Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

He really is that stupid.

You cannot shame the shameless.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

I really should read my own blog.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

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

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Infrastructure week. at last.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / You’ve been so kind and generous

Reader Interactions

128Comments

  4. 4.

    Royston Vasey

    In the interests of efficiency and open government, trumpaas (Trump As A Service) seeks to provide a modern, RESTful, scalable engine for the generation of rhetoric and quotes in the style of Donald Trump.

    RV from NZ (but in UK)

  5. 5.

    Penn

    Of course it’s not a deal breaker. For most people it either affirms what they suspected anyway or they have convinced themselves that it’s all just a conspiracy. It’s another log onto the bonfire rather than being the entire blaze itself.

  7. 7.

    Amir Khalid

    @Steve!:
    It sounds like the House Republican caucus would be buying itself all kinds of trouble if it did sack Paul Ryan — who had to be persuaded to take the job in the first place. Who would want to be Speaker after him? You’d have to be crazy to take the job if you know that actually trying to do it is considered a sacking offence.

  9. 9.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @srv:

    The work found that a tiny fraction of them seemed to be behaving strangely.

    Yes, they’re posting to Balloon Juice under the handle “srv”.

  10. 10.

    Jeffro

    @Steve!: If there isn’t already, there ought to be a “10 Biggest Casualties of Trump’s Run for Prez” list going. Paul Ryan’s presidential ambitions would have to be near the top of that list.

    (Heck to save room, his ambitions + Christie’s, Cruz’s, and Rubio’s ought to be bundled together as 1 item)

  11. 11.

    Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

    Why do you people continue to feed srv? Just ignore him. Trump is lined up for a historical loss so he’s got nothing right now.

  12. 12.

    lemongingerporkstirfrychopsticksoptional

    Why do you people continue to feed srv? Just ignore him. Trump is lined up for a historical loss so he’s got nothing right now.

  13. 13.

    Steve!

    @Jeffro: It’s going to be tough to write all those Deepest GOP Bench Ever articles in 2020, but I’m sure somebody will manage.

  14. 14.

    Betsy

    When I donated just now, I happened to look at my ActBlue contribution history. It was interesting to see that I gave to Tim Kaine in 2012 as a “high-value race”. I’d no recollection of it — probably an ask showed up here on BJ to put certain candidates over the edge. Feel good :)

  16. 16.

    germy

    BuzzFeed reports that the American Media Institute (AMI) “proposed an 11th-hour effort to place news articles critical of Hillary Clinton and other Democrats in black newspapers in the runup to the November election.”

    AMI bills itself as an “independent source of exclusive in-depth investigative journalism,” but the non-profit is largely funded by right-wing donors and is headed by Richard Miniter, a conservative author and journalist with a long history at right-wing publications.

    In recent months AMI has placed “investigations” with a right-wing tilt in mainstream outlets including Fusion, Politico Magazine, and U.S. News & World Report. AMI’s 2014 tax filings indicate that it is largely funded through Donors Trust, a right-wing group that has been called “the dark-money ATM of the conservative movement.”

    Buzzfeed reported that AMI “approached Republican donors to finance” articles attacking Clinton to be distributed through AMI’s Urban News Service. A source told Buzzfeed that the plan “looks like voter suppression” intended to decrease Democratic turnout

  17. 17.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @germy: I am shaking in abject terror.

    Oh, wait, that’s the cat padding my thigh trying to get my attention for a head rub.

  18. 18.

    Steve!

    @amk: It’s true that an actual vote to remove Ryan is unlikely to succeed in the lame duck session, but the larger point about his political career being seriously damaged by Trump strikes me as correct (and hilarious).

  21. 21.

    WaterGirl

    @Steve!: Is there a short excerpt of what’s in the Forbes article? They won’t let me in because they detect adblock, and I refuse to whitelist them, so I can’t see the article.

  24. 24.

    patroclus

    I don’t know if I have the incentive to contribute any more. Ever since Tom Hayden’s original Port Huron Declaration was watered down into that mealy-mouthed shilly-shallying revised version, I’ve lost all my appetite for politics.

  25. 25.

    Steve!

    @WaterGirl:

    I may have been way too optimistic a week ago when I posted that it was “hard to come up with a realistic scenario that ends with Paul Ryan (R-WI) as speaker of the House of Representatives in the next Congress.”

    Never mind the next Congress: It now looks like Ryan could be deposed or forced to resign this Congress in the lame duck session that begins a week after Election Day.

    In other words, Ryan may no longer be speaker about four weeks from now.

    I say this after hearing from several highly reliable sources that the House Freedom Caucus is seriously considering doing to Ryan what it did to former Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) by threatening him with a privileged motion to vacate the chair. If a majority of the House supported the motion, Ryan would be removed immediately as speaker.

    Getting 218 House Republicans to vote for a motion to vacate won’t be easy.

    He then goes on to say that it’s unlikely that this vote will actually happen, but Ryan could decide (like Boehner) to resign the speakership if he sees it coming. Like amk said, it’s not likely to actually happen, but it’s fun to think about.

    BTW, if you open Forbes links in Incognito Mode, they don’t kick you out for having Adblock.

  29. 29.

    Dmbeaster

    @srv: Well then, I can think of several GOP Senate hopefuls that should get on the gropenfurher bus since its gonna work out so well this election cycle.

  32. 32.

    WaterGirl

    @Steve!: thanks for the excerpt. I did try to open the Forbes link in a private window (before asking you for an excerpt) but it just loaded an empty page. So I think they must be on to that trick, too.

  37. 37.

    Origuy

    I put in some money the other day. Immediately I got spam from half a dozen campaigns and it’s not letting up. Did I miss a checkbox that told them to put me on everybody’s email list? This didn’t happen the last time I contributed to ActBlue, last election.

  43. 43.

    p.a.

    Reptilican Party ™ ‘adults’ lost control, situation now so effed up they’d be satisfied if pre-teens were running things instead of current WATBs.

  44. 44.

    Immanentize

    @Amir Khalid: I am working at a University that has had five presidents in six years. We have an acting president right now and we are starting a new presidential search. Who would want to be president at suck a place? Scores of well-credentialed applicants, it seems. Ambition is often blind to risk.

    ETA to amend “suck” to “such” above — but it was such a perfect typo….

  47. 47.

    amk

    Lis Power @LisPower1

    PREACH
    Warren: We nasty women are going to march our nasty feet to cast our nasty votes to get you out of our lives forever

  48. 48.

    amk

    @p.a.: here you go.

    Gabriel Debenedetti ‏@gdebenedetti 6m6 minutes ago

    And in Arizona, notes the Clinton camp, Democrats lead Republicans by ~1,000 ballots cast, compared to ~20,000 DEFICIT at this point in ’12.

  50. 50.

    cmorenc

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: “27” should go into the hall of mathematical fame – statistics division. In political statistics, that number repeatedly crops up, the way pi and e repeatedly crop up in both straightforward and less obvious embedded ways in both pure and applied mathematics. “27” is like a perverse version of the “Golden ratio“, where instead of being a ratio of proportions in visual art that is nearly always attractive, 27 is a ratio that is nearly always ugly when it arises in a political context.

  51. 51.

    trollhattan

    @Jeffro:

    (Heck to save room, his ambitions + Christie’s, Cruz’s, and Rubio’s ought to be bundled together as 1 item)

    Henceforth referred to as a “Costco of Republicans.”

  52. 52.

    Brachiator

    @Origuy:

    Michelle doing Bollywood as the White House celebrates Diwali.

    Goddam, I am going to miss the Obamas. They are some Bad Muthaf#king Hombres!

    I see that video of Obama’s 2008 victory speech are popping up on YouTube. Seems so long ago, already.

  53. 53.

    japa21

    My wife and I have just assured that Hillary will win Illinois (not that that was ever in doubt) plus that Tammy Duckworth will replace the awful Mark Kirk, that Raja Krishnamoorthi will replace Tammy in the House and that the Illinois House and Senate will remain a thorn in the side of Rauner.

    In 2012 when we voted early we had to wait for close to an hour. Today we were in and out in 15 minutes. But then, they had twice as many machines going this time around.

  54. 54.

    daryljfontaine

    @japa21: Early voting on the northwest side was nice and brisk just after the location opened; most of the initial bottleneck was in election workers looking up voter reg details to get folks their cards. Took about 15 minutes for me, too, but I didn’t notice any appreciable increase in the number of machines.

    D

  55. 55.

    Matt McIrvin

    @cmorenc: It makes me want to figure out some mathematical significance to 0.27. It’s close to e/10, obviously, but the 10 seems a bit arbitrary. 1/e and 1/pi are a bit too large. e/pi^2?

  56. 56.

    Mike J

    @germy:

    Buzzfeed reported that AMI “approached Republican donors to finance” articles attacking Clinton to be distributed through AMI’s Urban News Service. A source told Buzzfeed that the plan “looks like voter suppression” intended to decrease Democratic turnout

    That’s not voter suppression. That’s being underhanded in trying to convince people not to bother voting. Voter suppression is like what Wisconsin and North Carolina have tried, making it illegal or otherwise impossible to vote, not merely discouraging it. Conflating the two makes actual voter suppression seem not as bad as it actually is.

  57. 57.

    Fair Economist

    @Matt McIrvin:

    It makes me want to figure out some mathematical significance to 0.27. It’s close to e/10, obviously, but the 10 seems a bit arbitrary. 1/e and 1/pi are a bit too large. e/pi^2?

    I think there’s a genuine significance, but it’s political: Just over 1/2 of 1/2. IOW, if you’re running under “majority of the majority” rules, it’s just above the absolute minimum to take control of the majority group in a highly polarized situation.

  58. 58.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @cmorenc:

    How about this, eh?

    Dark matter is an unidentified type of matter comprising approximately 27% of the mass and energy in the observable universe[1] that is not accounted for by dark energy, baryonic matter (ordinary matter), and neutrinos.[2]

  61. 61.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    LOL. Perfect. The 27% are the dark matter of American public life.

    The most widely accepted hypothesis on the form for dark matter is that it is composed of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) that interact only through gravity and the weak force.

  62. 62.

    Fair Economist

    The Republican Senators are crawling back to Trump. Crapo (R-ID) has re-endorsed him. There’s no risk of losing a general in Idaho so that means either he’s a total slimeball or the Trumplings are a clear majority of Republicans in Idaho and he fears a primary.

    OK, those two possibilities aren’t exclusive.

  66. 66.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Doug R: It’s very close to the amount of a normal distribution that lies between 1 and 2 standard deviations of the mean (13.6% on each side), but that isn’t tremendously significant in itself.

  68. 68.

    Kay

    I went to headquarters Sunday- I always feel silly saying “headquarters” because it’s a single room storefront- HOWEVER. Very good feeling there among Democrats. They’re all just chirping away industriously working. It feels like a state issue campaign more than a Presidential campaign, weirdly under the radar.

    Maybe it’s good there have been so few think pieces on Clinton supporters.

    They’re not moody and needy :)

  69. 69.

    cmorenc

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    @Steve!: Ryan has enough cunning to survive.

    OTOH there’s the classic quip from stand-up comic Ron White about a guy who thought he was in good enough physical shape to withstand staying outside in the face of the wind during a Cat-3 hurricane: “if you get run over by a Volvo, it doesn’t matter how many sit-ups you did that morning”.

    Of course, the accompanying line with that is: “it isn’t that the wind is blowing, it’s what it’s blowing” (in a hurricane).

  70. 70.

    Corner Stone

    They’re against you. They are against what we represent. I am your voice.

    That’s not so subtle.

  71. 71.

    Corner Stone

    Man, I am actually kind of impressed. Trump not only speaks authentic frontier gibberish but can also translate from Russian and also German.

  73. 73.

    Rock the World

    Don’t look now but several polls have this TOO CLOSE TO CALL, three in fact!

    IBD poll was THE most reliable in ’08 and ’12! And Ohio and Iowa are looking great for Trump. We’re gonna give ’em something for the world to see November 8th!

  77. 77.

    Immanentize

    @hueyplong: I suggest we follow the lead of rock the world and just not vote. But only if you are also from a foreign country….

    ETA — Also, too, use a lot of CAPITALS!

  78. 78.

    Poopyman

    @Matt McIrvin: It’s the left/right end of a Gaussian distribution. I suspect there’s some sociological nexus here that I can’t figure out, since it’s not clear what the hell it is we’re measuring, even.

  81. 81.

    piratedan

    latest missive from the Kirkpatrick campaign here in AZ has them citing a recent WaPo poll that puts them within 3 of Johnny Maverick

  82. 82.

    Jeffro

    Hey whaddya know, the dude can’t kick the habit…all that love from the crowds…Trump doesn’t want to give it up.

    I think I suggested that post-election, he might keep his act on the road, doing “Rage-a-palooza”s – it’s what he wants and what his supporters want, to mainline that hate live and in person, keep wearing those awful t-shirts and flying those Confederate flags. Had no idea I was doing anything beyond wondering aloud…

  86. 86.

    D58826

    @srv: If memory serves, the overwhelming majority of people found Bill’s conduct despicable but not impeachable.

  96. 96.

    hovercraft

    @germy:

    Buzzfeed reported that AMI “approached Republican donors to finance” articles attacking Clinton to be distributed through AMI’s Urban News Service. A source told Buzzfeed that the plan “looks like voter suppression” intended to decrease Democratic turnout

    They would need to get it on the radio, and into beauty and barber shops, and if you think this conspiracy would not be widely disseminated and talked about in all of those plus black churches, then you don’t know black people. Which they obviously don’t.
    So carry on, piss people pff and watch them stand in line all day.

  97. 97.

    catclub

    @D58826: srv’s point was that Clinton got more popular during impeachment, and therefore, Trump will get more popular.

    There are numerous ways that the two cases are not similar or predictive.

  98. 98.

    SFAW

    @Rock the World:

    IBD poll was THE most reliable in ’08 and ’12!

    Only by their own “admission.” Everybody else? Not so much.

    FPers/Mods: can we get this latest incarnation of RacismToRant kicked again?

  101. 101.

    hovercraft

    @peach flavored shampoo:
    Jet, Ebony, and to be fair there are actual black newspapers in some cites. I don’t know any names but I have seen audits from black newspapers on TV, rarely, but they exist.

  102. 102.

    The Moar You Know

    FPers/Mods: can we get this latest incarnation of RacismToRant kicked again?

    @SFAW: I would disagree. His constant inability to call even one race properly (President Jeb “Brinks Trucks” Bush amirite?) and frantic goalpost shuffling is something I find endlessly entertaining, but I’m more than a bit of a sadist at heart.

    ETA: of course, if he starts with any of that racist horseshit again feel free to nail him to a cross.

  104. 104.

    D58826

    @Steve!: I saw some speculation that even if the D’s don’t take the House most of the R’s that do lose will be moderates and/or allies of Ryan’s. That will give the crazy caucus even more power on the R side of the aisle. While they can keep Ryan from winning another term as speaker, they don’t have enough votes to put their own choice (one of whom is Gohmert) in the chair. Ergo a coalition of democrats and moderate republicans will hold the balance of power and result in Speaker Ryan toeing the D line or better yet Nancy back in the chair. If the D’s gain control of the Senate then Hillary might get a few things done.

    Now off the repaint that pony pink and glue the horn back on his head and call it a unicorn(sigh) .

  107. 107.

    NotMax

    @D58826

    Perish the thought of it coming to pass but expect stories to begin percolating on Nov. 9 of a “movement” to offer the speakership to Trump.

  110. 110.

    JR in WV

    @D58826:

    I would disagree with you. Finding someone’s behavior “despicable” is not compatible with an approval rating at 73%:

    After his impeachment proceedings in 1998 and 1999, Clinton’s rating reached its highest point at 73% approval. He finished with a Gallup poll approval rating of 65%, higher than that of every other departing president measured since Harry Truman.

    [Wikipedia, also found in Gallup statement]

  111. 111.

    The Moar You Know

    Well, this was inevitable:

    Curt Schilling Joins Breitbart

    His only other option was to sit around the house and play video games while waiting for the bankruptcy lawyers to show up and take his house. Now he’s hitched a sweet ride on the grift train!

  112. 112.

    prob50

    @SarahT:

    Betty Cracker: “We women are going to march our nasty feet to cast out nasty votes to get you out of our lives !” – Dying here – SO brilliant

    Actually, I would say “Brilliantly nasty”.

  113. 113.

    redundant backup of kitteh haz all your meme

    Polls polls always the polls. For whatever reason, people around here always seem to be looking for the outliers that say Dems are losing. With Repubs it’s just the opposite. They cling to any outlier poll they can find.

  115. 115.

    Crackers and Toast

    And the Trump saving face sore loser train just keeps on rolling right until Nov 09 and beyond. He can’t even admit defeat much less a humiliating one. Gonna call it a ‘rigged election’ till the day he dies.

  117. 117.

    Matt McIrvin

    Apparently Trump is now claiming that one of Podesta’s emails (from 2008, not actually by or to Podesta, and about some internal campaign polling) proves that Podesta rigged nearly every media poll in the world against him. He’s completely unmoored from the dimensions we live in.

  118. 118.

    Gelfling 545

    @peach flavored shampoo: In my city we have The Challenger, a local weekly that, though obviously not only read by African Americans, tends to emphasize issues of importance in the black community. Their motto is “Your Key Source of News from the African American POV. “. It is one of several alternative papers that are fairly widely read here as our regular daily paper is crap.

  119. 119.

    geg6

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Kellyanne must be just screaming into the abyss at this. Totally hilarious that he doesn’t understand why a campaign would over sample a particular demo in its internal polling.

  120. 120.

    Anoniminous

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The Bull Elephant of the pachyderp of Republicanism has gone full musth

    …a periodic condition in bull (male) elephants, characterized by highly aggressive behavior and accompanied by a large rise in reproductive hormones.

    … bulls in musth have often been known to attack female elephants, regardless of whether or not the females are in heat. There has been speculation that musth is connected to natural periodic reorganization of dominance among males in elephant herds.

  121. 121.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: “Ryan has enough cunning to survive.”

    Not if his weaselly little ass loses his election. Which probably isn’t likely, but is rather delicious to think about.

  123. 123.

    Matt McIrvin

    @geg6: I think he’s just citing some Twitter nonsense without even pausing to figure out what it’s saying.

  124. 124.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @JR in WV:

    Finding someone’s behavior “despicable” is not compatible with an approval rating at 73%:

    And of course, that would be a disapproval rating of . . . .

  126. 126.

    AnneW

    @Immanentize:

    I was in a faculty meeting (for the math department of a small Midwestern university) which was focused on the search for a new Department Chair. After listening to everyone talk about the qualities desired in a new Chair, one of the profs stood up and said, “Why would anyone like that want to come here?”

  127. 127.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Anoniminous: From Baltimore, The Afro:

    The Baltimore Afro-American, commonly known as The Afro, is a weekly newspaper published in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It is the flagship newspaper of the Afro-American chain and the longest-running African-American family-owned newspaper in the United States, established in 1892 by John H. Murphy, Sr.

    For some years I lived a few blocks north of the N. Charles St. HQ & still drive past it a few times a week.

  128. 128.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Matt McIrvin:

    It makes me want to figure out some mathematical significance to 0.27. It’s close to e/10, obviously, but the 10 seems a bit arbitrary. 1/e and 1/pi are a bit too large. e/pi^2?

    I am not nearly high enough for this post

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