Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

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

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

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

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

People are weird.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

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

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

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

Maybe you would prefer that we take Joelle’s side in ALL CAPS?

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Let there be snark.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Don’t it always seem to go?

Reader Interactions

95Comments

  1. 1.

    KithKanan

    …that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?

    If there are any pundit jobs left in our driverless car future, who will they make up quotes from?

  3. 3.

    rea

    I’ll give you one guess as to the profession of AB Stoddard’s savvy political junkie source

    Does “imaginary person” qualify as a profession?

  5. 5.

    Peale

    That may or may not be true, yet at this point my cabbie was right: The nomination, a Cabinet position or another great job await Christie if he keeps playing it smart. There doesn’t seem to be any downside.

    It’s just like that Hillary to offer someone like Christie a cabinet position.

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    The nomination, a Cabinet position or another great job await Christie if he keeps playing it smart. There doesn’t seem to be any downside.

    Other than to the process, the country and the people.

    Imagine Christie as Attorney General. Or sitting on the Supreme Court.

    *shudder*

  9. 9.

    Betty Cracker

    Was Stoddard always such a dolt? I seem to recall her being more rational years ago. Anyhoo, here’s my favorite snippet:

    By any standard, Christie is doing well. His actual poll standing in New Hampshire is still quite low, but a surge is anticipated…

    LOL! That A.B.! What a cut-up!

  11. 11.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Sweet jesus, that column is such a grab bag of Village and Right Wing received wisdom

    Village: By any standard, Christie is doing well. His actual poll standing in New Hampshire is still quite low, but a surge is anticipated in light of his growing crowds and support from key Republicans in the state, along with the coveted endorsement of the conservative Union Leader newspaper.

    Presidents Gingrich and Pierre DuPont nod wisely

    1/2 Rightwing, 1/2 Village: In addition, Christie has used his record as a U.S. attorney after the 9/11 attacks to sell himself as best prepared to wage the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. This was highlighted in the Union Leader endorsement, which stated Christie “has prosecuted terrorists and dealt admirably with major disasters,”

    So terrorism is a law-enforcement issue and getting the feds to spend money is admirable?

    Rightwing:We don’t need another fast-talking, well-meaning freshman U.S. Senator trying to run the government. We are still seeing the disastrous effects of the last choice,” they wrote.

    are they referring to the unemployment rate cut in half, the stock market that has doubled, gas prices at about $2/gallon, or the troubling lack of foreign wars we’re bogged down in?

    Village: That may or may not be true [ed- there may be no fucking point to this column, but it’s cyber-monday and I want a deal on a new smart TV], yet at this point my cabbie was right: The nomination, a Cabinet position or another great job await Christie if he keeps playing it smart. There doesn’t seem to be any downside.

    Should we nominate Christie for Attorney General, President Rubio? Sure, there’s a chance Wildstein and Kelly won’t burn his ass! And the Port Authority probably won’t blow up and take him down! Let’s grab hold of the five hundred pound cinderblock and hope it doesn’t fall in the water

  12. 12.

    dedc79

    Isn’t it about time that newspapers started cutting out the middle man and just hire the cab drivers directly to write for them?

  14. 14.

    Brachiator

    @NotMax:

    Or sitting on the Supreme Court.

    They’re gonna need a bigger chair.

    Also, was this cabbie stuck in traffic on the bridge when he or she made this prediction?

  15. 15.

    Peale

    @Brachiator: “And then he was about to talk about the need for increased agricultural subsidies when he accidentally drifted into oncoming traffic and we were killed.”

  18. 18.

    Germy

    @dedc79:

    Isn’t it about time that newspapers started cutting out the middle man and just hire the cab drivers directly to write for them?

    It’s already happened. Many newspapers use “citizen journalists” to write blogs (unpaid) and oddly enough the blogs get more page views than the professional journalism.

  20. 20.

    Germy

    There’s something very 1940-ish about these garrulous cabdrivers. It sounds like something Joseph MItchell would have come up with.

  21. 21.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Germy: i’ve had a lot of garrulous cab drivers, talking on bluetooth and usually in another language, but quite gabby

  22. 22.

    NotMax

    @Citizen_X

    Also too, early appointment in the Dubya administration’s scheme to politicize and function as diabolical puppet masters of U.S. Attorney offices nationwide.

  23. 23.

    schrodinger's cat

    OT: Some good news: Congress wins local government elections in Modi’s district, worst BJP performance in Gujarat in the last 20 years.

    * Not a fan of the Congress either, but anything that gives Modi and his devotees a sad makes me happy.

  24. 24.

    Brachiator

    Christie said point-blank this week that the real estate mogul’s statements are factually wrong

    Is “factually wrong” anything like an outrageous lie?

    In any event, the cabbie probably doesn’t really exist. This is a standard rhetorical device of invoking the average Joe in praising (or bashing) a political candidate.

    Also, wouldn’t it be likely that this probably fictional cabbie be a Middle Eastern or African immigrant?

  25. 25.

    ruemara

    The Senate just voted to remove Federal funding from Planned Parenthood. Fuck these fucking assholes.

  28. 28.

    rikyrah

    Rewatching Downton Abbey in preparation for the beginning of the final season. Just got finished with Sybil’s death – still gets me to bawl everytime I watch it.

  29. 29.

    Eric U.

    one of the defining memories my sister has from her childhood is that I had two imaginary friends. I have no recollection of having any imaginary friends, or real friends that meet her description. But she isn’t a journalist, so she can’t use them as a basis for a story

  30. 30.

    Warren Terra

    Shouldn’t the conveniently quotable driver be an Uber or Lyft serf in the go-ahead modern age we live in? Or are their servitors seen as too carefully neutral and fearful of bad feedback, and so unwilling to offer opinions?

    In any case, the argument amounts to “The people of Christie’s home state know him and despise him, so his best chance to enjoy some respectful coverage that will make him look good is to go to the Granite State and shake hands with people who don’t yet know him for the putz he is”. Inspiring leadership!

  33. 33.

    Brachiator

    @Germy:

    There’s something very 1940-ish about these garrulous cabdrivers. It sounds like something Joseph MItchell would have come up with.

    Exactamundo. And as a recent biography explains, Mitchell made up many of these characters.

  34. 34.

    Germy

    @Brachiator: Stoddard is merely carrying on a fine literary tradition of making shit up and then putting it in the mouth of a romanticized blue-collar worker. (“He drives a cab, of all things, and yet he’s smart about politics!”)

  35. 35.

    Germy

    @dedc79:

    True, I seem to remember there being some controversy over at Huff Post about this a while back.

    It’s a business model. I saw a powerpoint presentation given by a newspaper publisher, and he said the transition to a web-only newspaper would include “citizen journalists” as he called them, writing blogs about everything from petcare to local elections. These citizen journalists would also do editing and proofreading. No pay, of course.

    EDIT: I see the unpaid editing and proofreading is already happening at places like SALON, where readers use the comments section to point out grotesque typos in the headlines and articles, and then the moderator thanks them profusely.

  36. 36.

    Brachiator

    @rikyrah:

    Rewatching Downton Abbey in preparation for the beginning of the final season. Just got finished with Sybil’s death – still gets me to bawl everytime I watch it.

    Don’t go to see “Victor Frankenstein.” It will make you bawl to see how Jessica Brown Findlay, who played Lady Sybil, is wasted in this movie.

  37. 37.

    Germy

    @Brachiator: I predict Granny will bite the big balloon in the final season of Downton Abbey. Maggie Smith will be written a glorious deathbed scene, with one final quip.

  40. 40.

    NotMax

    OT:

    Short notice that TCM is showing Man Hunt at 3 a.m. Eastern time.

    George Sanders’ best screen performance, IMHO. Or at the very least in the top three.

  41. 41.

    Anoniminous

    @ruemara:

    GOP are maneuvering to have Obama veto the Budget and then go to our Liberal MSM pointing and shrieking “IT’S THAT AWFUL NEGRO WHO HAS SHUT DOWN THE GUV’MINT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

  42. 42.

    different-church-lady

    @Germy:

    I saw a powerpoint presentation given by a newspaper publisher, and he said the transition to a web-only newspaper would include “citizen journalists” as he called them, writing blogs about everything from petcare to local elections.

    And yet somehow they wonder why newspapers are struggling to survive.

  43. 43.

    Tom Q

    I’m with Betty: my favorite part is “though his actual poll numbers remain low”. The apparently inexhaustible pundit refrain this season is “Bush/Fiorina/Rubio/Christie (maybe Kasich sonewhere in there, too), though the polls don’t show it now, is clearly headed for a surge in support”. What everybody laughed at the Romney team for doing in 2012 — refusing to believe the polls — has become a civic religion for the GOP establishment the press (or do I repeat myself?).

  44. 44.

    mdblanche

    I just love the title of Stoddard’s previous masterpiece “Playing it safe is smart for Bush.”

  46. 46.

    Brachiator

    @NotMax:

    Taft’s chair still collecting dust somewhere.

    Ha! You know, you’re actually right in a way!

    In 1909, when President William Howard Taft visited Riverside’s Mission Inn, founder Frank Miller led him to an outsized chair specially constructed for Taft’s 300-pound-plus frame. The president was not charmed.

    “Did you have to make the chair so large?” Taft is said to have asked. He at first refused to sit in it, but later relented with the proviso that no photos be taken.

    The California inn and the chair still exist: “The Taft chair is in the lobby and visitors are invited to do what the president refused to: have their photos taken while sitting in it.”

  48. 48.

    Roger Moore

    @KithKanan:

    If there are any pundit jobs left in our driverless car future, who will they make up quotes from?

    Dry cleaners, bartenders, hotel clerks, checkers at Trader Joe’s, and any other chatty, low-level service job that they might plausibly encounter people from.

  49. 49.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Anoniminous: they might find that a bit difficult (from TPM)

    Republican Senators Introduce Amendment To Stop GOP From Defunding Planned Parenthood
    Three Republican senators Mark Kirk (R-IL), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski(R-AK) weren’t about to let their party gut Planned Parenthood without a fight.
    Collins led the charge on Senate floor Thursday announcing that defunding Planned Parenthood could lead to “the closure of several hundred clinics across the country, depriving millions of women of the health care provider of their choice.”

    I suspect Ayotte, Johnson and even Toomey are hoping the others can block this for them

  50. 50.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Roger Moore: Don’t forget Peggy Noonan’s “friend” Cesar, who mans the deli at her local food shoppe. I think he explained to her why he loves Trump. I want Paggy to tell me her “friend’s” last name

  52. 52.

    mdblanche

    @dedc79: It could’nt hurt.

    @Tom Q: The polls all show Trump cruising to the nomination. That’s literally too horrifying for the GOP establishment to believe.

  53. 53.

    shell

    His actual poll standing in New Hampshire is still quite low, but a surge is anticipated…

    Sure, and in 2012, a sudden increase in lawn signs meant that Romney was going to win!

  55. 55.

    Hungry Joe

    TRUMP TO JEWISH COALITION: “I’M A GREAT NEGOTIATOR, LIKE YOU FOLKS.”

    Yeah, we sure are crafty. Good with money, know what I mean?

    So, he finally got around to insulting us, too. But why did we have to come AFTER Hispanics, Blacks, Women, and Muslims? What are we, chopped liver? (No, wait, that didn’t quite work … )

  56. 56.

    dmsilev

    What are we, chopped liver?

    I’m probably forfeiting my Eastern-European-Jewishness, but I’ve always hated that stuff.

  58. 58.

    LWA

    @srv:
    All that money, just gone. Poof, no more.

    Well, all we can do now is cut Social Security to make up for it. The Math Demands It!

  62. 62.

    Brachiator

    @different-church-lady:

    RE: I saw a powerpoint presentation given by a newspaper publisher, and he said the transition to a web-only newspaper would include “citizen journalists” as he called them, writing blogs about everything from petcare to local elections.

    And yet somehow they wonder why newspapers are struggling to survive.

    This kind of foolishness is actually pushed by Internet “experts” as a way for newspapers to embrace new media.

    Meanwhile, I posted something earlier about the ongoing newspaper death watch. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, the LA Times quietly eliminated over 80 newsroom positions via a buyout. The paper is going to merge its national and foreign desk operations, and also focus more on their digital product.

  64. 64.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    at this point, I think Rand SonOfRon is irrelevant, but I still chuckled

    Jeremy W. Peters ‏@ jwpetersNYT 17m17 minutes ago
    Applause breaks out when Republican Jewish Coalition announces Rand Paul won’t be able to make it today.

    Six months ago, I think it was, Tweety was predicting Paul would be the nominee, hammering his point home with “This is what I do for living, politics!”

  65. 65.

    goblue72

    @mdblanche: Trump just wrapped up a speech in front of the Republican Jewish Coalition essentially calling them a bunch of “JOOOOOOOOOS” and Shylocks, and closing with saying he wasn’t ready to kiss Bibi’s ring.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    @Brachiator:

    It’s funny though, the need to get paid for work doesn’t go away :)

    Huffington Post employees have asked management to voluntarily recognize their union after an “overwhelming majority” of editorial and HuffPost Live staff members signed union cards signaling their support for representation.
    The Writers Guild of America, East, which is working to organize staff at HuffPost and other digital media outlets, sent a written request Tuesday to management. More than 220 of the roughly 350 eligible employees have signed cards.

  67. 67.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Tweety longs for the left/right crossover candidate, like Clinton, but that time has long passed.

    Also, too, Rand didn’t have enough stick-to-itiveness to make it through the early stages of a campaign. What a maroon.

  68. 68.

    bobbo

    @Germy:

    I predict Granny will bite the big balloon in the final season of Downton Abbey. Maggie Smith will be written a glorious deathbed scene, with one final quip

    I heartily endorse this.

  69. 69.

    Brachiator

    @Germy:

    I predict Granny will bite the big balloon in the final season of Downton Abbey. Maggie Smith will be written a glorious deathbed scene, with one final quip.

    Granny grabs a bow and arrow, changes her name to Dowager Everdeen, and hunts down Lady Mary and a group of pesky suitors.

    I don’t know whether the final episodes have shown already in the UK. Trying to avoid spoilers.

  72. 72.

    Germy

    @LWA:

    I want Peggy to tell me her “friend’s” last name
    Beam. Jim Beam.

    I don’t know much about Peggy. I haven’t really read anything she’s written. Just quotes on websites like this. I only see her sometimes on the teevee. Her affect reminds me of alcoholics I have known. A dignified inebriate. Are the Jim Beam jokes rooted in reality, or am I being mean here?

  73. 73.

    NotMax

    @goblue72

    Someplace dark and very deep down, Trump is still miffed that HIS tower wasn’t deemed prominent enough for a hijacked plane to fly into.

  77. 77.

    NotMax

    @goblue72

    There’s even a vegetarian alternative which looks identical and tastes curiously close to the real thing.

    Leave out the livers altogether and substitute a can of French green beans (well drained) and chopped walnuts. Use oil in place of chicken fat for frying onion.

    Pulse in food processor along with sauteed onions, chopped eggs(s), salt and oil to taste.

  80. 80.

    Tommy

    @Hungry Joe: Trump is a dick. I often note that I lived a long way from home. My bosses were Jews. I was almost always asked to come to their house. It was a different thing for me, but in a good way.

  82. 82.

    Trentrunner

    @Germy: Peggy Noonan is the divorcee down the street who “accidentally” lets her robe fall open when she signs for UPS packages, highball in hand.

  90. 90.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Lindsey Graham might want to check his bookshelf, cause I think Jeb might have snuck in and stolen his signed copy of “How To Campaign In a Convincingly Butch-like, If You Will, Manner”, by Willard M Romney, with a new forward entitled “Wimp? I’ll Show You Who’s A Wimp!”, by George HW Bush

    Sahil Kapur ‏@ sahilkapur 25m25 minutes ago
    Jeb: “I will take it to Hillary Clinton, and I will whoop her.”

  91. 91.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @Anoniminous:

    GOP are maneuvering to have Obama veto the Budget and then go to our Liberal MSM pointing and shrieking “IT’S THAT AWFUL NEGRO WHO HAS SHUT DOWN THE GUV’MINT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

    No, they aren’t. Yertle carefully packaged all of this crap (Planned Parenthood defunding; killing the ACA) into a budget reconciliation bill that doesn’t do anything important and Obama can safely veto without shutting down the government. The real action is on the appropriations bills and/or a continuing resolution, not the budget itself. We may still have ourselves a shutdown, but it doesn’t look like it will be over this crap.

  93. 93.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @Germy: Yes, and they will continue to do so, but it will not be over the specific thing that was claimed.

  94. 94.

    J R in WV

    @Germy:

    No, no. Jack Daniels. Jack and Johnny Black. And Jim Beam. and a beer.

    If she was a private person I wouldn’t make fun of her, but she strives for the limelight. And is vicious. So there you go. Jack, Jim, and Johnny Black. and a beer. Her best friends forever.

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