It has been raining here in West Central Florida for days, and according to the radar, it’s going to keep on raining. That means lots of standing water, which translates into a bumper crop of mosquitoes. Luckily there’s not some dread disease being transmitted by mosquitoes in Florida! Oh wait…
The Feds skipped town without funding Zika relief efforts because the GOP attached riders to defund Obamacare, put new restrictions on Planned Parenthood and permit flying the Confederate flag at veteran’s cemeteries. But at least the state is on it:
“You have a great governor who’s doing a fantastic job, Rick Scott, on the Zika,” Donald Trump told WPEC-TV of West Palm Beach. “He’s going to have it under control. He probably already does.”
Well, that’s reassuring. And for women who contract the virus while pregnant and find out they’re carrying a fetus with profound birth defects, Marco Rubio wants to make sure they don’t have access to abortion:
Sen. Marco Rubio said Saturday that he doesn’t believe a pregnant woman infected with the Zika virus should have the right to an abortion — even if she had reason to believe the child would be born with severe microcephaly.
“I understand a lot of people disagree with my view – but I believe that all human life is worthy of protection of our laws. And when you present it in the context of Zika or any prenatal condition, it’s a difficult question and a hard one,” Rubio told POLITICO.
“But if I’m going to err, I’m going to err on the side of life.”
Raising a child with severe Zika-caused birth defects can cost about $2 million in the first few years of life — if the child survives. But count on Rubio and his fellow Republicans to err on the side of tax cuts when it comes time to fund public health initiatives. The fuckers.
Anyway, that’s what has me pissed off today. You? Open thread!
balconesfault
Rubio’s consistent. I appreciate that. Much better than the slimewads who claim to believe that every fertilized zygote is sacred and needs a proper burial if miscarried or aborted … then equivocate about terminating the types of pregnancies that any sensible person can see represent a horrible tragedy for society (rape, incest, life of mother, and now Zika).
If you’re going to be a fanatic, at least go full on fanatic so everyone knows you’re an extremist fanatic.
Snarki, child of Loki
Rubio’s got a bad case of adult-onset Zika microcephaly. I suggest a post-natal abortion.
danielx
Yet another reason why I spent 45 minutes mocking and then cussing out Donald Trump while in a deep sleep.
shomi
I read on Ball Juice that Rio was going to be a disaster and Zika was going to make everyone sick and blah blah something something read on yahoo news.
Once again Ball Juice keeps me
infromeddisinformed.dedc79
Pro-life my ass.
Rubio has the f#%%ing gall to tell women with Zika what they can and cannot do when he and his fellow senators can’t pass a clean bill to fund zika research/prevention?
My wife is a left-leaning moderate. She doesn’t get amped up about most political fights the way I do. But she is close to 7 months pregnant and understandably worried (as am I) about Zika. She is absolutely livid about Congress’ inaction and she knows which party is to blame for it. If we can’t get Congress to get do something about Zika, the least we can do is get some of these obstructionist Republicans voted out of office in November.
Miss Bianca
o/t, but some insect content: watching my Lefty Kitty patiently stalking flies is giving me great hope that she will be a Mighty Huntress. Which is good, because her and Pancho’s raison d’etre as Store Kitties is hunting mice.
Oh, and speaking of mice…I have pack rats decorating the engine block in my car with bits of greenery, wood, and pieces of dried dog turd – if I weren’t so annoyed about the pee and shit pellets they leave *in* my car, I’d be more inclined to admire their handiwork (pawdiwork?). It’s kind of like some weird woodland shrine.
Oh, and fuck Zika. And fuck Republicans who want to do shit-all to help their constituents deal with it. I hope HRC and Murphy, et al. make a big deal out of that in ad campaigns down in FL.
maya
Surprised that Trump hasn’t branded the Zika mosque-etos as one more mooslim threat to the good, white retired peoples republic of Floridia.
danielx
Is there, like, Raid for trolls?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Anyway, that’s what has me pissed off today. You?
Turned on MSNBC too see they’re still talking about the emails.
And Howard Dean (of whom I am not the biggest fan) asks anchor-bot the question I’ve been waiting for: What do you want to hear? Her response: Republicans find her answers unsatisfying. Beam me the fuck up.
SuzieC
And Trump surrogate Scottie Hughes explains that banning abortions for pregnant women with Zika is totally OK because birth defects are”nothing new.”
rawstory.com/2016/08/trump-surrogate-scottie-nell-hughes-ban-abortion-for-zika-because-birth-defects…
Amir Khalid
@shomi:
What!? Haven’t you sent John Cole those all-caps emails yet? You really need to, you know, because then he’ll fix everything for you.
cmorenc
The GOP attaches unrelated bill-killing riders to everything because their hard-core membership and indeed leadership have come to reject the legitimacy of the entire progressive-inspired institutions of government, legislation, and even constitutional authority that have evolved ever since the New Deal in the 1930s. And that long-term objective to them is more important than addressing any immediate domestic need. That’s a key factor behind their stubborn blockade of any further SCOTUS or other federal court nominations by Obama – because they realize that unless they do so, the possibility that SCOTUS will continue the inexorable piecemeal dismantlement and de-legitimization of the legal foundations for progressive government, will be lost for a couple of decades at least, instead of being much further along as they would if control in a bare 5-member majority on SCOTUS could continue.
danielx
@Miss Bianca:
Missed responding last week – was in Winter Park, about 9400 ft where I was. Gorgeous.
shomi
@danielx: I notice that people on here don’t threatening to add other people to their pie filter anymore. Like that was the ultimate weapon sure showed them haha. Always got a kick out of those delicate flower pie people.
Mathguy
@shomi: Please do go fornicate with yourself.
germy
RawStory headline:
Nicole
I have a friend I’ve known for 30+ years who lives in Orlando (since we were both 10). She’s on permanent disability and content to live off the government (she was capable of doing medical billing type work years ago, but those jobs are no longer around in her area). She’s very religious and actively dislikes Hillary Clinton because reasons and thinks that 4 years of Donald Trump would be a “wild ride, in a good way.” I’ve tried talking to her about what will happen if the GOP gets control of three branches of government (specifically, privatizing Social Security and what that will mean to the Disability Fund’s future) and then she complains she doesn’t want to talk about politics. Today I told her I needed a six-week break from emailing her (she’s doesn’t have much of a social life, so emailing her few friends is her main contact with the world). I feel bad, as I know she has mental illness, and few people in her life, but the cognitive dissonance from her and very right-wing parents (who spent their working years as employees of the US Postal Service and are now retired on government pensions) just has worn me down. Ugh.
On the bright side, Equestrian Events are on right now, and it’s great fun to watch one of the only two truly coed events in the Olympics (sailing is the other).
schrodinger's cat
@maya: R Congress critters want to make it the Ebola of this election season, that’s why they are doing diddly squat about it.
Miss Bianca
@danielx: Oh, so you were up by Grand Lake? In Grand County, anyway. It’s been a long time since I was up that way. There are so many pockets and crannies in CO that it would take a lifetime to visit them all. Glad your trip was so nice!
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I wish they’d spend as much time asking Republicans, why they can’t pass a clean Zika funding Bill. ANd not settle for the Republican talking point of “we’ve passed Zika funding bills, but Democrats keep objecting”, without any critical pushback on the bullshit riders Republicans know are poison pills.
nonynony
@shomi: I also find pie to be quite tasty!
bystander
All repubs are annoying me today, as is auto-correct.
FlyingToaster
@shomi: This is what you said:
We’re not necessarily delicate, just tired of your rhubarb.
danielx
@Miss Bianca:
Was fantastic, except I felt like I needed an oxygen bottle sometimes. I’m a flat lander.
SiubhanDuinne
@shomi:
It is worrying and, really, quite heartbreaking for me to realize that you are being forced at the point of a knife or the barrel of a gun to come here and read Balloon Juice every day — gosh, sometimes several times a day!
Heartbreaking, I tell you. ? ? ? ? ?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
In schadenfreude today, I’m sure he had Daddy’s approval, but I find it hilarious that the current hope of the Bush family endorsed the man who spent several months pantsing his father. I wonder if any of the Mittlets will do so in their quest to become “the Mormon Kennedys”
also, I am perhaps too invested in politics and political media that I count this as good news
provocative
Miss Bianca
@Nicole: Yay for sailing and equestrian events – how is it that the only two co-ed events in the Olympics are the only two I ever spent any appreciable time in my otherwise misspent youth trying to master? ; )
I hear you about your friend. Has cognitive dissonance just got worse in this country over the years, or is it my imagination? Every time I try to engage my crazy friends and family on the logic of their political positions – whether they’re on the left or the right – I start hearing in my head the words of one John Cole, addressing one of our twittier trolls: “JESUS CHRIST IT’S LIKE TALKING TO A WALL. A WALL THAT TALKS BACK GIBBERISH”.
I am so stealing that line, and hoarding it forever.
schrodinger's cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Howard Kurtz should join him. Since when is peddling the Republican CW provocative?
FlyingToaster
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s unlikely that any of them can find an open office to buy. That’s how Mitt got in.
trollhattan
@shomi:
Fxd to reflect pathetic reality.
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This is the son who doesn’t use the Hispanic middle name he got from his mother’s side of the family, right?
ETA: And he’s using the “loyal Republican” justification to endorse Trump.
Miss Bianca
@danielx: 9400 feet is way up there for a flat-lander. Not surprising you should feel the effects!
schrodinger's cat
@Miss Bianca: I finally got tired of “independent” friend’s denial and asked her point blank, how come all her stances support the Republican POV if she is “independent”.
Crickets.
Mike E
@Mathguy: But but, there might not be enough room behind the shomi woodshed to do this safely! He oughta be careful and measure twice before he goes to fuck himself…CBS cares
jnfr
I thank cleek for the pie filter every day!
hovercraft
As I’ve said before, Rubio is trying to make a play for Rafael Ted Cruz’s base. A large part of his weakness this year was his lack of an in into the base. By being this extreme, he hopes to get an in with the evangelicals. This is just a continuation of Rubio’s shameless, he is not concerned with the damage is potentially causing to people lives. These children will have incredibly difficult lives, and the strain they out on families is incalculable, not just financially, but also emotionally to parents, siblings and the extended family. He is a monster. People who choose to bear a child knowing what they will be facing are made of stern stuff and should be commended, but they should have a choice, many know they cannot do it, and that’s okay too.
It’s funny how the medias republican golden boys and girls are the scum of the earth, with absolutely no sense of compassion, and yet are lauded by the media as principled conservatives. Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio are scum, whose policies are actively destroying lives.
bobbo
So Scott is doing a fantastic job on “the Zika.” I bet Trump calls it “the AIDS” too.
Patricia Kayden
The last time I checked, abortion was legal and constitutional in these United States so Rubio can bugger off.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
These fucking assholes need a good old beat down, from the presidency all the way down to every god damned town council seat in the country. These people are going to turn this country into a hellhole if we don’t stop them.
Patricia Kayden
@bobbo: The Blacks, The Gays, The Mexicans, The Muslims. It’s just the way Trump rolls.
@shomi: What is “Ball Juice”? Is typing the “oon” so difficult for you?
MattF
@hovercraft: And just think how the media would be slobbering over Rubio if he’d been the nominee.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Fuck Zika and Voldemort and Rubio and all those other GOP motherfuckers who want to legislate ob/gyn practice. With heavily oxidized sharp objects that have been heated to a red glow prior to insertion.
@Miss Bianca: Tell Lefty and her brother Pancho howdy from Auntie Bella Q! Epsom salts are your friend, my friend.
I know I should pay attention to Rio and see how Beezie and McClain do (I still hate his old man). I don’t know Kent Farrington except to nod at. I have worked a couple of events with Guilherme Jorge, and a good pal was a designer at Beijing.
Enough showing off on my part. If you have arnica gel, apply it. And Epsom salt soaks will help. Feel better and don’t forget to tell P&L howdy.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
And what’s with the ignorant twatwaffle? Is this the best troll Trump’s campaign can afford? Sad.
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Unfortunately for America, Michigan is within satellite range, we will probably still have to endure his opining about the failures of the democrats to placate republicans sufficiently to coax them into letting the democrats adopt republican ideas. Bipartisanship is achieved when the democrats capitulate.
F**k Fournier.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I mean, shit, when Romney was buying trolls, we had some who could at least get a rise out of some of us. This is just pitiful. It’s like Trump can’t even reach down to a good Class AAA farm team for his trolls. This shit is straight from the Class D team.
Betty Cracker
@hovercraft: True. I’m hoping Patrick Murphy makes the most of this issue and uses it to kick Rubio out of the US Senate. Murphy is already running a pretty devastating ad down here about Rubio’s no-show senate performance and presidential show-boating. With any luck, the Trump campaign will completely implode and the resulting Democratic wave will wash Rubio and many other worthless Republicans out of office.
Patricia Kayden
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): LOL! Right to Rise, srv, etc. Poor thangs. It must be hard when you see your man going down so hard at the hands of a woman. By election day, they’ll be reduced to squeaks and growls.
Mike E
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): The whining sounds all the same tho. Poor babies :-(
Patricia Kayden
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): By the time we get to November, the trolls will be reduced to groans and squeaks as they watch their man continue to spiral downwards. Should be fun.
Nicole
@Miss Bianca: I don’t know, but it does seem worse this election. I have some left-wing friends who have been just as bananas (although I at least give them credit that the issues they’re being nuts about are at least connected to improving human welfare, rather than actively seeking to make poor folks’ lives even tougher).
What I’m so tired of is the “we have to blow the system up because things haven’t gotten better in over 30 years!” which is a complaint I hear, exclusively, from white heterosexual men. I’m a 40+ woman. Things are better than they were when I was born. Hell, my mom couldn’t have a credit card in her own name when I was born.
Lurking Canadian
@Nicole: Do they not have co-Ed pistol shooting and archery anymore?
Miss Bianca
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Hey, girl! I’ll give P & L your regards.
Yeah, epsom salts I got – the arnica gel I’ll be getting today! I’m actually doing way better today than I was expecting – just limping a little, and some muscle twinges. Even my scrapes and bruises are pretty minimal!
Comrade Scrutinizer
@shomi: You really suck at this, you know? You need to get lessons from Kwame. or RtR, or if you can dig him up, BoB. As it is you’re not worth the keystrokes needed to add you to the pie filter.
Up your game!
Major Major Major Major
Man, why did it take me so long to pie shomi?
Hal
@Patricia Kayden:
Also a reminder of why the next 1 or 2 Supreme Court nominations are so important. The court just dealt a major set back to abortion opponents, and that very well may not have happened with Scalia still around, and could certainly be undone by a Trump presidency.
MattF
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Putin has decided to cut back the troll budget.
NorthLeft12
Yes, the Republicans are once again fulfilling their prime objective of making sure that the government is a complete failure at dealing with anything relating to the health, welfare, and general happiness of the great bulk of the US public.
Watch how fast those d–bags jump if there is a military action or agricultural handout discussed.
scav
@Major Major Major Major: constant low grade static can take a long time to register as something capable of being filtered.
Miss Bianca
@Nicole: “What I’m so tired of is the “we have to blow the system up because things haven’t gotten better in over 30 years!” which is a complaint I hear, exclusively, from white heterosexual men.”
White Wingers. I’m telling you, they’re a constituency all on their own. Regardless of whether they dress left or right, it’s all about how their white balls just aren’t enough to guarantee their social and economic supremacy any more. Left-wing white guys are, if anything, even worse than right-wingers in this regard, because they refuse – REFUSE – to make even a pretense of acknowledging their own racism and sexism. In other words, they add the sin of hypocrisy to the sin of unexamined white supremacy. I’ve become very disllusioned with white-winger lefty guys, can you tell? ; )
NorthLeft12
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Provacative. I don’t think that word means what Mr. Kurtz thinks it means.
I can think of a few better descriptors; repetitive, dim witted, ignorant, self serving, tiresome, moronic, etc.
PsiFighter37
Trump reading off a TelePrompTer for his speech. Low energy – sad! He has already been interrupted by protesters three times.
greennotGreen
I understand that there are people who believe that life begins at conception, that the soul enters the body at that time – a completely unprovable metaphysical point of view. I can respect their position. However, our system of government isn’t based on unprovable metaphysical concepts. So what we’re left with is someone telling a pregnant woman and her partner that they should give up their emotional well-being, the welfare of any other children, and their financial and possibly professional status to minister to a gravely ill and probably dying child. And since that holier than thou person making that judgement is probably a Republican, he or she also belongs to a party which did not fund Zika prevention, wants to limit people’s access to affordable health insurance, and sure as hell isn’t going to come up with extra funds to help the families struggling with the results of Republican inaction and/or meddling.
Speaking of hell, those busy-bodies can go there.
D58826
@dedc79: A shame someone didn’t think to release Zika infected flies into the RNC convention a few weeks back. What’s good for the goose…….
nutella
@Nicole:
Why is it so common that people who have lived off the federal government their whole lives want to cut the federal budget? I’ve noticed this with government contractors and retired military and you’re seeing it with retired post office employees and an SSI recipient. Do they think if they win politically and shrink the federal budget that their own incomes will be carefully preserved while everyone else’s are cut?
Major Major Major Major
@scav: Well played.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Miss Bianca: I think we all are. I considered myself such, a long time ago, before realizing that most of my compatriots were doing nothing but smoking dope, living off their parents, yelling about “unjust laws” that wouldn’t let them go “sticking it to the man” by calling nice women bitches.
PsiFighter37
Trump got booed for proposing eliminating carried interest. Doesn’t know his crowd, apparently…
PsiFighter37
And got booed for saying many Americans will pay no taxes. It has to be upside-down world for these conservative hobnobs.
Adam L Silverman
This is on an Amazon daily deal today:
amazon.com/Repel-Insect-Repellent-Single-Bottle/dp/B004H89KFC?ie=UTF8&SubscriptionId=AKIAJ7T5BO…
Supposedly scent free and 98% DEET, which is a lot of DEET!
NorthLeft12
@Miss Bianca: Yes, discussing issues with those people is a waste of time. My strategy is listen to what they say, quickly tell them why what they are saying is wrong/ignorant/offensive/bigoted and then quickly change the subject. If they try to return to the previous subject I tell them that they have nothing to say on the topic that interests me at all. THE END.
My father has recently turned even further to the dark side of conservatism. He rails on about how awful the refugees are, why aboriginals are discriminated against, atheists or lapsed Catholics, and how Canada is being taken advantage of by other countries. This from a WW2 refugee [Poland] with an aboriginal son-in-law [the only aboriginal he knows] and who no longer goes to church. I can’t talk to him anymore.
PsiFighter37
This is entertaining – Trump is getting flustered by the boos. I wish I could see what the crowd was doing. He’s now quoting an article from the NY Post. Lulz.
OzarkHillbilly
@nutella: Yes.
MattF
I know, “Trump told a lie” isn’t news, but this business about Hilz raising/not raising taxes on the middle class has been rattling around for a few days now and it’s really irritating. It’s just a flat-out lie. She didn’t say it.
Lurking Canadian
@nutella: Yes, that is what they think. Actually I would go farther. It’s more like: “If you’d only cut out the wastefraudabuse there’d be more pie left for the people who really deserve it, like me”.
cf. Keep the government’s hands off my Medicare!
burnspbesq
Ibby lost in the round of 16 in the women’s individual saber event. Expecting a Trump tweet celebrating her loss any time now. Trump is even more of a dick than shomi.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@nutella: I’ve worked with these people for almost 14 years now. Defense contractor. 14 years of holding my tongue and keeping from exploding in absolute rage at the idiocy of most of my co-workers.
Because this is exactly what they think. Word for word. They thought sequester meant everyone else got shut down. I got to man the phones during that stupidity, explaining to people that no, they would not be able to come into work and that there was no overhead charge code they’d be able to use, PTO or nothing. They didn’t curse me. They cursed Obama. You can’t help these people so don’t even try.
Origuy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I commented on Gawker that this is like during the Wars of the Roses or the other medieval squabbles when a noble family would send one son to fight with the Yorkists and one to fight with the Lancastrians. Whichever side wins, there will be someone to hold onto the property and titles.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health posted a poll result on their Facebook page — seems the majority of Americans are okay with late-term abortion if the Zika virus harms the fetus .
So in other words, the majority of Americans are okay with late-term abortion, period. Women usually have late-term abortions because of severe, often fatal complications/deformities — not because their BFF’s beach party is on their due date and they really wanna go. I wish someone in the media would jump on that, but I doubt anyone will.
Also too: in an alternate universe where I condone violence, may someone hack off Marco Rubio’s head and fuck him right in the neckhole. In this universe, I just want to see him humiliated on Election Day, then watch him go broke because in order to
bribebankroll a Senator, thebribeebankrollee has to, you know, be a Senator.chopper
@shomi:
jesus, son, you’ve been phoning this bullshit in for years now. shoulda quit while you weren’t so far behind.
Mike J
@Nicole:
Only the Nacra 17 (a cat) has mixed crews. In most of the women’s events they’re racing in slightly different boats due to the body weight differences. For instance the 49erFX is designed with a crew weight of 120kg in mind, as compared to the 150kg for the traditional 49er.
Men’s RS:X (a windsurfer) is on now, women’s Laser Radial follows.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Ha – I’ll see you and raise you: Acme Bug Sprayer on eBay!
Adam L Silverman
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I was a non-essential employee of the week back in 2013… Actually, I was listed as emergency essential. The other thing most don’t realize is that the contractors still get paid – as in the companies, because of how Federal contracting is structured. So a shutdown actually costs money because even if you stand down the non-essential contractors, the companies still get paid.
Brachiator
@SuzieC:
WTF? Time to send a contribution to Planned Parenthood and to the Clinton campaign.
I can’t believe this kind of idiocy. No, wait. I can. It’s the GOP.
gindy51
@Nicole: My mom had to quit her job when she got married, THAT’S how bad it used to be (`950’s).
Seanly
Expect more news items like the familicide in PA over the weekend. Tragedies like this highlight how broken our entire healthcare system is (and by extension, how broken just all of capitalism).
Maybe after a couple of years of horrible stories out of S America and Florida about the costs and emotional toll then we can see some positive changes in accepting family planning and abortion.
burnspbesq
@MattF:
The Clinton health crisis shit may be even worse. When you Google something, and the first three hits are RT, Inquisitr, and Breitbart, it’s a pretty good bet that there are lies afoot.
Corner Stone
This is one of the most boring speeches I have tried to sit through. He is an awful prompter reader. And just stalling out with this audience. Sad!
burnspbesq
@Adam L Silverman:
I was essential in the 1995 shutdown. Spooky being one of 30 people in a 400,000 square foot building.
Cheryl from Maryland
@burnspbesq: I managed to find it on live feed — She was great, but the French fencer was strategically better and deserved the win. Amazed how good the commentators were pointing out Ms. Muhammed’s strengths on the riposte and how she scored more points when she kept her distance.
MattF
@burnspbesq: There’s a real possibility that Trump and his assorted RWNJ fans are drifting off into a twilight realm of lies and half-truths, where you have to be an attentive believer to have any idea what they’re talking about. Similar to RW radio.
Frankensteinbeck
@PsiFighter37:
This is every time he tries to pivot. He’ll make a dull speech, Hillary or her friends will lob a few zingers at him, and he’ll go back to screeching lunacy and take over the news cycle so everyone hears how stupid his latest positions are.
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
This is how Kentuckians voted against the Medicare that was keeping them alive. One of the major arguments of the racist belief system is that the Other are lazy moochers, and all economic problems are caused by the drain those moochers put on the system. If you cut the money government spends helping people, virtuous people will win. The moral argument is clear. If they do not win, it is the fault of the people who did not want to cut that spending, because the only way virtuous people wouldn’t win is if the moochers have someone in power helping them rig the system. It is downright Underpants Gnomes logic, but they believe it utterly because it justifies their hate.
Patricia Kayden
@jnfr: Is the pie filter something real or are you guys just joking around? I really cannot tell. On Discus, there is a way to block annoying trolls but the format for comments on BJ doesn’t appear to allow for blocking anyone.
gex
@Miss Bianca: Seconding everything in this comment. Hypocrisy and condescension don’t really improve the racism and misogyny, despite the lip service to social justice.
Brachiator
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
Also, the state level conservative strategy is to make it as difficult as possible for a woman to obtain an abortion early, and then use legal prohibition against late term abortion as a last resort.
MattF
@Patricia Kayden: The pie filter is a real thing, maintained by Cleek.
JustRuss
@greennotGreen: Well yeah, but I hear Scott and Rubio might be willing to fund extra bootstraps for Zika babies, so it’s all good.
Major Major Major Major
@Patricia Kayden: @MattF: I use Troll-B-Gone.
Miss Bianca
Today’s Darwin Award first runner-up: Tory MP lights garden bonfire with gasoline. Lives to tell the cautionary tale: Don’t Do That.
What was the bromide about not all conservatives being stupid people, but most stupid people being conservatives…?
La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes)
@PsiFighter37: Oops- I think he just went off message, talking about the “rigged” system.
MikeTheZ
Sheesh, reading the Guardian’s live blog of the Trump speech, and it reads like Voodoo Economics greatest hits.
OzarkHillbilly
@Major Major Major Major: Now where’s the fun in that?
Helen
Oh God. Trump just said “titties” instead of “cities” and it’s going viral. I CAN’T STOP LAUGHING. Am I secretly a 12 year old boy?
MattF
@Miss Bianca: Note that the link has an ‘after’ picture of the MP. Not pretty.
La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes)
Uh oh, this is starting to sound more and more fascist.
D58826
@nutella: Yep. I have three retired military in my family and all complain about taxes, and the government taking their hard earned money (which I don’t doubt it was) to give to an undeserving someone else. Well my money is just as hard earned and I’ve been supporting these folks all of my life.
And when I go on SSI, I will be duly appreciative of all the folks who are contributing to the fund as well as all of the folks in years passed that helped give me a good education.
Villago Delenda Est
@bobbo: Scott’s doing the terrific job he’s been doing with the Okeechobee watershed; insisted that Florida could manage it with minimal Fed oversight, proceeds to allow polluted industrial and agricultural runoff into it (which the Feds had been preventing), giant algae blooms result, and now he’s looking for a Fed bailout of his own fuckup.
Woodrowfan
@Miss Bianca:
John Stuart Mill, 1866..
La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes)
@Helen: I missed that!
Major Major Major Major
@OzarkHillbilly: I’ll have slightly less fun, but for far, far longer, if my blood pressure stays low.
Villago Delenda Est
@D58826: ANYONE getting ANY check from the Feds should STFU about this. Self awareness is not just for the “others” out there.
Miss Bianca
@MattF: I did note that. I just found it incredible that any guy over the age of 12 would actually be stupid enough to use gasoline to start a fire.
Well, except for Trump, perhaps…
@Woodrowfan: Ah, I knew someone would be able to lay hands on the exact quote!
Adam L Silverman
@burnspbesq: The worst part of the 2013 one, from where I was sitting, was the effect it had on the civil servants among the students. They are, for all intents and purposes, on 90 day exception to policy, rolling temporary duty orders. When the shutdown went into effect they were all told to return home. They were also told that once the exception to policy was cancelled it might not be reinstated. Absolute mess. Many were worried this was going to end their careers because most of them were no longer in the assignments they had previously been in as they were supposed to go to new, more senior assignments once they graduated. It fortunately all got worked out, but it was very uncomfortable for some folks for a while.
Helen
@La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes): Go to Daniel Dale’s Twitter. @ddale8. He’s got the clip of it up.
Eric U.
@schrodinger’s cat: if someone tells me that they are an independent, I just tell them that’s what people call themselves when they are embarrassed to call themselves a Republican
@D58826:my worst wingnut relatives are living off of a military pension. If I ever decide to go nuclear on their FB, I’m going to tell them they should cut retirement benefits and my taxes at the same time
Woodrowfan
@Miss Bianca:
Trump got 13.3 million primary votes.
Poopman
@Helen:
Both you and Donald Trump, apparently.
Hey, maybe he’s the real-life version of “Big”.
Mike in NC
Should have added: “Maybe or maybe not. But we’re going to look into it, believe you me!”
The guy speaks like he has a mental impairment of some kind. Repeating himself over and over. Sad.
MattF
@Miss Bianca: Someone should start a rumor about the benefits of sticking your fingers into electrical sockets.
chopper
@shomi:
you’re not even worth the trouble, honestly.
Patricia Kayden
@MattF: @Major Major Major Major: Okay. Thanks. Thought this was some insider BJ joke.
@PsiFighter37: But but but I thought President Obama reading from a teleprompter (which he rarely ever does) was a huuuuge problem with the Rightwingers.
Fair Economist
@Miss Bianca:
Unsurprisingly, he was pro-Brexit.
Poopyman
“Poopman”???
Damned “y” key ….
(Yeah, no, there’s no new commenter named Poopman, although a comment is in moderation.)
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: The issue with Zika, and most other severe birth defects, is that they don’t show up on the pre-natal screening until 24 weeks or later. So by outlawing abortions after 24 weeks (late term abortion), you force the mother to carry a child to term that is going to have serious to fatal health challenges, a family to commit to tremendously expensive health care, and an often painful and miserable existence for the child once born. There is nothing noble in this. This isn’t empowerment and betterment through suffering. This is simple cruelty for the sake of the raw exercise of power.
Poopyman
@MattF: It tastes delicious!
Brachiator
@Helen:
Did he really? Oh, my!
Must have been a brain short circuit. We need to see his neurological analysis, and his tax returns.
catclub
@Seanly: OTOH, go read the post at WaMonthly that the kids are ok (actually great, and getting even better), but the white middle aged are getting worse while everybody else gets better. There was one statistic that teenagers’ death rates were lower than those middle aged whites due to guns drugs and crime. Wow.
I thought about lead and Kevin Drum a LOT.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Isn’t “Detroit business” an oxymoron these days?
Mike J
Trying to watch sailing on NBC on Roku. They’re showing a beach and saying the race has been delayed. Meanwhile on twitter, the US Sailing Team tells me they’re on the second beat to windward and the American is stuck in 12th looking for a clean lane on the right.
NBC is fucking useless.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Adorable antidote for what angers you.
Corner Stone
This Senior Trump Economic Advisor on CNN just said if you cut taxes for business they will invest more in the country. Has this buffoon not seen any of the cash on hand reporting the MNC’s are currently not investing?
OzarkHillbilly
@Major Major Major Major: Ah, reaching for the dull boring long life. I like to be able to laugh at their idiocy w/o partaking of it.
Adam L Silverman
@Helen: Don’t laugh. I once did that in a lecture to my State and Local Politics class at UF. I was supposed to say cities and towns and I kicked the first letter of each and said tities and cowns. I didn’t notice it till I saw all my students trying not to laugh, asked what was so funny, and my TA came over and explained it. I then busted a gut and we moved on.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: What you are describing is not new: deliberate blindness to the realities of late-term abortion – the realities of why women seek them – has always been a feature, not a bug, of opposition to it. If pregnancy is the “natural” punishment for Sluts Having Sex, then forcing said sluts – even respectably-married sluts – to bear children with birth defects is just value-added punishment.
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: You can’t argue dogma with a fanatic.
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: Did you describe them bigly? I give credit to those who can watch Trump.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: And who decided that rugby matches are 14 minutes long?
Villago Delenda Est
@Corner Stone: The stupid of the “senior” Drumpf advisor. It BURNS.
I trust GS-4s to be better investors in America than most CEOs, who are looking to hire more hookers and snort more blow with their tax cuts.
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: I saw that too–what I can’t square it with is all the discussion of what’s causing the long-term drop in workforce participation rate. If you look at that, it looks like the job market is actually all right for older people (even though the whole population is aging into retired brackets, which is causing a lot of the drop), but young people are just getting crushed. So you’d expect all the big social pathologies to be happening among the young, but they’re not.
Mike J
@Adam L Silverman: One of my favorite books is A Sale of Two Titties.
Miss Bianca
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: aw, that is really cute. Almost makes me root for Amazon!
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: I am aware. Most Americans not so much.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: I didn’t watch him today and I didn’t describe them at all. I was explaining municipalities that day and just reversed the first letter of each word.
Brachiator
@Eric U.:
This simply is not true, especially in California. And here, independents will vote for a Democrat more often than for a Republican. But independents are not happy with either party.
Bg
Rick Scott cut mosquito control & research funding 40% in 2011 or so.
Now he’s playing games w/ the CDC. They were begging him to invite them in.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: Also, one of my favorite seasonal sales too! In Florida there’s usually a tax holiday for it.
Mnemosyne
@Nicole:
I was surprised this morning to see that my retired cop cousin is telling people in red and purple states to vote for Hillary. Right now, he says he’s going to vote for Johnson in safely blue IL, but if Trump keeps on a-Trumping, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him go full metal Hillary by November.
So miracles can and do happen.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
There’s that number again…
Carol
Heard an interview with a trump voter this morning on my local public radio show. When ask why she supported He, the first response was his business experience and then she said: He knows what he doesn’t know and will use experts to advise him.
My question to you all: are the “liberal” media not reporting this side of He, or is this woman delusional?
OzarkHillbilly
@Miss Bianca:
Many years ago 2 Boy Scout troops were feuding at Philmont Scout Ranch. One day when the wind was just right, one troop decided to set fire to an outhouse and smoke the other troop out. They poured gasoline into the outhouse and… Oooopps, nobody had a match. Somebody quickly procured one and lit it and…
Needless to say, everyone knew who the guilty parties were.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: My uncle was instrumental in starting Philmont.
Major Major Major Major
@OzarkHillbilly: But the cumulative amount of amusement is much higher.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: I know. Just had one too many of those conversations with women looking for clinics that did late-term procedures. And the situation has only gotten worse for them since then.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
LOL
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: Is it still true? I had done a survey of big MNCs about 4 years ago and they were sitting on huge cash reserves. Deficit spending is what the economy needs right now not tax cuts. With interests rates close to zero, there is not much you can do with monetary policy. Deficit spending for rebuilding the infrastructure for the 20th century is what we need.
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
IIRC, the teleprompter accusation was originally thrown by liberals against George W. Bush, on account of the plainly obvious fact that the man did sound like a complete peckerhead when discussing serious issues without his teleprompter. Republicans then threw the same accusation at Obama in order to “get even” with us for how we disrespected Bush, and considered it a sign of bias when we pointed out that Obama can, in fact, speak plainly without a teleprompter. Now that Trump’s doing it, it’s okay again.
Poopyman
@OzarkHillbilly:
… And now they work at the Jet Propulsion Lab.
Calming Influence
@shomi: I agree. And I think it’s a massive case of journalistic malpractice that every major news outlet in the world that speculated on the impact of the zika virus during the Olympics didn’t list “Ball Juice” as their source.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodinger’s cat: They’re still sitting on YUUUGE cash reserves and we still need lots of deficit spending.
Matt McIrvin
@Eric U.: The “independents” I know in Massachusetts are comfortably-well-off white people who put themselves in the old “socially liberal/fiscally conservative” category. These days, they vote Democratic more often than not in national races, because they think national Republicans are crazy, but they might well have voted for Charlie Baker. They listen to NPR a lot.
bemused
@Corner Stone:
His audience comes for cage fighting, not boring policy talk that would affect them.
patroclus
@raven: Philmont is fantastic – I went there probably a dozen times (3 regular treks, 2 Mountain Men, Camp Urraca, various trips with my Dad while he was at PTC, I even stayed in the Phillips mansion once on the way to a skiing trip). My first visit was during the administration of the Great LBJ! I haven’t been there recently, but I heard there are no bears and you can’t start fires either, so it’s changed. Thank your uncle for me!
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
People like Rubio could be expressing deeply held beliefs. They are still wrong.
It’s funny. I don’t think that anyone asked Rubio what he thought. He jumped in with his opinion. This of course brings up the Supreme Court, and the conservative panic over what kind of justices Clinton might nominate. But this also makes clear to fence sitters why Clinton must win.
chopper
@Mike J:
ah, good old Edmund Wells.
Nicole
@Mnemosyne: That’s really reassuring. I got into a FB argument with my aunt-in-law, who spent the spring railing about how terrible Donald Trump was, and the GOP could do better, and now is spending the summer justifying to her FB friends why she’s going to vote for him. Her son, thankfully, is surprisingly liberal for a lifelong Oklahoman (and for being her son) and lovingly but firmly jumped into the fray. At least in that case, I think there was some common ground found, though I did get really irritated when she complained about feeling attacked. That’s the thing that makes me crazy about so many conservatives- they are SOOOOO thin-skinned. Point out a fact, an actual, incontrovertible fact, and they claim it’s a personal attack. Sigh.
catclub
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yes.
Miss Bianca
@OzarkHillbilly: Great gasbags! I hope no one suffered any permanent injuries from that stunt!
Ultraviolet Thunder
Travel update: I made it out of DTW and now I’m stuck in SLC, my flight to San Jose (CA) having been canceled. I’m rebooked with no guaranteed seat, so who knows.
I should be working on customer emails but I’m going to blow that off and horse around instead.
Zika funding is a dangerous issue for the GOP once people discover that it’s here to stay unless we do a LOT to stop it.
Adam L Silverman
@Chris: The reason W sounded strange when trying to give a serious speech is that his Texas twang was a put on. He lost his first campaign in Texas, for the House of Representatives. This was partially blamed on sounding like some upper class nob from New England. When he ran for governor, his second campaign, that accent was gone. Instead it was replaced with a twang and lots of cowboy aphorisms and boots etc. If you watch him whenever he has to focus on something and speak he can’t do that and maintain the twang. And as a result his tongue trips him up.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Good for him. It is a thoroughly cool adventure for young testosterone poisoned men.
catclub
@Matt McIrvin: Thus my bringing up lead.
Major Major Major Major
@Matt McIrvin: I feel like the GOP would be winning a lot of those voters (similar situation with many Asian-Americans IMO) if they weren’t completely batshit insane fascist sexist racist homophobic nutjobs who want you to die if you get sick. And they used to!
I know that they were always the party of completely batshit insane fascist sexist racist homophobic nutjobs who want you to die if you get sick, but they weren’t always so loud about it, right? They supported some form of social insurance, stimulus, amnesty and so forth, realpolitik, or at least their politicians did.
Eric U.
@Brachiator: I want to hear them deny it
Major Major Major Major
@catclub: The lead thing is a good theory, and also squares nicely with the decline of the Flynn Effect, but I’m certainly open to other possibilities, given that the science isn’t really there yet.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
Trump call for nuclear sterilization of the Zika infected parts of Florida yet? After all, why make nuclear weapons if we don’t use them.
OzarkHillbilly
@Miss Bianca: Just great stinky embarrassment.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
Can’t say I blame him — I would do the same, if my middle name were PinchePendejo, which is what I’ve been told the “P” stands for.
Mike J
@Ultraviolet Thunder: I always prefer to go into San Jose when going to Silicon Valley, but did they look at SFO?
Nicole
@Lurking Canadian: Neither is coed. Weird, right? I wonder why not.
I mean, you’ve got mixed-sex badminton, but I don’t think that counts because it’s required one man and one woman on each team, while equestrian is just whoever the best is, male or female (whether human or horse). Some older athletes in it, too- one of the American riders is in his 50s, I think, and the horses range from 8 to about 18 years old, which covers early-to-very-late middle age in horse years. Flat racing (the Kentucky Derby, the Breeders Cup Classic, etc.) is basically the equestrian version of women’s gymnastics and figure skaing- it belongs to the young.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bg: Rick Scott fucks up, and expects the rest of the country to bail him out.
J R in WV
@shomi:
I prefer pecan pie myself, with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream, which cuts the richness of the well made pecan pie. I personally use maple syrup instead of Karo corn syrup, because corn syrup? instead of maple syrup! Amazing good. Try it some time.
The Other Chuck
@shomi: No one wants you here, you worthless little shitstain.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Brachiator:
I wonder what it means to be happy with a political party. I’ve never been happy with the Democratic Party but have never considered voting for anyone else. I doubt any party could make me happy all the time. They’re coalitions, and as such contain a lot of people that I disagree with. Big tent, but I’d rather be inside than take my principles and go stand alone in the rain.
gex
@Nicole: Especially since a lot of what they say are things like black people are lazy, gays prey on kids, Mexicans are rapists, and women want to kill babies. Those are not attacks at all, but reasonable civil discourse. Meanwhile disagreeing with that is an unwarranted attack.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
@srv:
That’s why President Trump is going to cut those leather ties and free America from being the perpetual gimp of Liberal edge play and bring the cleansing power of nuclear weapons to the Zika virus. Then, once those H bombs go off, Trump can look the voters in the eyes and tell they will have health care for the remainder of their lives.
2016 – One man, one vote, and that one man is Purtin and it will HUGE!
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Brachiator: The hell it’s not. Lifetime citizen of the Golden State here. I’m 49. I have never heard anyone in this state describe themselves as an “independent” who wasn’t a stone-cold pot-smoking Republican.
Your various branches of liberal: Green, Peace and Freedom, Commie, Food not Bombs, the rest – not a one of them will have any hesitation what they are and why you should join, today if not sooner.
“Independents” are CA Republicans who smoke pot, The End.
Brachiator
@Eric U.:
Deny what? The rise of independents in California is old news, as is their voting trends. Hell, this is one of the reasons why the Democrats let independents vote in their presidential primary while the Republicans prohibit it.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Mike J:
SFO not an option. I’d have to cancel and re-book to change destinations, and previous travelers would be ahead of me. I think. As it is if I stay with San Jose I have priority for a seat.
Plus I just hate the San Francisco airport. I’ll be working in Santa Clara and San Jose this week. I have a day of slack in my schedule so no harm done yet.
ETA: San Jose mission canceled, so just Santa Clara, then back to Detroit. Easy week.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Its the lead. There’s no plausible criminological explanation for the reduction in crime, deviance, and delinquency over that time period. And if its not solely the lead, then the removal of lead is a major contributing factor.
Major Major Major Major
@Nicole: A lot of the more vocally annoying Bernie folks are/were the same way, according to my anecdata. I’ve noticed it in myself, too, sometimes–usually when I interrogate that it turns out to be a deeply-held belief that isn’t based on any particularly good evidence that’s being questioned. Sometimes, this leads me to change my belief. But I have to take a step back from myself.
I suspect many people don’t do this last part.
@Adam L Silverman: Just because there isn’t any other theory doesn’t mean it has to be the current theory on offer. Since lead removal is an unalloyed good anyway, let’s keep doing that, and there’s no damage to be done in waiting to see if it might be something else before deciding it’s the lead and moving on.
Keith P.
@Bg: Didn’t they make fun of volcano research funding one year, only to have a volcano hit a few months later? Or maybe it was some other natural disaster.
Nicole
@gex: And in fact, what led to my being accused of “attack” was pointing out that our screening process for refugees is actually quite thorough and that most terrorist attempts are carried out by citizens, not immigrants or refugees.
Origuy
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Are you staying through the weekend? The San Jose Jazz Festival will be going on.
Major Major Major Major
@Nicole: The citizens are often the children of immigrants or refugees, though. 2nd-plus-generation radicalization/whatever is a real thing.
J R in WV
@Miss Bianca:
Good friend was an ER doc in Pueblo, at 5600 feet. One day a guy comes in, says he’s really ill, panting, can’t catch his breath! So Joe asks him what he’s been doing, the guy tells him he did his daily morning run, I forget, 5K or 5Miles. Something is bad wrong, he can’t catch his breath!!
So Joe asks him, where he’s from: Houston TX. Something’s wrong, I can’t catch my breath!!! Asks how long he’s been in Pueblo? Since yesterday evening.
Points out that patient is 5,572 feet higher than normal, and the atmosphere is 85% below where he is now… sit and breath for a while, we’ll monitor you and see if you aren’t OK in another 30 minutes or so. Teaches new arrival how to adjust to altitude, i.e. don’t run 5 K or miles at first.
Dr thought it was hilarious.
Betty Cracker
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Exactly.
Frankensteinbeck
@catclub: and @Matt McIrvin:
If I were an even politely bigoted American older than forty, I would be angry, depressed, and terrified right now. In the 80s they thought they’d fought and won. They’d put blacks and women back in their shell, relegated gays to the status of a joke, asserted the political power of fundamentalist Christianity, and were getting public tongue baths and could exercise all of this as respectable. To back it all up, they’d gotten their hate implanted as a really ugly strain of conformist toxic masculinity that took over adolescent male culture. Since then, everything has slowly crept back. They see mixed couples on TV, scary black people on the street constantly, gays being treated as normal, they don’t get respected for saying ‘Jesus’ anymore… their life has totally fallen out from under them. And then a black guy became president!
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Origuy:
Nope. I just have to install a machine and scram home. Lady Thunder’s birthday is this week so it would be bad form to hang around enjoying myself and leave her at home.
All the places I go, I never get to have any fun. San Jose does have really good sushi though.
Nicole
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah- I’ve had to confront a few deeply held beliefs that weren’t supported by data. It’s a very painful process. Sometimes I am more successful than others.
danielx
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
How dreadful. Whatever will the Village do without its foremost proponent of “Both Side Do It”?
Ne’er mind, they’ll have people lined up for the slot within a day.
Nicole
@Major Major Major Major: But those aren’t the folk Trump and the GOP are talking about. They’re targeting refugees and first generation immigrants. Probably because it’s much more difficult to discuss why young men who grow up in a culture end up feeling alienated from it. Because that implies there’s something the USA is doing wrong.
Mnemosyne
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I was “decline to state” back when I was young and stupid, but the 2000 election cured me of that right quick.
Corner Stone
@Brachiator:
It absolutely is true in Texas. Every single one of the self-described “Independents” will vociferously tell you they “Vote the man, not the party!”. Ok, when was the last D you voted for? :::crickets::: Ok, what do you think about (Insert issue X or Y or Z). Hmmm, that sure af does sound like a RWNJ to me, friend.
Joel
@Miss Bianca: You’re hardly the only one.
Miss Bianca
@Frankensteinbeck:
And what I can never get over – yes, yes, I know, “One Drop Rule”, and all, but still – is that “the black guy” is HALF WHITE. And not just any shade of white – that paler shade of white that comes from the heart of the heartland! Kansas White!
Corner Stone
@danielx:
I’m not believing this POS SOB is going anywhere for good until I see the wooden stake shoved through his “both sides” chest cavity.
Major Major Major Major
@Nicole: True. A more sophisticated person would debate that, and they do! In places like Germany. Where we do not live.
J R in WV
@Miss Bianca:
What happened? You fall down? I’m sad, but glad you’re already doin’ better!
At least you didn’t need a tetanus shot like John did, his leg looked like it was gonna be gorgeous in a day or two, like by now. I got a DTP vaccination, shingles, and prevnar 13 all three from the county Health Dept 2 or 3 months ago, very professional outfit.
Miss Bianca
@J R in WV: Took a tumble off a bolting horse yesterday. One of the occupational hazards of horse-play! Nah, no tetanus shots, just some scrubbing with soap and water and some triple antibiotic ointment necessary – and some salve for my wounded pride!
: )
Rand Careaga
We know that the GOP plays a long game. Could the party’s apparent indifference to the spread of Zika, and its hard line on abortion in Zika cases be part of a master plan to produce a generation of microcephalic, and hence reliably Republican, voters?
J R in WV
@shomi:
My second favorite baked dessert is Peach Kougan, which is a German/PensyDutch thing with a crumb crust, ripe peach halves with some sugar/cinnamon sprinkled on top baked at 450 for 20 minutes while you beat sour cream and egg yolks and a little sugar and cinnamon. Then you pour that over the warmed-up peaches and bake it until it doesn’t jiggle when you shake it. Brown a little. Let it cool, oh my!
You can only do it with ripe peaches, the best are from the mountains. This year they are huge, fat, ripe monsters.
J R in WV
@shomi:
Another 0 ah, hell, I quit.
Ben Cisco
@danielx: Tampermonkey and Balloon Juice Troll-B-Gone.
Kills them each time every time.
Uncle Cosmo
@srv: No one with an IQ > 80 gives a flying fuck about PETA’s position on insects, including you. Delete your life, shitstain..
Brachiator
@CONGRATULATIONS!: RE: This simply is not true, especially in California.
Hmmm. Maybe you have not talked to enough people. The facts are plainly obvious.
From a Washington Post story about independents, nationally:
And from a 2014 California Public Policy report:
J R in WV
@Patricia Kayden:
It’s real. Cleek invented the first version, just deletes the comments of trolls, then someone created a version that changes their comments to be about pie. ALL about pie, all kinds of pie.
I’ve never installed it, not even sure how to. If some brighter person would post a comment with a link AND directions for Firefox, that would be super kool!!
Shalimar
@srv: You read PETA’s website? I knew there were some very odd things about you, but damn…
Villago Delenda Est
@J R in WV: I never needed a doctor to figure that out, that my normal four mile run at near sea level at Fort Lewis would be a bit different when I was visiting friends in Denver.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: The differences between elections are largely meaningless if they’re not tracking the same voters. 2010 had different ‘independents’. As a rule, I think it’s around 90%, of ‘independents’ are reliable partisans.
Might be different out in CA. I know some ‘independents’ who would have been Republicans in the 1970s and would love to support not-Democrats (mostly because of public-sector unions) but, well, Republicans gonna Republican.
@J R in WV: All instructions at the source :)
Frankensteinbeck
@Miss Bianca:
You are probably right. That is not a part of their issues I fully understand, despite growing up surrounded by conservative race and gender attitudes. I do know that when they started seeing white pop idols in even hinted sexual relationships with black rappers in the late 90s and early 2000s, they felt like all popular culture suddenly and permanently descended into ‘dystopia’ status. They find mixed-race couples deeply disturbing, so a mixed-race president might well stick in their craw in a special way.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
That result tells me that there are multiple groups of voters who use the label “independent” at various times and that you can’t really quantify them one way or another since the same people don’t vote all the time.
One of the interesting statistics about 2010 was that there was a small but statistically significant group of independents who had not voted in 2008, so you literally had a different group of people voting under the same name.
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
A lot of shit is true in Texas that is not true anywhere else. This is kinda why I said, in California. And from the WAPO story, that independents are not automatically Republicans is true in other states as well.
Also, I’m from Tejas, pardner. It ain’t much that you can tell me about the goings on there that I don’t already know.
In the last California gubernatorial elections, almost everyone including independents voted for the Democrats, to such an extent that no Republican won statewide office.
But I do not understand why some Balloon Juicers insist that most or all Independent are just “shy” Republicans, when the easily verifiable facts have always contradicted this lazy view.
Miss Bianca
@Frankensteinbeck: One of my nieces is mixed-race, and it still makes me squirm how my mother carried on about it. It was really horrifying.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
You can slice it and dice it any way you like and you still do not come up with any result that says that independents are reliably Republican. And the PPIC data indicates that the trends of independents leaning more liberal has been consistent over time.
Corner Stone
@Brachiator:
No, motherfucker, you said “especially in California”. Which by any sane reading means you were stating that it is not true universally, but singling out California for your alleged data points.
Yeah, Texas hasn’t changed much in 20+ years. Ya got me there, pardner!
Major Major Major Major
@Miss Bianca: Obama looks just like his white grandpa.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
This is obviously not the case for California, and the WAPO story suggests that it is not necessarily the case in other states either. I have not seen anything, any study, anywhere, that supports your 90% “reliable partisan” figure.
Fortunately, it’s not the 1970s.
Bg
@Keith P.: yup. I think it was in Jindal’s SOTU response. Volcano blew up in Alaska just a few days later, IIRC
Bg
@Villago Delenda Est: He doesn’t really expect country to bail him out. He just wants to gain whatever political advantage he can by bitching about it. He doesn’t really give a shit about the people who are affected.
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major: you can really see the family resemblance in that photo! : )
fwiw, my niece and I look more alike than anyone else in my family. No way anyone seeing us together could have pretended we weren’t two little apples fallen from the same tree!
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
You got anything that refutes my California data? Otherwise, it’s more than “alleged data points.”
And I also noted the WAPO story, which indicates that liberal leaning independents is not just a California thing. But I live in California and know more about the politics here. But folks need to bring more than “I believe…” and “I feel …” and “I know six people who say they’re independent, but are really Republicans.”
I would love to indulge in lazy conventional wisdom about independents, but facts get in the way. Isn’t that the way it should be?
Lastly, you’ve been posting here a long time. There’s no reason for incivility. It just ruins the conversation and spoils the thread.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: Nate Silver has written a fair bit about reliable partisanship in independent likely voters if you’d like to look it up. When turnout’s as low as it is, the figures you cite are meaningless unless they’re following the same individuals.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: Or Google it.
Corner Stone
@Brachiator: There is every reason for incivility when you come at me with that bullshit attitude you had. I made a simple statement about Texas, never said a word about CA or your process for getting to where you are on this issue. And you want to come the high and mighty on me and think that’s going to pass?
Look at my 205, which is a quite reasonable statement with some experienced anecdotal summary, and then your 223 which for no good reason wants to get chappy. Then lecture me again about incivility.
Brachiator
@nutella:
They just want to cut the part of the federal budget that might help someone else, and increase the share that they get.
And it’s not just the federal budget. A fellow commuter had surgery for some issue that runs in the family. She rails against Obamacare. Even though she works in the finance industry and should understand these issues, she doesn’t get the fact that some insurers would love to deny her health coverage, using the “pre-existing conditions” excuse.
And she and her father really have a deeply held belief that the government wants to take away all the stuff that they have worked hard for (and so really deserve) and give it to lesser people. This is the big theme in her resentment. Her stuff going to lesser people.
Steve in the ATL
@Ultraviolet Thunder: I made it to Baltimore but my bag is delayed seven hours, along with my original flight. Would not want to be a delta employee today.
Or, really, any day, but especially today.
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
You misread my tone. And yeah I take responsibility for my part. But you jumped with an insult.
No excuse for that.
I simply called you on it. No lecture. And no similarly juvenile response.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Yes, he has. And the google links you reference do not support the contention that independents are typically, mostly or mainly really Republicans.
Perhaps, but anecdotes are worthless, especially when anyone tries to quantify them or attach certainty to them.
And again, in California this is the case:
This is supported by years of analysis, not just one election year. And in 2016, the California Secretary of State released this little nugget.
Your mileage may vary in other states.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: Show me on the doll where I claimed that independents are mostly Republicans.
I know lots of ‘independents’ who are reliable partisan Democrats, too, and many to the party’s left. I chimed in with my anecdote about centrist ‘independents’ because that’s what everybody was talking about. I really don’t know what straw Balloon-Juicer you think you’re arguing with here, it’s not in this thread.
jonas
Republicans: Your church’s youth group can organize a car wash or something.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
One of the stupidest online arguments I’ve ever gotten into was with someone who claimed that Obama clearly didn’t look anything like his maternal grandfather, because they had different skin colors.
No, seriously. In this person’s mind, skin color overrode the fact that their chins, ears, and the shape of their heads were basically identical. It was a little weird.
satby
@Adam L Silverman: That much DEET also works well at removing nail polish, as I found out in Haiti.