Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

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

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

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

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

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

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

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Republicans do not trust women.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Faunasphere / Paul Ryan, Invertebrate

Reader Interactions

38Comments

  2. 2.

    Patricia Kayden

    There are plenty of people on both sides of the aisle who could join Ryan in that category. Sigh.

  7. 7.

    Patricia Kayden

    @NotMax: So cool (except the parasites)!! What will they name after the current Abomination-in-Chief? I have some suggestions.

  12. 12.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Patricia Kayden:

    So cool (except the parasites)!! What will they name after the current Abomination-in-Chief? I have some suggestions.

    Only one choice; species of Sea Hag; looks like a detatched willy, it’s defense is to cover itself in slime and twist itself in knots.

  13. 13.

    Lee

    Have I got a story for the BJ’s…..

    Grab a cup of coffee here’s the story….

    My oldest has a friend at school that is from the McAllen TX area (far south Texas by the border). He wants to go down and visit his family (Mom’s birthday or somesuch) & wants to borrow her car (yes we have told her not to let people borrow her car).

    Everything is going fine but on the trip home a cousin he grew up with wants a ride. So as they are passing through the checkpoint just south of Falfurrias it turns out his cousin is ‘a little less than legal’ (a DREAM Act kid). So the border patrol seizes my daughter’s car!!

    So about 10 days later I get the paperwork from the Border Patrol & it has all the information about getting it back. Turns out if the Border Patrol seizes your car there is an administrative review (if the DEA of FBI seizes it, you have to go to court). So I fill out all the forms get a bunch of documentation that we actually own the car and not the kid. So I send off the information right before Christmas (yes my oldest spent her Xmas break without a car) and actually get a reply back from them right after the new year (everyone involved has 30-60 days to reply so it makes it a quick turn around).

    Since no one in the family is directly involved we pay a fine, pay for the storage & get the car back !!!

    Of course this being the federal government I can only pick it up on Tuesdays & Thursdays between the hours and 8:30am -11:30am and I have to make an appointment. So I made an appointment for 26 Jan at 8:30am. I flew down to McAllen Wednesday night….

    Picking up the car:

    So Thursday morning the shuttle drops me off at the very nice large building with the entrance in the picture. I told them I’d give them a call when done. So I walk in, sign in and the guy behind the desk was giving me a look like ‘why are you here’. I tell him I’m here to pick up my car & he tells me ‘wrong building’. Thankfully it is just next door and I can walk to it (next door but actually outside the security fence of this building). So I walk over to the build that has the big “ASSET FORFEITURE” sign on it…..

    I walk in to a small deserted lobby with a pitch black window on my right. So I look around and there is no one to be seen. Then all I hear is a female voice ‘May I help you?’ I look at the window & see nothing wander around a second and then the lady opens the drawer under the window with a ‘sigh…over here sir’. THEN she turns on the light behind the window and I can actually see her. I give her the paperwork and she checks to make sure she can release the car. I give her the cashier’s check and gives me a form for the impound lot and tells me to wait until 9:30 (it is about 8:45) before calling them to get the car. So I go back to the hotel & wait.

    I call at 9:30 & the car is ready (according to the paperwork they have to do a final K9 inspection before release) and the hotel drives me about 15 miles up 281 to the lot. I get there just as the K9 unit is loading into their truck. More paperwork, more money and then wait. I wait about 10 minutes outside checking out all the cars impounded (I would guess about 100 + 2 large RVs). About the time I was thinking I should go back in & check I hear a car coming up from the lot….

    It is lurching and bobbing like a drunk at Mardi Gras (as I would imagine they look ;) . It rolls up to the gate and stalls. The guy gets out opens the gate, looks at me, looks at the car thinks for a second…. ‘Is this yours?’. ‘Yes….’, ‘Can you drive it the rest of the way out? I don’t know how to drive stick’ (yes my oldest drives a manual SUV). So I walk past the security gate & signs with ‘EMPLOYEES ONLY’ and drive it the rest of the way into the outer lot. He checks the paperwork and the car is mine again!!!

    Drive to Corpus Christi (where daughter goes to college):

    The front windshield of the car has all sorts of writing on it (case#, date, ‘US Border Patrol’,etc). So I start driving to Corpus Christi. I get to the checkpoint that started this story….The agent looks at the windshield, looks at me ‘So what’s the story?’. He gets a good chuckle & a ‘Hope she learned her lesson’.

    Making the right turn at Falfurrias there was a Hispanic guy with a dew rag in car with his window down (it was a nice day out). Reads the windshield, looks at me and gives me a head nod (STREET CRED!!!).

    So yeah most people have loaned their car out and regretted it with it being out of gas, a new scratch or smells like vomit. This family has to take it up a notch and get the federal government involved!!!!!!

  18. 18.

    Aleta

    @Lee: So the B P has it for weeks, stored in their secure guarded paperworked and presumably cameraed facility, but an hour before it can be returned to you they must do “another K9 inspection.”

    eta thanks for the story btw.

  20. 20.

    Busybody

    I’ve got the perfect addition to a list of spineless invertebrates. Called my US Rep., Derek Kilmer, today to see about his stand on the ACA. He’s a weasel Dem. but not a bad guy. The nice young man who answered the phone tells me that the Rep. is working toward a bipartisan solution to the problems with the ACA. I was so stunned that I didn’t know how to respond. They can’t think there’s a possibility of a bipartisan solution, can they? I think I’m going to all that office everyday just to be a bloody nuisance. Is anyone else here represented by Kilmer, far western, Olympic Peninsula and environs, Washington State?

  21. 21.

    Lee

    @Aleta:

    They want to make sure that if any drugs are found in the car the owner can’t say ‘the impound lot put t it there!’.

    Although there was about 20 minutes between the inspection and me taking custody of the car….

  22. 22.

    Aleta

    @Busybody: Somehow I feel like these changes they are busy working out may be routes that divert money into the gullets of middlemen. Compromise !

  26. 26.

    Brendan in NC

    @Lee: Nice!! I’m the only one I my immediate family to have had a warrant out on them (for an FTA), and dealt with ICE (ex wife was here on a student visa)…to quote Micheline O’Flynn in The Quiet Man, I’ve got bloodcurdling stories, but me throat, me throat, parched!!!

  31. 31.

    buskertype

    I’ve been needing to testify a little so here goes.

    For the past month I’ve been calling my congressman and senators every few days, mainly asking the staffers when they’re going to reveal this goddamn plan that’s supposed to replace Obamacare. Of course they don’t have any answers but I guess it makes some difference. this is the story I tell them:

    I was completely uninsured from 2003 when I graduated from college until 2014 when Obamacare was enacted. My wife (we got married in 2012) was uninsured as well, but we qualified for a subsidized plan in the exchanges and bought it eagerly.

    In September 2016 we lost a baby at just shy of 5 months gestation. The pregnancy was complicated from early on, but the little guy was strong and hung on long enough that our doctor seemed to think he had a chance. Needless to say we were heartbroken to lose him. I won’t go into details except to say that one of the kindest things a person has ever done for me was when an older nurse told my wife simply “darlin’ I think you’re gonna have a little baby.” None of the doctors had dared to say it yet. Nurses are heros.

    All told we paid some $15,000 out of pocket on the pregnancy. A hospital stay, a long ambulance ride, countless ultrasounds, an emergency room visit when the bleeding first started, exploratory surgery afterwards… my wife maxed out her out-of-pocket cap for two years. I can only imagine what it would have cost had it happened while we were uninsured. If we did not lose our home it would have been due to substantial help from extended family.

    Today I spoke to a very sympathetic staffer at my congressman’s office, but some of these conversations have devolved into shouting. I try to remember that I’m doing it in honor of the little baby we lost and to protect the little beautiful healthy baby that came along just two months ago.

    thanks for reading! Call your congressperson!

  32. 32.

    Ohio Mom

    @buskertype: That is a big loss. No wonder those turkey interns sometimes drive you to shouting.

    You can always tell them you are shouting because of your deep sorrow and your fears for your fellow citizens who may find themselves in similar straights but without the supports the ACA provided you and your wife. I say something similar when I lose it calling my MoC’s offices (my stories are a disabled teen son and my bout with cancer).

    You are trying to do something productive with your grief. Ask those wet behind the ears interns what productive thing they are trying to do for the world.

  36. 36.

    Another Scott

    @buskertype: It’s important for our representatives, and everyone else, to hear stories like these. Thank you.

    Best of luck with your youngster!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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