Far right wing, a real wacko. He had a huge man-sized gun safe in his living room with full auto machine guns (semi auto illegally modified, or so he claimed).

    After the guy died, I saw on the local news that police bomb squad investigators carried claymore mines, live grenades, lawes rockets, a .50 caliber sniper rifle, and thousands of rounds of live ammo out of his house, along with I don’t know how many full-auto machine guns. Stuff like Uzis, Mac 10s, you name it.

    There are lot of people like that out there. And most of them get their illegal armaments at gun shows, where this stuff is totally unregulated if it’s sold for cash on the spot.

  85. 85.

    BobS

    @Baud: I’m sure all of us have spit on a serviceman returning from overseas at one time or another – that’s gotta count for something.
    @Schlemazel: You mean Gary Gaetti — excellent glove, hit with power. His skills pretty rapidly declined after he was ‘born again’ (though to be fair, it was later on in his career that he converted).

  89. 89.

    redshirt

    Carbs should be avoided if you are looking to lose weight.

    If you’re looking to gain weight – say, for a child – more carbs are the easy path.

  91. 91.

    J R in WV

    @Baud:

    Have two Acer laptops, one is pretty old (the one I’m typing on) and is starting to run hot.

    The newer one has a back-lit keyboard, which is nice, but the wireless card/chip doesn’t have a driver native in Ubuntu, which poses a problem, I can fix it, but so far I just plugged in an ethernet cable, which is faster than wireless anyways.

    They seen to be robust machines. No real problems so far, even with the one that’s old and beginning to run a little hot.

  92. 92.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    What’s 2-3 dozen more among 200+million?

    Here the sheriff’s dept will take your donated gun and destroy it. With several thousands of others every year.

  94. 94.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @opiejeanne: My wife was diagnosed with Type 2 about a year ago, her last test was borderline. She knows pretty quick if her sugar level is getting low and has some carbs.

  96. 96.

    opiejeanne

    @Ruckus: To be honest, it was a tiny kitchen and I was about to feed 15 people on Christmas Eve, and I held up the knife later when I needed everyone out unless they were taking food to the table or stirring the gravy.

  97. 97.

    opiejeanne

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Yeah, I try to behave myself since I battled my way to “pre-diabetic”. I have noticed the weight creeping back on now that it’s cold and rainy here. I’m thinking about joining a gym for the winter, just to get my walking in.

  98. 98.

    Zinsky

    What a depressing bunch of no-minds! In Iowa, I mean. It must be really depressing to hang out with people like this – humorless, obsessed with apocalyptic gobbledygook- all I can figure is they are popping Xanax or Quaaludes like candy and calling it “medicine”. God, what a bunch of boring, pathetic people….

  99. 99.

    Another Holocene Human

    @mclaren: From what I understand, that “negotiation” to get the chancellorship involved blackmail.

    Hindenberg loathed HItler.

  100. 100.

    Another Holocene Human

    @redshirt: That’s not true if you engage in a lot of exercise daily. Only if you’re pretty sedentary and eat a low fiber diet.

    And I don’t think either of us are qualified to talk about pediatric nutrition. When I was young, sugar water was given to babies who were underweight and they don’t do that any more. Turns out that had nasty consequences down the line.

  101. 101.

    Another Holocene Human

    @efgoldman: Except when the feds gave the counties money to run their own narc squads. My brother got tackled by Middlesex County narcs in the early 2000s. They thought he had cocaine but it was just shitty frat boy beer which was legal for him to possess. According to him (and he is white) the encounter ended with him laughing at them.

  102. 102.

    Sherparick

    @Baud: Well, the President and his friends will have to be more aggressive about selling his policies, because as the cable news audience shrinks to more and more being just old white folks (like me), they shape their programs to try to attract those few remaining eyeballs that tune in.

    It really blows my mind right now to see Trump, Carson, Rubio, and Cruz all beating Hilary now. All out bet on polarizing the white vote appears to be working.

  103. 103.

    Sherparick

    @mai naem mobile: Pushback from the Media Infotainment Industrial Complex??? Please!! The Assholes (and not just Roger Asshole Ailes, but Zucker, and Griffin as well) see a new war as a six month rating binge and are competing to attract eyeballs with minutes of Muslim hate. (Media Matters watches them so I don’t have to. See medhttp://mediamatters.org/video/2015/11/23/cnns-costello-asks-michigan-mayor-if-she-is-afr/207035

    I pretty much stopped watching cable news across the board because it is “all Islamic Terrorism” all the time.”

    And of course these guys all represent “real Americans.”

  104. 104.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Sherparick:

    It really blows my mind right now to see Trump, Carson, Rubio, and Cruz all beating Hilary now. All out bet on polarizing the white vote appears to be working.

    That’s a single Fox News poll which is several points out of line with other head-to-head polls taken over the same time period.

    These head-to-head questions are underpolled right now, and it’s hard to even get good aggregate statistics. But I recommend not freaking out over individual poll results; they’re basically useless.

  105. 105.

    Tokyokie

    @Schlemazel: Ferret-faced Ted Cruz looks the most like Steve Buscemi. (It grieves me to say that, because I really like Buscemi.) Shave Huckabee’s head, and you pretty much got Lawrence Tierney. (Huckabee, of course, lacks the actual tough-guy diposition of Tierney (well, maybe the psychosis of Gene), only the bluster, but that’s a given with all these guys. And Christie’s too heavy to be a Lawrence Tierney heavy). Not sure if any of these guys would be called Nice Guy Eddie though.

  106. 106.

    FridayNext

    Dear Katherine Miller,

    We are not at a Michael’s. We are at a Hobby Lobby. Michael’s supplies hippy beads to Satan. Hobby Lobby scrap books for Jesus.

    Yours in the promised land,
    GOP Presidential Candidates.

  107. 107.

    evodevo

    @mclaren: They didn’t kill their own family members – they sacrificed war captives (hmmmm) and slaves, including children. One of the many reasons they were widely hated by the entire rest of Mexico, a situation that immeasurably aided Cortez in his military campaigns.

  109. 109.

    Paul in KY

    @efgoldman: ‘No wrongdoing by homeowner’?!?! I can assure anyone that even in GWB’s kickin ass utopia, claymore mines are completely illegal.

    Those weapons are absolutely terrible in action. Makes what the Boston Marathon bombers used seem like a kid’s popgun.

  111. 111.

    Ella in NM

    Hope these candidates enjoyed rolling in the poop-slurry of pander with a bunch of nut job extremists, and got their coffers filled with lots of money for just showing up. They gotta make a living!

    As disgusting and kinda scary these people are there is one thing that we all must remember:

    NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THESE “CANDIDATES” WILL EVER BE ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

    Relax and enjoy watching the fail.

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