Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

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

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

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

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Sunday Evening Open Thread: Inspiration (& Other Stuff)

Sunday Evening Open Thread: Inspiration (& Other Stuff)

by | 190 Comments

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Since I seem to be the only front-pager not smart enough to go out & enjoy the weather respite. (In my defense, I did some unexpected basement-cleaning yesterday & now my allergies are set to STUN.)

Apart from All That, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up the weekend?

For the minimum snark requirement…

Reader Interactions

190Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    Hillary would cook and eat those children and Bernie would execute them as enemies of the Revolution.

    Vote Baud!

  6. 6.

    TaMara (BHF)

    I love that photo and the one of him holding newborn twins is priceless. They’re all great #ObamaandKids (h/t some kind B-J commenter).

    Just got back from taking Bixby to see his first herd of Buffalo, he was clearly starstruck. I was all about the babies. Sooo cute.

  8. 8.

    gogol's wife

    That top picture is exactly what I looked like when I met Obama (a little taller, fatter, grayer, and a few years older, but the facial expression is exactly the same!).

  11. 11.

    Ready

    Rubio on the stump smacking Trump AND Sanders.

    Points to eminent domain abuse by Trump, hits Sanders on “free” college (“more welders and electricians, not philosophy majors).

    Young, energetic and handsome–and soon to be VERY well funded.

  12. 12.

    Ready

    President Rubio and Speaker Ryan–a dynamic Gen X combo who will revolutionize DC even more than Reagan did.

    The Reagan Kids are ready to lead!

  17. 17.

    gogol's wife

    Somebody with a 2.0 grade point average in high school is too stupid to be either a philosopher or a welder (or president).

  18. 18.

    Elie

    Gonna miss this President. Hope we can survive this next election by pulling this kind of stuff out of our memories and into our hopes for the future. Had to jump from last thread where it felt like we were going back into the circular firing squad mode. People are complex and it seems some of us don’t want to reconcile our beliefs to any other — that there is no 32,000 mile view. Only I am right and my beliefs are absolute. People talk like they personally KNOW Bernie or Hillary or whoever… a little scary sometimes…

  22. 22.

    Yutsano

    @Ready: How quickly our allegiances change. And no, young Marco will not be President either.

    My agenda? Unpacking. I have a new flat closer to work on a short term lease in case a job on the Wet Side opens up. Then I can bug out before it gets too expensive. Plus cheap as fuck.

  23. 23.

    Steeplejack

    Here’s a weirdness (possible bug): On the desktop site (Firefox, Windows 10), Laura Olin’s first tweet (about black men) doesn’t show up, only the second one (about black women). On the mobile site (Chrome, Android), they both show up—with the Twitter icons. On the desktop site only the text appears.

  25. 25.

    gogol's wife

    @Mandalay:

    My God, I have to show that to my husband. This is what he deals with with me almost every day. That little girl is channeling my feelings!

    ETA: Especially when she screams, “NOOOO!” when her grandmother says, “He can only serve two terms, his time is up.”

  28. 28.

    FlyingToaster

    @gogol’s wife: This is like his 10th or 12th alias. So long as he sticks to hit-n-run tactics, he doesn’t get banned. And then, well, he engages and can’t resist stating his actual opinions and WHAM! with the banhammer.

  31. 31.

    Patricia Kayden

    Ugh. Do we really need a photo with McConnell and Boehner?

    Went to see the movie Race this morning. It does a great job of depicting Jesse Owens’ Olympic triumph in 1936 Berlin. Very inspirational and I’ve always loved Owens’ story so it’s great that it has made it to the big screen.

    My only criticism of the film was that it portrayed Leni Riefenstahl in a sympathetic light which I thought was strange for someone who tried to glamorize Nazism.

  32. 32.

    Mandalay

    @Steeplejack:

    On the desktop site only the text appears.

    I had that as well (Firefox/Win10), but only for a couple of seconds – then it fixed itself. I’m guessing that if you refresh the page it will be fine.

  33. 33.

    Brachiator

    @Ready:

    Rubio on the stump smacking Trump AND Sanders.

    You are so funny. I remember when you were Ready to Rise for Jeb. But now that Jeb has rolled up his ! and run back to momma, you are now backing Baby Rubio? Fantastic. Are you going to chop off more of your handle after the GOP has been soundly thumped?

    Let’s get ready to rumble. And as the song goes,

    I’m ready, ready as anybody can be.
    I’m ready for you, and I hope you’re ready for me.

    And now, to dinner.

  34. 34.

    Elizabelle

    Love the picture of Obama on the rug with the baby.

    Hope he gets years and years of playing with his grandkids. And great-grandkids.

    He’s a good man.

  35. 35.

    eemom

    @Ready:

    Sorry dull troll, but yer Lil Marco is dumber than a bag of hammers. A debate between him and Clinton would make Christie’s smackdown look like a pat on the back. He’d be stammering the same dumbass line over and over way more than 4 times. That or shitting his pants. Or both.

  39. 39.

    Chyron HR

    @Ready:

    Oh, sorry, kid, but Rubio betrayed the Bush family, and Jeb won’t stand for that, remember? You spent the past six months telling us that.

  40. 40.

    p.a.

    Got my first senior citizen’s discount a few weeks ago; $10 off for an adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull. The ticket girl solicited me for the discount. Happy for the ten bucks, but I was told the discount was for 55 and older- I’m 56- and when I offered my i.d. I was told it wasn’t necessary. Fuckers. I don’t look a day over 54.

    The play is called Stupid Fucking Bird, and includes at least 1 instance per act of attempted audience participation, consisting of the protagonist hectoring the audience about the injustice of his situation and our indifference to it. By the third act I don’t think I was alone in rooting for his gun to win their next encounter.
    Wikied The Seagull’s plot after, and this play was actually a pretty faithful retelling.

  42. 42.

    Steeplejack

    @Baud:

    “Do not track” is already off.

    And it’s strange that it would nuke only one tweet and not all of them.

  45. 45.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    This election cycle has made me feel more like an adult than any time in my life. And I’m 56, been around a bit.
    The difference now is that while as usual I see politics from my favorite candidates’ point of view, I also see my candidates from the GOP point of view. Before this I never realized how Democrats were viewed by Republicans. It’s sometimes ugly and sobering. Some of them hate Obama with negative emotion as strong as the happy feels we get when we see him with little kids. I understand that now, and I can feel my own affection for this great man while accepting that others cannot feel the same way. It’s a bit liberating because now it’s not necessary to convince everyone. Just plain winning electorally can be enough and sometimes has to be enough.
    I thank the unfiltered nature of social media for this revelation. Without wingnuts in my FB feed I’d still believe that everyone just had to be convinced of the truth. Exposure to other people’s powerful feelings has shown me a gulf that can never really be bridged and made me comfortable to stay on my own side.

  50. 50.

    Ruckus

    @Ultraviolet Thunder:
    I credit age with giving me the two concepts at work here.
    1. Not everyone will agree with me, no matter what.
    2. I don’t have to give a shit that they don’t.

    ETA Welcome to the club.

  51. 51.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Didn’t RtR tell us about all the negative stuff the jeb? campaign had on Marco “Boy Wonder”?

    I heard a rumor that there was a rumor in the making that Boy Wonder had a second family or similar disgraces. That would explain his cottonmouth, flopsweat, brain lockups and extremely bad financial management as well as anything.

  54. 54.

    Germy

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Went to see the movie Race this morning. It does a great job of depicting Jesse Owens’ Olympic triumph in 1936 Berlin.

    Yesterday I linked to an esquire article that said they had to add the swastikas digitally because it is illegal to wear them in Germany. And they covered the flags between shots.

    Meanwhile, in this country we have Cruz tweeting “they want to take away our [confederate] flag!”

  56. 56.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    Well I tried to head down to a park(Echo Park) to take some pics of downtown LA(DTLA), but once I got over the hill on the freeway and saw the muck around DTLA; I turned around and came back home?.

  58. 58.

    debbie

    Double post on the teary granddaughter. Still wish the grandmother had put her phone aside for one moment to console her granddaughter.

  60. 60.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Anoniminous:

    The biggest self-serving bit of nonsense is Aristotle’s definition of human beings as rational animals.

    I gave that one up after reading a heap of good pop-psych books about behavior. We’re basically a wad of accumulated biases in search of rationalization. I accept that about myself and just try to keep my biases slanted toward moral outcomes.

  61. 61.

    Gimlet

    @Ultraviolet Thunder:

    Maybe this?

    http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/marco-rubios-childhood-friend-tied-to-miamis-most-infamous-gay-porn-case-8203133

    Thursday, January 28, 2016
    “I’m sorry for Marco that [this arrest] has come up, but I’m more sorry for me and my family,” says Barrios, a solidly built man in a bright-blue polo shirt and mirrored wrap-around shades. “I’m not the one running for president.”

    Barrios suddenly found his long-forgotten after-hours police stop in a Brickell park thrust into national headlines last week, when the Washington Post dredged up the 1990 incident. But the Post missed the crime’s most eye-opening tie to Florida’s junior senator.

    Decades after his legal run-in with Rubio, Barrios was associated with perhaps the most notorious gay porn ring in Miami history, an Edgewater house full of models with names like “Khali Kreme” and “Sincere Luv” who had sex all day in front of dozens of webcams. Couple that with the fact that the park where Rubio was arrested was a well-known gay cruising spot and lurid rumors — with no basis in documented fact — have blown up all this week on the internet, eagerly stoked by Donald Trump supporters casting Rubio as a closeted homosexual.

  63. 63.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Gimlet:
    I don’t recall that but I remember reading that Rubio had used his position to help out a family member with a history of drug crimes. Gonna go Google that now.

  65. 65.

    FlipYrWhig

    Marco Rubio, the human being, is such an unpleasant little shit. Marco Rubio, the politician, is Republican Poochie, a focus-grouped character to appeal to The Youth with catchphrases.

  67. 67.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Marco Rubio, the human being, is such an unpleasant little shit. Marco Rubio, the politician, is Republican Poochie, a focus-grouped character to appeal to The Youth with catchphrases repeated over and over again.

    Fixed it fo ya.

  69. 69.

    Ready

    @eemom:

    We will use the same strategy we used with George W in 2000: lower pre debate expectations through the media, then declare victory when Rubio exceeds them. Also focus on weird malapros and mannerisms of Hillary Clinton (we will find something like Al Gore’s sighing to harp on over and over and over again until it’s a media punchline!)

  71. 71.

    AnotherBruce

    @Baud: Now that you’ve finally come out against the cannibalism of children. Will you also pledge not to eat puppies and kittens? (If you want my vote.)

  72. 72.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Katy TurVerified account
    ‏@ KatyTurNBC
    Trump trashes press. Crowd jeers. Guy by press ‘pen’ looks at us & screams “you’re a bitch!” Other gentleman gives cameras the double bird.

  73. 73.

    Heliopause

    We’ve never had a chance to see anybody who looks like Trump as Prez either. If he wins I’m going to grow a giant combover and get a sprayon tan. I don’t know why you want to crush my dreams.

  77. 77.

    Felonius Monk

    @Ready: Did I get this right?

    Jebbie folded like a cheap suit, so you are unemployed. Neither the Trump nor the Cruz campaigns wanted anything to do with you, so you signed up to carry water for Rubio. Now you are Marco’s Waterboy. Based on what I’ve seen you’re going to earn your keep. So, instead of hanging out here annoying folks, why don’t you get to work –– I hear Marco calling for another bottle of Poland Spring.

  80. 80.

    Felonius Monk

    @Baud: Good campaign slogan: BAUD – The leader who won’t eat your kids, kittens, or puppies. Good family values.

  84. 84.

    Mandalay

    @Ultraviolet Thunder:Those stories are pretty weak on substance, but they still offer plenty of material to use to drag Rubio into the dirt.

    The sanctimonious response from Rubio’s spokeman was interesting:

    Orlando made some very big mistakes almost 30 years ago, served his time, and has paid his debt to society

    That comment is a perfect lead-in to ask Rubio why he opposes giving ex-felons in Florida the right to vote.

  86. 86.

    SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel

    @Ready:

    The ‘Pubs wouldn’t even have to spend money on a new logo. Just re-use the one from 2012.

  87. 87.

    Germy

    @srv:

    The best pointy-head ivory tower Harvard elites and the Bezos Post have to offer is Full Metal Godwin

    Not to worry! When Trump wins the presidency he’ll have them all lined up and shot!

  90. 90.

    Mandalay

    @Baud:

    Just because puppies and kittens will make up my kitchen cabinet doesn’t mean I’m going to eat them!

    Your failure to issue a categorical denial is troubling. You appear to be conflicted on the issue.

  91. 91.

    Chyron HR

    @Ready:

    You seem to be confused, son. Rubio is running against a man named Donald Trump right now. You might want to try and beat him.

  97. 97.

    gogol's wife

    Last scene of Lester’s Three Musketeers on right now. It’s good. Oliver Reed at his best.
    ETA: I guess it’s not the last scene, I just remembered it that way. Faye Dunaway getting her comeuppance.

  99. 99.

    Patricia Kayden

    Hopefully this article is right and Trump has a strangehold on the Republican nomination.

    I am salivating at the thought of Republicans choosing Trump as their Presidential candidate. November is going to be fun.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-has-a-stranglehold-on-the-gop-nomination-so-why-isnt-he-getting-credit/2016/02/21/5fb2ef48-d8be-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_monday-fix-655pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

  101. 101.

    Andy

    @catclub: The unemployment measure that the presstitute press reports is meaningless as it counts no discouraged workers, and discouraged workers are a huge part of American unemployment. The reported unemployment rate is about 5%, which is the U-3 measure that does not count as unemployed workers who are too discouraged to continue searching for jobs.

    The US government has a second official unemployment measure, U-6, that counts workers discouraged for less than one-year. This official rate of unemployment is 10%.

    When long term (more than one year) discouraged workers are included in the measure of unemployment, as once was done, the US unemployment rate is 23%. (See John Williams, shadowstats.com)

  102. 102.

    gene108

    Anyone know of a good way to get rid of old college textbooks, other than throwing them in the trash?

    Through my several trips through college, I’ve accumulated some textbooks, I thought might come in handy later or am holding onto for nostalgia’s sake.

    I went to reduce the number I have.

    I could try selling them on-line, but I have a felling the market for old editions and/or out-of-date textbooks (15-20+ years old) is not too high.

    Donating them is problematic, as I tried this with a cousin’s textbooks, but was told textbook company’s are very strict about who can resell them, so the Salvation Army / Goodwill is out.

    I’ll check with my local library, if they will use them.

    Otherwise, I feel I’m out of options.

    I’m open to suggestions.

  104. 104.

    Mike J

    @gene108: Pity SA/Goodwill won’t stand up to them. Pretty much all publishers think used bookstores are theft, but first sale doctrine means they’re out of luck. A charity org would do better in the court (at least that of public opinion) taking on a textbook publisher. I understand why charities don’t wish to spend money on lawsuits, I just wish the extortionists can so freely go after them.

  105. 105.

    SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel

    @gene108:

    If you’re crafty, and if the books are thick enough, you could make a few of those safe boxes disguised as books — cut out the middle and glue the page margins together, and voilà!, you have a place to stow cash, extra keys, jewelry, and other small valuables.

  107. 107.

    Patricia Kayden

    Am watching Game Change on HBO once again. Just cannot get enough of that film. Shows how the GOP thought everyone in this country was daft enough to elect someone as dumb as Palin to a position where she was a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

    Every time I see McCain, all I can think about is how his forehead should have a huge photo of Palin on it.

  108. 108.

    Chyron HR

    @Andy:

    There’s a secret unemployment stat that the government is hiding, but Alex Jones and the Timecube guy know what it REALLY is!

    And yet some silly people still have trouble taking Sanders’ supporters seriously.

  109. 109.

    raven

    @gene108: I spent a number of years developing online courses and once I got on the textbook mailing lists they didn’t stop sending desk copies for years. I took them to habitat.

  111. 111.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @Chyron HR:

    Everyone in the conservative twitterverse discovered the labor participation rate when unemployment hit 5%. Not taking into account things like baby boomers aging out of the labor force, and the effect of people being able to get health care benefits separate from employers of course. Naysaying Obama isn’t just for the right. I wonder why that is…

  112. 112.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @TaMara (BHF):

    (h/t some kind B-J commenter).

    ME!
    ME!

    It was ME!

    Wow. My comments have never been called kind before. I may have to turn over a new leaf.

  113. 113.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @efgoldman: Hey Goldie, how did Obama lose the Massachusetts primary in 2008?

    I could never figure that out. He had the support of Deval Patrick, Ted Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, John Kerry. He had all of the many campuses. At least 15% of the vote was Black. The Whites are liberal. And yet he lost to Clinton by 15 pts.

    Any ideas?

  115. 115.

    A Humble Lurker

    it matters that young women—50 percent of our population!—have never had that chance.

    Really? I’ll vote for Hilary in the general (I’d have to be brain dead not to and I don’t think I’m quite there yet) but this sounds a lot like ‘you should vote for Hilz ‘cuz woman’ which was the same logic that got Palin McCain’s VP slot.

  116. 116.

    AnotherBruce

    @Mandalay: So we have the first big scandal of Baud’s campaign. If only he would deny eating puppies and kittens, so we could all move on.

  119. 119.

    Fair Economist

    @Andy:

    When long term (more than one year) discouraged workers are included in the measure of unemployment, as once was done, the US unemployment rate is 23%. (See John Williams, shadowstats.com)

    Shadowstats is complete garbage. He just makes up the numbers.

  120. 120.

    Patricia Kayden

    @JPL: The way she jigged herself up for that bizarre Trump endorsement, I think she’s aiming for another VP run. A Trump/Palin ticket would whet the Republicans’ red meat base. (And be hilarious at the same time.)

  121. 121.

    Wrb

    @gene108: I’m trying to build a library of serious books for a rural county that has a library that only stocks romances and recent deceive books. I might be interested in these and any other serious books of which someone wants to be shed.

  125. 125.

    SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel

    @Patricia Kayden:

    I can’t imagine that even Trump would choose Palin as his running mate (however much she may be plumping for the job). He’s horrible and grotesque in many ways, but I don’t think he’s actually stupid. And naming Palin would be stupid.

    ETA: Unless, of course, he doesn’t really want to be President. I’ve thought from the beginning that he doesn’t want the job, and he may be looking for some kind of self-sabotage that wouldn’t look like same to his base.

  127. 127.

    PaulW

    just wanna mention good news for fellow writers in one of the anthologies I’ve been published in: Edith Maxwell and Harriette Sackler are EACH up for Best Short Story for the Agathas (a “Cozy Mystery” award). Edith for “A Questionable Death” and Harriette for “Suffer the Poor,” both published in History and Mystery Oh My!

  128. 128.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @A Humble Lurker: I understand the preposterousness of the Palin logic, but I also ask you to think about the scene in Grant Park the night Obama was first elected. Jesse Jackson had tears running down his face. That wasn’t just because he agreed with Obama’s policies. I wouldn’t presume to tell him he shouldn’t feel that way.

  129. 129.

    Howard Beale IV

    @Andy: Anyone quoting Shadowstats for anything definitive is a fool. U6 already takes those discouraged workers into its calculation. What I suspect the Shadowstat asshole is doing is adding in the number of retirees and people on disability in order to make his U6 number look awful when compared to the official U6.

    You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas…..

  132. 132.

    SFAW

    Well, it’s good to see that Rocky the Racist, a/k/a RtR is back, and as delusional as ever. Well, actually, it’s not good to see him back, but at least he provides some comic relief, if you find delusional racists funny.

    Tonight, I’m going to take it easy, tune in the Oscars, and see if Susan Lucci finally wins.

  133. 133.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    I’m from Massachusetts, so I’ll take this.

    The primary map in MA in 2008 was really interesting – the Obama votes came exclusively from the minority communities in Boston and the residents of Boston proper, Cambridge, Lexington, the campuses (of which there are a lot), the Cape, and the wealthiest most educated suburbs west of Boston, with the Berkshires and the hill towns of the Pioneer Valley (where UMass and the 5 colleges are) completing the Obama coalition. The Clinton support came from the middle and working class enclaves west of Rte. 95 and all through the mill towns of central Mass. and inland from Buzzards Bay, and the communities along the New Hampshire border. Race probably had nothing to do with it, though. /snark

  135. 135.

    PaulW

    @gene108:

    Old college textbooks are kind of hard for public libraries to include in their collections: for one, it depends on the quality/condition and publication date of the book (if it’s more than three years out of date, they won’t add it). At best, they will give the textbooks to their Friends group to sell at the bookstore for fundraising efforts.

    Re-selling on a book retailer as a collectible item might work, but again depends on the value of it as a collectible.

  140. 140.

    J R in WV

    The Obama with kids pictures were so, so good. He is so good with little kids, from babies in arms to teen, Girl Scouts, camping on the W H lawn, not exactly wilderness experience, but they got to meet Mr. and Mrs. Obama…

    I don’t care who the Rs run, I think Hillary will scorch them coming and going.

    She’s so practiced with the haters attacking her, it doesn’t really hit her in a vulnerable spot any more. Those hearings were a prime example – she was immune to them in a situation where all the power was with those haters, and they could not get to her.

  142. 142.

    PaulW

    @Ready:

    Don’t forget empty-headed, absent from work, and clueless.

    When Christie hit Rubio for sticking to his scripted 30-second one-liners, he exposed Rubio’s real flaws of inexperience and failures to think for himself.

    Stop Trying to Make Rubio Happen. He’s Not Gonna Happen. He’s in Third Place. He hasn’t won anything, and he’s not going to because he’s got nothing to impress the actual voters with.

  145. 145.

    Bob in Portland

    @Chyron HR: You did not quote Andy,did you? Years ago The Atlantic, that viper pit of the radical Left and conspratorial Right, had an interesting, detailed article on how the “official” unemployment rates are counted. Over the last half century each party in turn has lopped off various categories of the unemployed. It was bipartisan too.

  147. 147.

    SFAW

    @PaulW:

    Sorry. Just a little joke. Well, an attempt at one. I guess it probably helps if attempted jokes are funny.

    As Steeplejack pointed out, they’re next week.

  151. 151.

    SFAW

    @PaulW:

    Stop Trying to Make Rubio Happen. He’s Not Gonna Happen. He’s in Third Place.

    Why bother arguing with him? It’s been clear for N months that he’s not just intellectually dishonest, but dishonest in word and deed. (“Amongst our weaponry …”)

    Unless your doctor told you that your blood pressure is too low, and you need to increase it, why would you do that to yourself?

    ETA: But I like the bumper sticker.

  152. 152.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Allah pundit ‏@ allahpundit 52m52 minutes ago
    Bush bundler: Mike Murphy will make a “minimum of $14 million” from this year’s campaign

  153. 153.

    George Hayduke

    @Ready:

    “Obama new what he was doing”
    ___whrrr___click___

    “Obama new what he was doing”
    ___whrrr___click___

    “Obama new what he was doing”
    ___whrrr___click___

  155. 155.

    PaulW

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    That is a legitimate scandal, and one the media needs to pursue vigorously: the entire campaigning system has turned into an unregulated con job with so-called experts racking up millions in “consulting” fees while few campaigns get the actual fund-raising money. It’s obscene.

    It’s not so much that billionaires are buying up politics, which is bad on its own. It’s that there’s billions in WASTE going to fraudsters and failures.

  156. 156.

    SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel

    @JPL:

    I think he wants to win the election. I don’t think he wants to be President. Not sure how he’s planning to square that circle, and I don’t plan on giving him a chance to find out.

  158. 158.

    moonbat

    @gene108: Just in case no one has mentioned it. There are several charity organizations in Philly that take old, used textbooks and give them to prison inmates to study with. Maybe there is a collection point in your area?

  159. 159.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Tad Devine is worst. Murphy is bilking fat cats. Devine will be taking a similar amount back to his mansion, but sadly all that cash is being drained from the working class and working poor.

  160. 160.

    Felonius Monk

    @gene108:

    Donating them is problematic, as I tried this with a cousin’s textbooks, but was told textbook company’s are very strict about who can resell them

    That’s bullshit. Donate to BetterWorldBooks -– they resell to raise money to fight illiteracy.

  162. 162.

    Lurking Canadian

    @gene108: The World Bank Volunteer Serviice runs the “Book Project”. They ship gently used textbooks to schools in developing countries. If your books are still relevant to your discipline, Imm sure they’d take them.

  163. 163.

    Lurking Canadian

    @Ready: Dude. Don’t you get tired of this? Do you have a button on your homepage with a label like “Will post campaign-related bullshit for food?”

    Can’t you find any more honest work? Something like selling crack on a schoolyard, maybe?

  165. 165.

    SFAW

    @SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel:

    No, I was just kidding. I wrote it expecting someone would tell me I might be waiting for awhile, or some such.

    If I were actually a clever chap, I’d say I was too clever for my own good. Sorry for getting you going, it was not my intent to freak people out (so to speak).

  170. 170.

    Tripod

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    He blew threw the nest egg and got nowhere near the pledged count they needed going into Super Tuesday… They’re only up in the few states where Bernie is polling well (MN CO MA OK). This thing is over on 3/1 if they can’t contest Texas.

  171. 171.

    SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel

    @efgoldman:

    Yeah, me too pretty much, but still, NPR generally mentions the Oscars in their newscast the morning of the awards. And I just hadn’t heard anything like that today (and now I know why, thanks to SFAW’s clarifying comments to me and others).

  172. 172.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Howard Beale IV: Just adding discouraged and “marginally attached” workers is actually U5, which is only a little higher than U3. U6 also includes people who are working part time because it’s all they can get. And both of those go up and down pretty much in sync with U3.

    I suspect the Shadowstats guy is pulling numbers purely out of his butt. He has a measure that tracks all the official numbers, but at a higher level, up to the point where Obama takes office. Then it just rockets away to imply that no economic recovery has happened at all. It’s not even the labor force non-participation rate, because that would have made Dubya’s administration look worse than it does.

  174. 174.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Renie: not only is it the Jeb guy, I’m pretty sure it’s the same guy who was telling us how McCain was going to win in 2008, and Romney on 2012. He’s got a stellar track record.

  175. 175.

    Ruckus

    @Matt McIrvin:
    It’s uncle Billy Kristol! He’s come to visit. We should all be appalled that he found us but at least no one will have to link to him ever again.

  177. 177.

    mclaren

    And in black & white, yet. Wow. That looks like a photo of MLK with a young admirer from 1962.

    The more things change…

  178. 178.

    mclaren

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The shadowstats site figures are bunkum, but the site itself captures an important basic truth: many official measures of the economy mismeasure or outright misstate the actual state of the economy.

    Example: we hear a lot about corporate earnings and GDP. Corporate earnings are up, the GDP is growing. Therefore the economy is healthy. What’s the problem?

    Corporate earnings and GDP disconnected severely from the median wage starting in the 1980s. Today, the GDP keeps going up, but the median wage has declined after accounting for inflation.

    Another measure is consumer durable goods. These are largely tied to purchases of homes and look disproportionately bad when the housing market tanks.

    Yet another example is average rent. The real measure is the ratio of minimum wage to average rent, when keeps dropping. There is currently no major city in the United States where a single person making the minimum wage can afford to rent a one bedroom apartment.

    This is radically new. Nothing like this ever used to be the case in America.

    Working people are not deluded. They are not fantasizing that their lives have turned to shit economically, it’s real. The problem is that many government statistics disguise this fact.

    The most notorious example remains the way that people who have given up looking for work are no longer counted as “unemployed,” and therefore as the economy worsens, the unemployment rate actually drops — even though a high percentage of the labor force is idle and not working.

  179. 179.

    Nate Dawg

    Just took a visit over to inbREDSTATE.com, and it’s full-on meltdown. They do seem to be jumping on the Ruboitoy bandwagon to excise Trump, but Cruz being so formidable (and yet falling short) is bugging the hell out of them. If it weren’t for Trump, they believe, they would have a real Constitutional conservative on the path to the nomination.

    I do have to believe that Rubiotoy pulls this out somehow. The Party Decides, and all.

  180. 180.

    mclaren

    @gogol’s wife:

    Somebody with a 2.0 grade point average in high school is too stupid to be either a philosopher or a welder (or president).

    Yes, somebody like Merce Cunningham, because every human being is perfectly suited to excel at either language or math, and no one is born to be a painter or a dancer or a musician or a therapist or a diplomat.

    People like you are so ignorant it makes the universe pucker and threaten to implode into a black hole of sheer cluelessness.

    Read Martin Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences and learning something.

  181. 181.

    Technocrat

    @Nate Dawg:

    It’s a hoot watching them slap the banhammer on overly-enthusiastic Trump supporters. So weird how liberal sites don’t ban (as a rule) but conservative sites are run like little gulags.

  182. 182.

    mclaren

    @J R in WV:

    I don’t care who the Rs run, I think Hillary will scorch them coming and going.

    Right now, the Republican field is the lame leading the blind and the deaf. Rubio has that great big childhood family friend who happened to be Miami’s biggest cocaine dealer hanging over him (plus Marco has never actually accomplished anything in his life), Ted Cruz is so deeply hated by the party establishment that elite Repubs would rather see Hillary become prez than Ted, Trump is a crazy-talking opossum-headed nitwit who spews gibberish right and left and implodes with rage whenever someone challenges him, Kasich is a gelatinous bureaucrat with no appeal and no charisma…this is a field of candidates straight out of Tod Browning’s film Freaks.

    Any of these clowns will get blown away so thoroughly by Hillary that the Republican party will fracture and explode, especially if Trump runs and loses.

    What next? The Republicans will run a dead armadillo they found on the highway in 2020?

  183. 183.

    seaboogie

    @Ready:

    Young, energetic and handsome–and soon to be VERY well funded.

    Funding, Schmunding, this one needs to be VERY well hydrated.

  185. 185.

    Brachiator

    @mclaren:

    Corporate earnings and GDP disconnected severely from the median wage starting in the 1980s.

    Actually, it was probably much earlier, but your overall point is valid.

    Today, the GDP keeps going up, but the median wage has declined after accounting for inflation.

    Another good point. You could also throw in that automation and technological advancement has helped reduce the need for large numbers of employees in many industries. So, GDP can increase even as unemployment also increases, and still leave a sick economy.

    The problem is, I don’t see that either party (or the presidential aspirants) has grasped the full significance of this and has much in the way of solutions. And this goes double, unfortunately, for Sanders, who is stuck in a 1930s view of the economy.

  186. 186.

    mclaren

    @Brachiator:

    If this keeps up, capitalism will break down. The basic assumption behind conventional capitalism (even European-style socialist-flavored capitalism, or Japanese keiretsu-flavored managed capitalism) has always been that a rising tide lifts all boats.

    That has now stopped. The biggest new companies, like Craigslist or Google, employ very few workers. Almost all the profits now go to a handful of founders like Larry Page & Sergei Brin.

    This means that we’re going to have to start thinking about radical solutions like a guaranteed minimum income if we want our society to continue. Otherwise, as the tax base drops, there simply won’t be enough money for basic projects like repairing our highways and sewers. In fact, we’re already seeing this. Regions like Detroit Michigan, where wild animals are reclaiming abandoned houses and grass is growing in the middle of cracked highways were the police no longer patrol, are becoming more and more common in America. That’s like a cancer. If you don’t fix centers of economic pathology like that, they’re going to kill the body politic.

  187. 187.

    mclaren

    @Technocrat:

    So weird how liberal sites don’t ban (as a rule) but conservative sites are run like little gulags.

    It’s the authoritarian personality at work.

  188. 188.

    Nate Dawg

    @Technocrat: They’ve banned so many people over the years, it’s a wonder their readership is so….Oh, right. It’s actually a rather small cult compared to similar sites.

    And kind of sad how they think they have any sway whatsoever in anything to do with Republican politics.

  189. 189.

    sempronia

    @gene108:

    If you’re in the SF Bay Area, you can donate them to Bridge to Asia. If you’re not, you can mail them to Bridge, but they ask you to bear the cost of postage (media mail rate) as part of your donation.

  190. 190.

    Brachiator

    @mclaren:

    The basic assumption behind conventional capitalism (even European-style socialist-flavored capitalism, or Japanese keiretsu-flavored managed capitalism) has always been that a rising tide lifts all boats.

    No, this is not quite true. This is the soft lie pedaled to soothe the masses, but any objective view of capitalism acknowledges shocks and inequalities. And in Japan, the need to maintain order and a degree of stability as a social requirement predates capitalism there. Even in the West, to some degree, the necessity for political stability is as important a goal as the maintenance of capitalism. Of course, the idea that some groups could be oppressed in the name of stability continues to be a nasty and shortsighted bit of conventional wisdom.

    That has now stopped. The biggest new companies, like Craigslist or Google, employ very few workers. Almost all the profits now go to a handful of founders like Larry Page & Sergei Brin.

    I don’t know about Craigslist, but what you write about Google is a huge oversimplification.

    But Craigslist is interesting on another level. This tech company helped accelerate the destruction of the entire newspaper industry, through the elimination of paid classified ads. The impact on employment has been massive. So here, you have to look at the numbers of jobs and incomes that disappeared all over the country. That Craigslist employs very few people is almost trivial compared to the larger economic consequences of the company’s innovations.

    This means that we’re going to have to start thinking about radical solutions like a guaranteed minimum income if we want our society to continue.

    This is not a radical solution. And it assumes falsely that there is some magical cornucopia of money that can be wrested from the wealthy to pay out to everyone else forever. There also seems to be the implication here that you don’t need a healthy economy and jobs that pay sufficient wages. In short, no solution for economic stagnation.

    Otherwise, as the tax base drops, there simply won’t be enough money for basic projects like repairing our highways and sewers. In fact, we’re already seeing this. Regions like Detroit Michigan…

    This has always been a problem. Maybe it’s accelerating.

    Kodak had been one of the largest employers in Rochester, NY since 1888. Kodak invented a digital camera in 1975, but tried to suppress it. They also refused to jump into the digital photography business. Competitors arose slowly, at first, but by 2001, Kodak begin an accelerating decline.

    Rochester (which had been the flour producing capital of the US in 1838) now has to reinvent itself again to deal with the loss of previously successful businesses.

    Flint is going to have to do the same thing as well. Maybe a minimum income needs to be part of it. Perhaps we should also help people to move out of dying cities. And maybe some cities will have to die if they cannot be sustained.

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