Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Republicans in disarray!

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

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

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

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

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

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

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

This really is a full service blog.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

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

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

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

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Reader Interactions

193Comments

  6. 6.

    Raoul

    How f’d up is everything when a house on fire is the only apparent good news of the day.

    Also, too, Cacti: Gaaaaaaaahhh.

  10. 10.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Repost: Hope Hicks goes under the bus
    Hello, 28 year-old former hotel marketing executive and pants-steamer and speculated buffer between a conman and an email trail, meet the humorless former director of the FBI who was granted an extra term post 9/11 by special vote of Congress, and his associates with about two centuries of combined experience in criminal prosecution of mobster, money launderers, terrorists and frauds. Shall we begin?

    Jeremy Herb‏Verified account @ jeremyherb
    From mkraju and me on Don Jr. testimony: Trump’s son said he spoke with Hope Hicks, not his father, about the statement to respond to reports of June 2016 Trump Tower meeting

  12. 12.

    Brachiator

    @Cacti:

    Clarence Thomas’s wife gives an award to James O’Keefe at a Trump Hotel.

    So much crazy in one short sentence.

  14. 14.

    pacem appellant

    Lots of other houses burned, too, not just the ritzy ones in Bel Air. God’s aim is terrible.

  17. 17.

    Cacti

    @Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:

    Hell they’re breaking out the cigars and whiskey over Franken even as I type this comment.

    And as we continue to have a total lack of power at the federal level, see a large majority of governorships and state legislatures in R hands, and watch GOP politicians face zero accountability for anything…

    At least we can comfort ourselves with our “superior” morals that voters don’t give a shit about.

  21. 21.

    danielx

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    “He would never throw ME under the bus….would he?”

    Yes, dearie. Loyalty in Trumpworld is strictly a one way street, no matter how many times you throw yourself in the mud so Lord Shortfingers won’t get his shoes dirty.

  24. 24.

    trollhattan

    Rupert’s all “Which one was that, again?”

    Love the ongoing Home with the Murdochs skit on Tracy Ullman’s new show.

  25. 25.

    Immanentize

    @Cacti:

    The GOPers will never get tired of drinking our milkshake.

    So true. But we generally tell the Republicans that it is not really our milkshake that’s in front of us because it has too many calories.

  26. 26.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Yarrow: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wonder if Junior understands that Daddy won’t protect him.

    If you really want to go all Dynasty meets Lion In Winter, did Ivana tell him to take out the latest little tart to aim for her chair?

    or… He and Melania have a certain…. understanding.

  30. 30.

    Immanentize

    @Cacti:

    Clarence Thomas’s wife gives an award to James O’Keefe at a Trump Hotel.

    Then she drunk dialed Anita Hill again.

  31. 31.

    CaseyL

    Speaking of fires, I am test-firing my brand new kiln, my very first kiln, even as we speak.

    Input a ramp up to 1490 degrees and then controlled cool which should take the next… many hours.

    Pray for me. And the house. And the neighbors….

  33. 33.

    B.B.A.

    @Cacti: At this point, I doubt Franken even wants to stay in the Senate and be the national whipping boy for sexual assault.

    Tina Smith (D-MN) is going to be a great senator, and she’s going to help people, because she’s good enough, she’s smart enough, and doggone it, people like her.

  34. 34.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Major Major Major Major: American vernacular is wrong. That’s why I called it appropriation, borrowing, something and then distorting its meaning. OMG I ar using a Sanskrit word, I must be Oppenheimer, pats self on the back.

    ETA: I know its a lost cause, but being pedantic comes naturally.

  35. 35.

    Brachiator

    @germy:

    Murdoch’s media empire has been emphatically on the “global warming is a liberal hoax” side of the debate.

    His house burning down is “super local” warming.

  36. 36.

    germy

    In a short statement tonight, Sen. Al Franken’s office is denying reports that he has made a final decision to resign his seat, however multiple Democratic sources in Washington and Minnesota tell ABC News that in an appearance tomorrow he is in fact expected to announce his resignation.

    “No final decision has been made yet; he is still discussing with his family [and] still plans to give an announcement tomorrow,” a spokesman in Sen. Franken’s office told ABC News.

  37. 37.

    Mnemosyne

    @B.B.A.:

    She’d better hope she never squeezed anyone’s waist while taking a photo with them, or she’ll be out on her ear, too. That’s the new standard — did you touch someone on any body part while taking a photo with them?

  40. 40.

    germy

    @Brachiator: Isn’t Rupert sort of like John McCain? Is he even sure how many houses he owns?

    I suspect Rupert’s house burning down would be similar to me misplacing a pair of socks.

  43. 43.

    mai naem mobile

    I hope every contractor who works on rebuilding it screws him so bad he’ll feel like he’s paying out O’Reillys and Ailes’ settlements again.

  44. 44.

    TenguPhule

    @Immanentize:

    But we generally tell the Republicans that it is not really our milkshake that’s in front of us because it has too many calories.

    Contender for thread winner.

  47. 47.

    Immanentize

    @schrodingers_cat:

    being pedantic comes naturally.

    Of course you are now saying that you are a male school teacher, naturally — at least that is what it’s meaning was in the time of the Bard.

  49. 49.

    WaterGirl

    @Yarrow: If Jr. wasn’t fucked up before, he surely is now after hearing that Daddy’s concern before he was born was “What if he’s a LOSER?”.

  50. 50.

    eemom

    @trnc:

    He’ll probably make do in one of the other 15 or so houses he probably owns.

    And he’ll get a nice tidy gazillion dollar insurance payment for this one. Some fucking karma.

  51. 51.

    jay

    2010 midterms, Citizens United, and Merrick Garland.
    We’re living in the karma from that.

    Damn…remember when we had to argue with lefties that getting out to vote in the 2010 midterms was a big fking deal because MIDTERM ELECTIONS MATTER? Good times. Who’d you argue with more during Obamacare debate? Liberals or conservatives?
    But Rupert Murdoch’s property is burning down.
    Yeah ,so’s the whole goddamn country.

  54. 54.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Marcopolo: So he’s probably a neoliberal shill (/s), but Dems in TN just got a good candidate in the race for Corker’s vacant senate seat in 2018.

    I think he’ll at least make them spend money. I don’t know much about him, but I’m guessing this is gonna be one of those hope he wins and then curse his name twice a week if he does.

  56. 56.

    Brachiator

    @schrodingers_cat:

    American vernacular is wrong. That’s why I called it appropriation, borrowing, something and then distorting its meaning.

    That’s pretty much how language works, and is creatively destructive and reconstructive.

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne

    @Immanentize:

    Of course, SC is talking about current usage in India, not usage from 400 years ago.

    If you want to go down that road, I have a major problem with “carpetbaggers” being used as a slur now that I know it’s a slur against liberal whites who were trying to bring interracial democracy to the former Confederate states.

  61. 61.

    mai naem mobile

    I will never vote for Kirsten Gillibrand in the POTUS Dem primary if she runs. She’s an idiot.

  62. 62.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    “Oh, boy, Ari, I wish I could share with you” Slab Head Donnie’s answers from today’s hearing
    – Eric Sawelll, Dem member of Intel Cttee on MSNBC just now

    @Marcopolo: anyone who’ll vote with Schumer on judges, yep

  65. 65.

    Kay

    “We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit,” Ryan said

    Of course they’re cutting Medicare.

    They all knew that when they voted for the tax giveaway, which is why they didn’t worry about the deficit.

    Collins should lose her seat for this. She blatantly and repeatedly lied to her constituents.

    On Monday in Bangor, dozens of people were outside her office and five very brave souls went inside and refused to leave until she talked to them about her vote. She did not and the protestors got arrested and carted out in a police van. I think people believe that she’s not listening to them, that she’s doing real damage to the state, that she’s been lying about her votes and about the policy and that they’re not going to take it anymore.
    [Sen. Collins] sat down with President Trump and apparently got some promises out of him, and is perhaps the only person in the world who trusts promises from President Trump.

    She knows damn well Trump is full of shit. She hid behind him long enough to screw her constituents.

  66. 66.

    Cacti

    @jay:

    2010 midterms, Citizens United, and Merrick Garland.
    We’re living in the karma from that.

    Damn…remember when we had to argue with lefties that getting out to vote in the 2010 midterms was a big fking deal because MIDTERM ELECTIONS MATTER? Good times. Who’d you argue with more during Obamacare debate? Liberals or conservatives?

    I’ll never forget when current Kremlin employee Ed fucking Schultz called Obama a sell out and told people not to vote.

    Lefties are played so easily.

  67. 67.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Mnemosyne: I have no idea what the correct appellation for them would be, I know it was Lakota-Sioux when I was growing up. However, ethnic groups have the distinct right to insist on their own naming scheme. Concepts more generally do not.

  68. 68.

    Brachiator

    I’m just bummed at revelations about Kevin Spacey’s past behavior. From various news sites.

    In an interview with The Sunday Times, actor Gabriel Byrne revealed that production on his most famous film, 1995’s The Usual Suspects, was “shut down abruptly for two days” after co-star Kevin Spacey (who won an Oscar for his performance as Verbal Kint) was accused of “sexually inappropriate behavior towards a younger actor.”

    I’m less torn and just more thoroughly disgusted at people like Harvey Weinstein and the people who supported and enabled and provided cover for his actions. From the recent NYT background piece:

    The actress Mia Kirshner said that when she reported an upsetting meeting with Mr. Weinstein in the mid-90s to her agent and manager, she was told “to forget about it.”

  69. 69.

    Mnemosyne

    @Marcopolo:

    Better hope he never put his hand around a woman’s waist while taking a picture, or he’ll be toast in the campaign. We have a new rule, and all Democrats will be forced to conform to it.

  70. 70.

    WaterGirl

    @mai naem mobile: Yes. I now think that, too. Making an own goal twice in two weeks.

    Doug Jones did the same thing – that was a foolish move. He should have stayed out of this. And I say that as someone who donated to him multiple times.

  72. 72.

    WaterGirl

    @Mnemosyne: Can we please not quibble about stupid stuff on a day where there’s plenty of quibbling to be done about things that really matter?

  74. 74.

    Steeplejack

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Since you’re being a stickler for word usage, it’s “just deserts.”

    Also, many words have their original meanings diluted or adapted as they come into colloquial English and fill some previously unnoticed niche. “Karma” isn’t the first or last.

  75. 75.

    TenguPhule

    @Cacti:

    Ye gods. A Democrat with a spine. I didn’t think such a thing still existed.

    Yeah, we’ve been shooting so many of them in the back on our side, they should by all rights be extinct by now.

  77. 77.

    TenguPhule

    @WaterGirl:

    Can we please not quibble about stupid stuff on a day where there’s plenty of quibbling to be done about things that really matter?

    Why not both?

  81. 81.

    TenguPhule

    @jay:

    Damn…remember when we had to argue with lefties that getting out to vote in the 2010 midterms was a big fking deal because MIDTERM ELECTIONS MATTER? Good times.

    And now here we go again in 2018. This time as tragic farce.

  83. 83.

    GregB

    Don Jr. must have just given up the ghost on the entire criminal enterprise.

    Poor Don Sr. and his fears of a namesake being a loser have just come to golden fruition.

    Slab Head Follies.

  84. 84.

    Kay

    Maine only has a million or so people so say half a million voters. A person could run on just “Susan Collins lied about Medicare” if the person had the proper insanely obsessive focus and was imaginative in ways to constantly say that!

    I actually wouldn’t target current retirees. There is no group who love Medicare like 50+ working class. They talk about it like reaching the promised land.

  87. 87.

    TenguPhule

    @Kay:

    Collins should lose her seat for this. She blatantly and repeatedly lied to her constituents.

    Instead we target….Al Franken.

    Al Franken could skull fuck Susan Collins on the Senate floor right now and I’d applaud.

  88. 88.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Cacti:

    The demonstrations in San Francisco, Central Park, Cambridge and the like will be MAGNIFICENT! Think of the majesty of the giant puppets, the earnestness of the drum circles, the peaceful solidarity during the singing of “kumbaya”….

  92. 92.

    Yarrow

    MA folks, what’s up with this?

    And in the final special election of the year, MassGOP finally gets its win – and flips the Middlesex and Worcester state senate seat. Republican Dean Tran has been elected to replace Sen. Jen Flanagan, the party tells me. #mapoli— Lauren Dezenski (@LaurenDezenski) December 6, 2017

  97. 97.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    one of the clips I didn’t mute fast enough to avoid was the Beast trotting out his line about how America is respected “again”

    Christina Wilkie‏Verified account @ christinawilkie
    REUTERS: 8 countries, including France, Egypt, and the UK, have requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council over Trump’s Jerusalem decision.

    France and the UK. Our closest allies.

    NeverTrumper Jon Podhoretz was trembling with… let’s say joy over trump’s brilliant arrangement with the reforming prince/autocrat of KSA

  98. 98.

    condorcet runner-up

    @Kay:

    She knows damn well Trump is full of shit. She hid behind him long enough to screw her constituents.

    This is exactly it. It’s not that they’re liars (well, it’s that too, but …). It’s that they think we’re all morons.

  100. 100.

    TenguPhule

    @condorcet runner-up:

    It’s that they think we’re all morons.

    Seeing the circular firing squads forming on our side from simple ratfucks, sometimes its hard to blame them for that notion.

  101. 101.

    Kay

    @TenguPhule:

    Oh, I don’t want to talk about that anymore. I don’t know what the right decision is. I’m trusting the senators to know what they’re about with it, politically and strategically.

    I can’t run everything and right now I’m running the imaginary campaign to unseat Susan Collins :)

  102. 102.

    TenguPhule

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    8 countries, including France, Egypt, and the UK, have requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council over Trump’s Jerusalem decision.

    France and the UK. Our closest allies.

    Former allies at this rate.

    I don’t like being Nazi Germany in this scenario.

  103. 103.

    Brachiator

    @germy:

    Isn’t Rupert sort of like John McCain? Is he even sure how many houses he owns?

    I suspect Rupert’s house burning down would be similar to me misplacing a pair of socks.

    Even Rupert might have a favorite pair of socks.

    Even for someone like him, I will acknowledge that the loss might hurt. I don’t know what memories might be connected with the house, or the details of the damage.

  104. 104.

    TenguPhule

    @Kay:

    and right now I’m running the imaginary campaign to unseat Susan Collins :)

    We simply recycle everything from the 2016 campaign from the Republicans and replace Clinton with Collins.

    Odds are good that most of the voters will never notice.

  106. 106.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @TenguPhule:

    “We MUST listen to their viewpoints. True Progressive tolerance theory mandates that all viewpoints be entitled to respect and consideration, and that their intolerance must be tolerated.”

  107. 107.

    Kay

    @TenguPhule:

    Those smaller population states interest me because they seem manageable. It can’t be impossible to turn 10,000 people against Collins just on Medicare.

  108. 108.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Major Major Major Major: Appropriation is using something without its proper context, and Buddhists did not do that. I am not going to go into the history of Buddhism, but Buddhism is as much a product of India as is Hinduism. Buddha preached in Sarnath (in today’s UP), used Pali (the mother language of many of the regional Indian languages) and so on.

  110. 110.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    As Protestantism is to Roman Catholicism. So have Protestants “appropriated” Christian terminology and imagery from the RCC like Buddhists “appropriated” Hindu terminology and imagery?

  112. 112.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: there was a woman who tweeted out a video of herself and her daughter, five or six YO I’m guessing, reminding Collins of the promise she made to them during the health care debate, a promise she’s breaking, making a mockery of it, with her vote on the tax bill. I would contribute to producing and airing that ad

  115. 115.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    The point is that there’s a difference between developing a new offshoot of a religion based on a previous one and wholesale taking someone else’s imagery and terminology and cramming it into your new ideology of Nazism for political purposes.

  118. 118.

    Corner Stone

    Well, I know one D Senator from NY who will never get a penny from me. A vote in the end if we’re stupid enough to nominate her.
    So glad to see we refuse to learn anything and remain the milquetoast party. We last fought in 2005-2006 and since then have quietly shuttered any sense of self-preservation.
    Although I do have a great fundraising idea. Let’s auction off who gets the chance to stab the next D pol in the back we want to fuck really good and hard. Since it will be continuing for the next year I think we can raise millions as we watch our competent lawmakers die by the wayside, to satisfy no one and nothing.

  119. 119.

    Mary G

    And the House just voted to make states honor other states’ concealed carry laws. So here in happily limited gun laws CA will to deal with shit like this

    Shooting Westheimer at S. Kirkwood. Two males, involved in a crash, argued & pulled guns. Both fired at one another. One male struck & taken to Ben Taub, the other male is in custody. A female bystander was grazed in the ear & taken to W Houston Med. Avoid the area. #hounews— Houston Police (@houstonpolice) December 6, 2017

  120. 120.

    TenguPhule

    @Kay:

    Those smaller population states interest me because they seem manageable. It can’t be impossible to turn 10,000 people against Collins just on Medicare.

    Its actually harder when there’s a smaller population. That means she most likely got to build face to face relationships which can count for a lot. Cue Trump’s fake news and De nile is not in De Egypt any more.

  122. 122.

    TenguPhule

    @Mary G: Then everyone should be mandated to follow Hawaii’s gun laws.

    Because fuck if we’re going to follow Florida’s.

  123. 123.

    Sister Golden Bear

    I’m sure all the Talibaptists who are quick talk loudly about how natural disasters are God smiting the people He they don’t like, are now mumbling about how God works in mysterious ways, never gives you a burden you can’t carry, etc.

  127. 127.

    TenguPhule

    @Corner Stone:

    Let’s auction off who gets the chance to stab the next D pol in the back we want to fuck really good and hard. Since it will be continuing for the next year I think we can raise millions as we watch our competent lawmakers die by the wayside, to satisfy no one and nothing.

    If we can’t defend our own, why should voters believe we’ll defend them?

    /And this is why we’ve learned nothing from 2016, or 2014 or 2010.

  132. 132.

    Corner Stone

    Roy Moore is going to win the AL Sen. And he will be memory holed within 24 hours. He will be David Vittered x100. The GOP will pay no price and will continue passing laws for the top .01% donors, legislation that is supposedly “hated” by voters. Stick around, keep blaming the liberal media to your faithful and you can hold any seat forever.
    When are D pols going to get that voters Do.Not.Care about what they think they *should* care about?

  133. 133.

    MJS

    @TenguPhule: Holy shit, let it go. Franken will make an announcement tomorrow. It will be one of three statements- 1) I didn’t do it, it’s a set-up, I’m not resigning, I’m pissed at those who don’t believe in due process; 2) my behavior was atrocious, but I’ll do better, and I’m not resigning; or 3) my behavior was atrocious, I’m resigning, and I trust the Governor to appoint a replacement who will serve ably. If it’s 1 or 2, you’re vindicated. If it’s 3, we’re no worse off than we were. OR you can write post after post tearing into Democrats for…tearing into Democrats.

  134. 134.

    Fleeting Expletive

    Re the video of Trump wrestling with an ill-fitting lower denture. This is new, isn’t it? He hasn’t displayed that mush mouth pattern before, has he? I pay attention to people’s *teeth–having shelled out a fortune for dentists and orthodontics for my kids. When did he get the dentures and from whom? Did he have extractions with anesthesia? ISTR other presidents having to undergo health exams by an official physician, no?

    *Al Gore’s teeth bothered me because a guy with a lifetime of money and stature shouldn’t have a lower row of front teeth that is that crooked–he almost had to talk around them. Much, much worse, Rumsfeld. I read an observation by a dental tech at the time he was always in the news (his teeth were gross), that there’s a man who pays no attention to details because those teeth apparently were never flossed.

  136. 136.

    Corner Stone

    @MJS:

    If it’s 3, we’re no worse off than we were. OR you can write post after post tearing into Democrats for…tearing into Democrats.

    Bullshit. We have hamstrung ourselves for no discernible reason whatsoever. You think this will end with Franken?

  137. 137.

    TenguPhule

    @MJS:

    If it’s 3, we’re no worse off than we were.

    We’ve gone over this point repeatedly.

    If this works against Franken the GOP is going to use this against EVERYBODY.

  138. 138.

    Mnemosyne

    @MJS:

    If it’s 3, we’re no worse off than we were.

    I have to disagree about that. If we’ve set a precedent that a Democratic politician can be forced out based on anonymous accusations, we are going to be fucked at the midterms. Any Democrat who ever hugged a constitutent is going to be on the chopping block, and not all of them are going to be from states with Democratic governors.

    Some people have been saying from the beginning that this sounds like a replay of ACORN or Shirley Sherrod, and I think those people are right. Banana in the tailpipe. Get rid of the ranking member of the committee on the internet right before the net neutrality vote happens to ensure a Republican win on that.

  140. 140.

    Corner Stone

    I hope Al Franken’s statement tomorrow consists of him walking to the podium, shooting the double bird at the camera, then grabbing the mic, dropping it and walking away.

  144. 144.

    MJS

    @Mnemosyne: Same response I gave to Teng – if it’s 3, it means the allegations aren’t bullshit. If this is all a set up, then it should be 1, and Franken would have every right to tell Gillibrand, et al to go fuck themselves.

  145. 145.

    Just the Facts

    @Mnemosyne: And now you’re sounding like the MRA assholes that are asking, completely disingenuously, “Can I still hug a woman or not?”

    Minimizing. Dismissing. Demonizing. All so…what? It’s not even good politics*…

    *Also, morally bankrupt.

  147. 147.

    Mnemosyne

    @MJS:

    if it’s 3, it means the allegations aren’t bullshit

    I am not as sanguine about that as you are. ACORN was dissolved and defunded even though the accusations were bullshit. It’s entirely possible that the Democrats may have decided that Franken should resign regardless of his innocence, because the accusations are almost impossible to disprove. How do you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you didn’t put your hand on someone’s ass 10 years ago?

  150. 150.

    different-church-lady

    @MJS: 4) I didn’t do it, it’s a set-up, but I’m resigning because I’ve become a distraction.

  151. 151.

    TenguPhule

    @MJS:

    If it’s 3, it means he resigned because he can’t fight the allegations.

    How do you prove a negative when its your word against hers?

    Go on, I’ll wait.

  152. 152.

    WaterGirl

    @different-church-lady: I’m hoping Al Franken will say your 1, mostly:

    1) I didn’t do it, it’s a set-up, I’m not resigning, I’m pissed at those who don’t believe in due process; and I’m here to fight for the people of MN and there are too many important issues right now where one vote will really make a difference, so I’m not going anywhere.

  153. 153.

    MJS

    @TenguPhule: You do know that there’s going to be an investigation if he stays, right. So, he stays, and the allegations are repeated during the investigation. Tell me how he disproves them in that setting. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

    (Here’s a hint – I never said he could disprove them, but I also didn’t say he had to).

  156. 156.

    Rugosa

    @schrodingers_cat: I sympathize, being an English major and a natural pedant myself, but I say let it go already. I have seen so many norms of grammar, usage, and spelling drift away like so many dandelion seeds* on the wind in my life (I’m officially old) that I no longer bother trying to correct or understand them. English appropriates words from other languages all the time – Latin and the Romance languages, German, Native American languages, etc. – and has since forever. So be it.

    *technically, they are fruits called achenes. The seed is contained within the achene.

  158. 158.

    TenguPhule

    @MJS:

    So, he stays, and the allegations are repeated during the investigation. Tell me how he disproves them in that setting. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

    For starters we get a story told under oath. Let’s see how many accusers are up for that first.

    The important thing is to get the investigation. Not condemn based on accusation.

  159. 159.

    MJS

    @Corner Stone: I don’t get it because I haven’t ripped half of the Dem Senators before I’ve heard Franken’s statement? Crazy me, I’ll wait to see what he has to say before making this worse than it already is. But you keep doing your doom-pron thing. It’s helpful.

  161. 161.

    B.B.A.

    People, the important thing is not what happens to the senator from Minnesota. The important thing is that the people of Kentucky learn all about Mitch McConnell’s long, sordid history of [fill in the details later].

    More and better ratfuckers! Can’t anyone here play this game?

  162. 162.

    Corner Stone

    @MJS: The only doom pron thing I am doing is to clearly state that when we eat our own we lose. We set ourselves up to lose. We will be in a defensive crouch come 2018 if this is successful.

  164. 164.

    different-church-lady

    I finally realized the proper analogy for this is from chess: sacrificing a threatened rook, and gaining nothing in return, not even a strengthened position.

  165. 165.

    Mnemosyne

    @different-church-lady:

    4) I didn’t do it, it’s a set-up, but I’m resigning because I’ve become a distraction.

    This is what I think is most likely. And then all the self-righteous dudebros will crow that they were right all along, because he never would have resigned if he wasn’t guilty. And then the same thing happens with the next Democrat and the dudebros won’t have learned a goddamned thing.

  166. 166.

    TenguPhule

    @different-church-lady:

    sacrificing a threatened rook, and gaining nothing in return, not even a strengthened position.

    Worse, its sacrificing a queen while watching the other side plop a third knight illegally onto the board.

  167. 167.

    different-church-lady

    @TenguPhule:

    …while watching the other side plop a third knight illegally onto the board.

    WHITE: Uh… I don’t think the rules of chess allow you to…

    BLACK: SUCK IT, SNOWFLAKE!!!

  172. 172.

    satby

    @Just the Facts: you know what’s morally bankrupt? Equating the flimsy statements about “sexual assaults” like a dodged kiss or even a sophomoric photo with *actual* sexual assaults, especially to the several women in this blog who have repeatedly stated they’ve been assaulted or raped and continue to say that Franken doesn’t appear to have done either based on the statements of his accusers.

  173. 173.

    Peale

    In some ways, what is happening to Al is worse than what happened to Acorn or Sherrod. Three weeks from liberal darling to “everything that’s wrong with the Democratic party.” Did he have a reputation as a womanizer until 3 weeks ago? No. A secret scoundrel? No. Pissed away rather quickly, don’t you think?

  174. 174.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @TenguPhule:

    If this works against Franken the GOP is going to use this against EVERYBODY.

    I don’t agree with Tengu on much, but he’s on point about this. Nobody is so pure that you can’t find one thing they said or did that when taken out of context is offensive. And if that doesn’t work then there is their family and friends. Think the women are immune, then why do they support their sexists pig husband/brother/father/son?

  175. 175.

    Gvg

    Hmm the latest accusation per evening news is a former democratic staffer and she said he kissed her against her will, said it was his right as an entertainer and news said cooborated by 2 friends she told at the time. If that’s true, it’s over IMO. It sounds more true than what I had heard till now.

  176. 176.

    TenguPhule

    @Gvg:

    Hmm the latest accusation per evening news is a person CLAIMING TO BE former democratic staffer

    FTFY.

  177. 177.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @MJS:

    and Franken would have every right to tell Gillibrand, et al to go fuck themselves.

    You do realize that would be open and shut sexual harassment? Jesus Christ, were do you all work? This is me and Tengu’s point that everyone slips up at lest once.

  178. 178.

    TenguPhule

    @Peale:

    Three weeks from liberal darling to “everything that’s wrong with the Democratic party.”

    I know. Its maddening. All the assurances that the party learned its lessons and it fall apart in less then a month.

  180. 180.

    B.B.A.

    People: Franken is done. It’s too late for him, he’s the national poster boy for creepy, gropey, rapey old politicians. Never mind that he’s only been accused of much milder stuff than Trump or Moore, whether or not he did anything, he’s dead.

    I just pray he spills the beans on where some Republican bodies are buried, now that he’s no longer bound by senatorial courtesy. And that Dayton appoints his successor and gets her sworn in before the close of the day.

    (For the record, I think he’s a borderline groper who hides behind plausible deniability. The stories about the forced kisses are bullshit. I wish we had penalties for the things he is guilty of other than losing your job, but that’s how it goes.)

  181. 181.

    Peale

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Nope. Under any definition of sexual harassment, you are still allowed to tell someone to go fuck themselves. Unprofessional, yes. Unpleasant, yes. HR involved? Sure. But where the hell do you work that the reason for firing someone who tells off a colleague using crude language is “sexual harassment.” Christ. He could call her a cunt. Maybe sexism but not all sexism reduces down to sexual harassment accusations.

  182. 182.

    But her emails!!!

    @B.B.A.: There are other punishments that Franken can be subjected to, hence the ethics committee. Is the concept of due process so fricken difficult? We need to establish the need for due process for Franken, otherwise we set a precedent that accusations are all it takes. That opens a huge can of worms.

  183. 183.

    Amir Khalid

    @Major Major Major Major:
    I have more than once noted that to Muslims a jihad is any righteous struggle (not necessarily and indeed almost by definition never involving killing and destruction); giving that name to what the likes of ISIL and al-Qa’ida do is deeply offensive. But do you lot ever listen? No. I’m with schrodinger’s cat here. Karma is the idea that one’s actions have consequences in one’s own life. It is not an Indian term for Schadenfreude.

  184. 184.

    Ruckus

    I’d like to know where all the pure people are in this world. I’ve lived a while and I’ve never met one, seen pictures, heard about one, seen hieroglyphics….. Everybody has something. EVERYBODY. It may not be horrible, it may even be a bit funny, but every human alive has something that makes them less than pure. Of course some have so little purity that fire and brimstone won’t help in the least.
    So if the above is true, then we have to ask, what is an acceptable level of less than pure? I get of course the environment where there is power that is abused but what about a non power environment? I’m asking because if we are going to have arbitrary rules for some and we are going to never discuss limits until after the fact, we are always going to have less than satisfactory humanity, and less than real equality. It it legal only? Are there situations that could arise that given some small piece of info would change the entire setting, the entire concept of wrong?

  185. 185.

    joel hanes

    @schrodingers_cat:

    OK, I’m willing to learn.

    So what is the appropriate Sanskrit term for the religious idea that the actions a person takes during a lifetime have consequences suitable to the righness of those actions?

  186. 186.

    joel hanes

    @Amir Khalid:

    Karma is the idea that one’s actions have consequences in one’s own life

    That’s not what I understand sc to be saying; in fact, it seems to me that she comes close to denying that consequences are included in the plain meaning.

  187. 187.

    schrodingers_cat

    @joel hanes: Yes karma just means action.

    So what is the appropriate Sanskrit term for the religious idea that the actions a person takes during a lifetime have consequences suitable to the righness of those actions?

    AFAIK I don’t think there is such a concept, you do your best and don’t worry about the end goal is the advice Krishna gives Arjuna. A karma-yogi
    is one who is not attached to the consequences of his/her actions, or what people say, but just gives their best to the task at hand.

  188. 188.

    J R in WV

    @schrodingers_cat:

    No one is using it as a synonym for luck. It is being used as the concept that doing evil builds up a store of evil that is fated to strike back at the evil-doer. Some would also use it to speak of someone being fated to return to the world as a small and distasteful crawling creature after doing evil things as a human and then dying.

    Trump has done much evil, we expect him to suffer for that evil, somehow, and that expectation is what we call (bad) karma. People who save others, who help those in need, are earning good karma. Nothing to do with luck, which is the toss of the dice, the spin of the roulette wheel, the light turning green as you roll up to the intersection, over and over.

  189. 189.

    Rmirth

    DICTIONARY
    karma×
    kar·ma
    ˈkärmə/Submit
    noun
    (in Hinduism and Buddhism) the sum of a person’s actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences.
    informal
    destiny or fate, following as effect from cause.
    Karma in this context is shorthand for “past actions influencing the future”. AEV usage is not gross misappropriation. .

  190. 190.

    sigyn

    @Mnemosyne: Actually the Lakota, Nakota & Dakota* people are engaged in the existential battle to be called by the name you call yourself. Simple politeness. And we can blame it on French vernacular, if you like.

    sc has taken the position that we are all equating karma with “luck”. Ignoring commenters who point out Mudoch’s history of climate change denial & the delicious irony of one of his houses burning in the most horrific burning seasons in recent memory.
    I do know the difference between Karma and Dharma; maybe they’re not using them in India anymore. It’s not for me to say.
    What I also know is that no matter how we feel, according to schrodinger’s cat, it’s WRONG. We’re all doing democracy Wrong. And language Wrong, and resisting Wrong. Depending on what mood sc seems to be on any given day.

    I’m not calling troll; I’m just calling pie filter. Don’t die on this god-forsaken hill. Sorry for the vernacular.

    *Seriously, don’t drag this shit into it. You’re not here.

  191. 191.

    schrodingers_cat

    @J R in WV:
    I am fluent in two Indian languages and linguistically I was pointing out what karma really means. I have never seen it used in India the way the FPer and commenters here are using it.
    As for Murdoch, this is hardly any punishment for everything his media empire has been responsible, I am sure the house was insured.

  192. 192.

    schrodingers_cat

    @sigyn:

    I do know the difference between Karma and Dharma; maybe they’re not using them in India anymore.

    WTF?

    What I also know is that no matter how we feel, according to schrodinger’s cat, it’s WRONG. We’re all doing democracy Wrong. And language Wrong, and resisting Wrong. Depending on what mood sc seems to be on any given day

    When did I say this?

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