Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

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

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

Everybody saw this coming.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Not To Put Too Fine A Point On It

Not To Put Too Fine A Point On It

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This has been burning up my playlist. Bonnie Raitt has a new album out. This is by far my favorite song on it.

DST is kicking my ass. I took Bixby out early for a walk hoping to shake the cobwebs out of my head. Beautiful morning walk. And Bixby has become just the best walking buddy.

A little upbeat music to help me stay away. I like They Must Be Giants, they are so quirky. Like me.

Here’s a shiny Sunday afternoon open thread.

Reader Interactions

82Comments

  2. 2.

    ruemara

    @srv: Jesus, where’s the fucking meteor?

    I am vaguely impressed at my ability to not spout profanity near my friends’ children and in professional environments. Because so much of the world is profanity made corporeal.

  3. 3.

    scav

    McCain’s ability to be a shrewd judge of character should surely go down in the annals of political talent.

    ETA: and he’s competing in the Political equivalent of the
    Group of Death lineup.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    @jeffreyw: Never thought to put green peppers on a chili dog, but I bet that’s good! Speaking of dogs, thanks for the boxer photo the other day.

  7. 7.

    Germy

    I remember when They Might Be Giants wrote a song about every venue they visited during a tour about ten years ago.
    They played at the “Albany Egg” (a big modernist egg-shaped monstrosity) and one of the lines in the song mocking the architecture was “What were they thinking?”

  9. 9.

    Germy

    @scav:

    McCain’s ability to be a shrewd judge of character should surely go down in the annals of political talent.

    Attention-Deficit Disorder combined with putting off his choice until the very last minute. Plus trusting the experts.

  11. 11.

    Mike J

    @NotMax: When I did college radio my PD told me he always knew I was on the air when his clock radio awakened him with Orgasm Addict.

  12. 12.

    rikyrah

    Another Hillary Scandal: For Profit Colleges
    by Steven D
    Sun Mar 13th, 2016 at 01:44:55 PM EST

    The for profit college industry is one of the worst scams going, at least if you are one of their students. They have a much lower graduation rate than traditional colleges, and an absurdly high number of their students rely on student loans to fund their education. On average, tuition costs are much more expensive. Many are rife with fraud and deceptive business practices. Their business model relies heavily on federal funding, and many exploit veterans and low income students.
    Candidate Hillary Clinton has stated repeatedly on the stump that she will crack down on these for profit higher educational scam artists. However, not so long ago, she was much less concerned about the for profit college industry. In fact, she actively favored one particular for profit college while she was Secretary of State, Laureate International Universities:

    [In 2009] Clinton wrote in an email to a top aide that she wanted to add Laureate Education to the guest list for the event. Describing Laureate as “the fastest growing college network in the world,” Clinton said the company was “started by Doug Becker who Bill likes a lot.”
    “It’s a for-profit model that should be represented,” she added in the August 2009 email. A senior vice president at Laureate was added to the guest list, a separate email shows.

    Former President Bill Clinton several months later became an honorary chancellor for Laureate International Universities, a role for which he was paid $16.5 million between 2010 and 2014. Clinton stepped down from the position earlier this year.

  15. 15.

    MobiusKlein

    @Germy: never forget that the previous Republican V.P. selection process was chaired by the eventual selection. And Gore somehow thought his choice was great too.

  16. 16.

    MomSense

    I took a walk in the woods today with my pup and it was lovely. The streams were running and you could feel nature springing back to life. I really needed that bit of escape today.

  17. 17.

    Peale

    @Johnny Coelacanth: actually this is one that’s going to sting. I’m not so reflexively in the Clinton camp that I don’t have a problem with their association with for profit colleges. If you’re looking for a place where the neoliberal charge will actually stick, it’s that. I have less of a problem with the banking speeches than I do with for profit colleges.

  19. 19.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @khead: Kitty, based on the size of her pupils, is having a very good time. :-)

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  20. 20.

    Amir Khalid

    @rikyrah:
    Hillary put them on the guest list for a dinner? That’s pretty thin gruel for a scandal. Unless she did something more substantial for them, I’m not saure I see the scandal here.

  21. 21.

    Elizabelle

    Love that Bonnie Raitt video. Gypsy in me, indeed. Recognized a lot of the footage.

  23. 23.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @rikyrah: Bloomberg had a big story on this in April 2015. It doesn’t sound like they got much for their donations and payments:

    Laureate hired Bill Clinton just as the Obama administration was working on its first try at controversial regulations on “gainful employment” and as then-Senate HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) launched a series of hearings scrutinizing the industry, which relies heavily on federal student aid grants and loans for revenue.

    The company also plays up the relationship on its website; a photo of Clinton speaking earlier this month at a new campus in Panama is prominently featured its homepage and a link to a page called “President Bill Clinton” sits just below its mission statement under an “about” tab.

    Another page details the company’s relationship with the Clinton Global Initiative and links to photos of students with Clinton and attending CGI events.

    The company has declined to say how much it has paid the former presidents. Hillary Clinton’s financial disclosure forms offer little insight; her 2012 submission says only that her husband received nonemployee compensation of more than $1,000 from the company that year. The Clinton Foundation’s donor disclosures show the company cumulatively gave between $1 million and $5 million through 2014.

    Hillary Clinton’s direct ties to the company are more limited. Laureate CEO Douglas Becker gave $4,600 to her 2008 presidential campaign and $2,000 to her 2000 Senate campaign. The company was also one of the founding donors to the 100,000 Strong Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding Mandarin language study in the United States that Hillary Clinton launched just before leaving the State Department in 2013. Later that year, she attended Laureate investor KKR’s annual meeting in southern California and faced questions from firm founder Henry Kravis.

    In a reminder of Washington’s tangled allegiances, the Center for American Progress, founded by Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, has long advocated for tougher oversight of the industry, while the Podesta Group, the firm he founded with his brother Tony, has for years represented the industry’s largest trade group and some individual companies.

    (Emphasis added.)

    I’m reminded of that Jesse Unruh quote posted earlier…

    Since this has been out there so long, I don’t see it becoming an issue now.

    But the CGI has been a continuing issue with the Clintons. I would like to think, based on their experiences with people digging through their trash for decades, that they’re smart enough not to cross the line between requesting donations and influence peddling.

    We’ll see.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  24. 24.

    Germy

    @Elizabelle: Didn’t Bonnie Raitt get into a fight with Elvis Costello back in the day? I might be confusing her with someone else.

    EDIT: whoops, googled it. Bonnie Bramlet

  26. 26.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    ‏@ mashable
    Trump to @ chucktodd after being told claim tying protester to ISIS is a hoax: “All I know is what’s on the Internet”

    There is a gif, of course.

  29. 29.

    dedc79

    Please shoot me. Three of the most pretentious people on the face of the earth just sat down next to me at a coffee shop in Washington, DC., and they are now discussing their collective decision to vote for Trump because he is most likely to deliver a “paradigm upheaval.”

  31. 31.

    BBA

    Laureate does most of their business in Latin America. They own a few US career colleges but they’re small compared to their Mexican and Brazilian holdings. It still sounds sleazy but unlike Corinthian and U of Phoenix they aren’t purely based on defrauding the US student loan system.

  39. 39.

    Tim C.

    @dedc79: So basically they are plain old Republicans who are accepting their marching orders. Also, the KT Exctinction impact was a paradigm changer too.

  40. 40.

    Amir Khalid

    @dedc79:
    The kind of paradigm upheaval that the Donald is likely to deliver would be unpleasant for any American with a conscience.

  42. 42.

    pamelabrown53

    @dedc79:
    I can’t imagine how distressful it must be to listen to republican insiders pretzel themselves into accepting and voting for Donald Trump. It must have been an eye-opener: for all the republican plots to derail him, the bottom line is if they fail, they’ll fall in line.

    It seems unfathomable to me that an ignorant birther has a strong shot at the presidency.

  43. 43.

    dedc79

    @Baud: This is true. They’re all Ron/Rand Paul devotees, apparently – so perhaps they’re anticipating living in some kind of pre-Leviathan libertarian paradise in the wake of America’s collapse.

  46. 46.

    Germy

    @dedc79: What exactly was Santorum’s foreign policy? I never heard much about it; the talk around him was how he planned to ruin this country.

  47. 47.

    dedc79

    @pamelabrown53: Seriously, it’s hard for me to even keep track of the nonsense being spewed, it’s coming so fast and furious:

    The Democrats should have nominated O’Malley

    Children shouldn’t have to worry about finding themselves in restroom with a transexual.

    Paul Ryan will run third party, no candidate will get enough electoral votes, and the House will vote him President.

  49. 49.

    Germy

    @dedc79:

    I’m wondering if i can scald all three with one cup, or whether I need to order a few more.

    Three libertarians, one cup.

  51. 51.

    Germy

    @dedc79: Ryan becomes president with Romney as his vice president? And then the prairie hens do their dance as the closing theme song swells.

  53. 53.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Oh, I hope theres good footage for a double highlight reel

    Christopher Hayes ‏@ chrislhayes 54m54 minutes ago
    Remember the tenor of the Palin rallies before Obama even served a day in office? They seem somewhat familiar in retrospect, don’t they?

  54. 54.

    Tim C.

    @dedc79: If they are all Paulists then don’t worry.

    A: They are a tiny minority of their own party.
    B: They *will* at some point fall victim to some kind of pyramid scheme or other obvious fraud. It’s a defining trait for those folks.

    In fact, this may be time to strike, tell them you have an investment in gold coin futures, dollars to donuts they’ll bite.

  55. 55.

    Elizabelle

    @dedc79: Ever tried out your projectile vomiting skills?

    Gawd. Some of those critters might be employed by media outlets or “think” tanks. Maybe even something on Capitol Hill. (Santorum’s foreign policy ideas, that’s pretty far up there.) Can you suss out what they do (when they’re not being assholes in a coffee shop)?

  56. 56.

    dedc79

    @Elizabelle: Yeah, that part is actually a relief. At first, given the setting and some of the early conversation, I thought they were liberals. It’s now very clear they are standard issue, Reason-subscribing, Ayn Rand loving, republicans.

  57. 57.

    WarMunchkin

    I’m really frustrated. I spent the day trying to find whether there’s a NYS Democratic Party. I went to my county office, which was closed, in a building whose code I didn’t know, with election signs that were from 2014, I think. The county site has no events listed, and immediately redirected me to a donation page when I gave my e-mail. The NYS state Democratic party website’s blog was last updated in November, and then April before that.

    Blargh. I wanted to help register voters, organize local precinct-level meetings, fund trips to PA and NH and red-held in-state districts for volunteer canvassing and registration efforts. It should be simple, no?

  58. 58.

    dedc79

    @Elizabelle:

    Gawd. Some of those critters might be employed by media outlets or “think” tanks. Maybe even something on Capitol Hill

    One mentioned working on the Hill and the others definitely sound like Think Tank spawn.

  60. 60.

    Elie

    Well I am getting ready for the WA state Democratic caucus on Mar 26. Lordy, what a pain but how necessary to get organized to do it efficiently and fairly. People want to attend the caucus but getting enough volunteers to do the administrative work of passing out forms, getting them back and accurately accounting for the votes and delegates assigned, is much less popular. And that is what makes caucuses so difficult: people want to give their “vote” but not be accountable for any work to have it done well. That is the way it is….

  61. 61.

    Baud

    @Elie:

    what a pain but how necessary to get organized to do it efficiently and fairly.

    You said Democratic caucus, right?

  62. 62.

    Elie

    @WarMunchkin:

    That is pretty weird what you are experiencing. Try searching on your county’s democratic organizations. Alternately, pick a candidate’s organization in your state… Don’t give up… its great you are doing it and very important….

  65. 65.

    Paul

    Not to put too fine a point on it, the term ‘Gypsy’ is a racial slur on the Roma people akin to the n word. They are still abused and dislocated. They don’t use caravans because of wanderlust, they use them because they’ve been homeless for most of 900 years. Not to pick on Bonnie Raitt necessarily, but it’s a terrible ongoing human right abuse that needs to be more widely known.

    For reasons I don’t understand, you can refer to a particular style of music as Gypsy Swing or Gypsy Jazz, invented by the great Django Reinhardt, one of a handful who could rightly claim to be the greatest guitarist of all time. Some of the most amazing guitarists you probably never heard of come from his descendants like Bireli Lagrene and Tchavolo Schmitt.

  68. 68.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @WarMunchkin: It’s not uncommon for things to be closed on Sundays.

    Yes, there is a NY Primary (for Ds and Rs) – it’s April 19.

    There are web sites with more info that might be a good place to start, but I haven’t quickly found anything about registration drives (it may be too late – dunno).

    NY State

    Fair Elections Legal Network.

    HTH. Good luck, and thanks for your efforts!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  69. 69.

    chopper

    I had “birdhouse in your soul” in my head all morning for no reason at all. then I check BJ and its on the FP. GET OUT OF MY HEAD

  70. 70.

    Mike in NC

    Good to read that Joe the Plumber has resurfaced, like a turd in a septic tank. Maybe he’ll get to work on one of Trump’s gold-played commodes.

  71. 71.

    chopper

    @Mike J:

    I discovered that The Clash’s “clampdown” works great if you replace every instance of the song title with “trump clown”.

  73. 73.

    WarMunchkin

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: To be clear, I’ve been trying to figure them out for weeks. I just work 40-wink-wink-actually-60 hours a week, and can’t often make it out there. The voter registration deadline is March 25th, and it’s a closed primary with registration needing to have happened the November prior to the election, FYI.

  74. 74.

    Ruckus

    @Amir Khalid:
    The kind of paradigm upheaval that the Donald is likely to deliver would be unpleasant for any American with a conscience.
    And most without.

  75. 75.

    BBA

    @WarMunchkin: My understanding is that the NYS Democratic machine is a wholly owned subsidiary of Governor-for-Life Cuomo’s perpetual reelection campaign, and cares about very little besides keeping Cuomo in office forever.

  76. 76.

    BruceFromOhio

    Sunday evening grillathon: three different chicken marinades on breasts and thighs, plus some mondo mushrooms. Steamed basmati rice and poblano sauce awaits the winners. Then its salads and sandwiches all week with the resulting feast. Ahhhh…

  77. 77.

    Matt McIrvin

    They Might Be Giants just released a new album, the third one compiled from songs they did for their ongoing Dial-A-Song project. I haven’t listened to it yet but I have heard some of the songs online; one of the most notable is their cover of Destiny’s Child’s “Bills, Bills, Bills.”

  78. 78.

    Mart

    When you are at a Bonnie concert, and you think to yourself, damn that sound is awesome; it’s my buddy on the board. He has been with her near forever on the road.

    Myself, I have no talents.

  79. 79.

    The Golux

    I love Bonnie Raitt, and that’s a great song, but it tweaks a pet peeve of mine: fade-outs, the biggest cop-out in popular music. One assumes she’s going to play the song live, so she’ll need an ending. Why not record it that way? Most of the songs on my list of favorites have great endings. Why throw away that part of the song? It drives me nuts.

  81. 81.

    DesertFriar

    They Might Be Giants already did the Republican theme song for their convention…

    “You and Your Racist Friend”

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