Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

We still have time to mess this up!

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

So many bastards, so little time.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

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

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

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

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

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46Comments

  2. 2.

    Duke of Clay

    I lived in Vermont for a few months while building a house in NH from which I could see Vermont. Lived there for 12 years, and I can tell you this skit is spot on. I’ll never forget my shock the first time I walked into a country store with a confederate flag on the wall. — and I’m from Mississippi originally.

  4. 4.

    Jay

    On the basis that all threads are open threads, and Insane Clown POSus and Special K are strangling out all news:

    “Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A little over 15 years after the United States invaded and occupied Iraq on false pretences, the Department of State has been forced to close the US consulate in Basra because the US cannot guarantee its security.

    Basra has been roiled this summer by huge protests against lack of services and mass sickenings of thousands caused by inadequately purified water. Infuriated crowds burned down the Iranian consulate in protest against Iran’s influence on the Iraqi state. Just last week, Basra activist Soad Ali was gunned down. (Then instagram model and rights activist Tara Fares, who had 3 million followers on Instagram, was gunned down on a visit to Baghdad from Erbil this week, as well).

    Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has asked all Americans to leave Basra, and State has issued a travel advisory for Americans warning them against travel to Iraq.

    The State Department spokesperson blamed the closing on “Iran-backed militias,” which is silly, since Iran’s own consulate was burned down and the militias’ target appears to have been the airport. Iran doesn’t seem to be in control of Basra. The Trump administration habitually lies about Iran just as it lies about everything else. Of course, there are pro-Iranian militias in Iraq. If Washington did not want that, they shouldn’t have overthrown the Iraqi government and dissolved the army.”

    https://www.juancole.com/2018/09/iraq-unsafe-consulate.html

    Tom Dispatch is on point as ususal as well:

    http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176473/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_in_search_of_the_victories_people_don%27t_even_know_about/

  5. 5.

    Martin

    New England racism is quieter than Dixie racism, but it’s not less pernicious. Seen plenty of it first hand.

  6. 6.

    FlipYrWhig

    See, I thought the point wasn’t supposed to be “Vermont is a secret haven for racists,” the joke being on Vermont; I thought the point was supposed to be “stupid neoconfederates don’t realize that everything they say they want is actually hippie-ish and liberal.” Maybe it’s both? Vermont seems like pretty much the only place in America where the hipsters, hippies, and rednecks all overlap and get along, which IMHO complicates some of the Bernie Sanders and Sanders-ite notions about how a class-based politics can win when tried.

  8. 8.

    Brachiator

    @Jay:

    Then instagram model and rights activist Tara Fares, who had 3 million followers on Instagram, was gunned down on a visit to Baghdad from Erbil this week, as well

    Extremists are gunning for any women who are prominent in social space.

  9. 9.

    JPL

    @Martin: It wasn’t so quiet during the 70’s when Boston tried to desegregate schools.

    The demographics are about the same in WV as in VT.

  10. 10.

    Jay

    @Brachiator:

    Female rights activists, actually rights activists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Mali, Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, etc, all have the same enemies,

    Government Forces, Islamic Forces, the Death Squads, the US “Black Ops” Teams.

  14. 14.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @FlipYrWhig: Oregon’s like that too, as I’ve discovered for myself in the past few years. Not too surprising, unfortunately, in a state with a dark history of intentionally excluding black people. 2016 was particularly eye-opening, and I have fewer friends and aquaintences now as a result.

  22. 22.

    trollhattan

    @Mnemosyne:
    Seems a little odd, give the long-established and substantial Asian populations in all the big port cities of the Northwest. May have been more related to the conference attendees than Portland, not that your friend isn’t entitled to his sense of ill ease.

  23. 23.

    John Revolta

    Oregon, Vermont et.al. remind me of England and Northern Europe 40-50 years ago, when they were all tut-tutting at us and our racial problems. They weren’t racists; the only conflicts they had were class conflicts. Then some actual POC started moving in.

  25. 25.

    JPL

    @trollhattan: The town that I was raised in had homes that were part of the underground railroad (safe havens), although it was clan like. You had your French communities, your Irish communities, etc and they were all trying to maintain their identities. Boston was fierce though at the time.

  27. 27.

    gwangung

    @trollhattan: You DO realize there’s been a long history of anti-Asian sentiment in the Pacific Northwest? And Portland is very very white; the racism has always been lurking under the surface. Folks have their feelers out as a survival mechanism.

  29. 29.

    JPL

    @satby: If memory serves me, you are right and it was established in the twenties. True historians are welcome to chime in though.

  30. 30.

    The Moar You Know

    Took my first trip to New Hampshire three years ago and the skit could apply just as equally there. Everyone’s white.

    Went to the supermarket. I’m from SoCal and you can get anything here in a store. The place in NH had, I shit you not, not even an “ethnic foods” aisle, but an “ethnic foods” shelf, with two bottles of Tabasco sauce and a box of taco shells. I had far better luck in London finding ingredients for Mexican food. London. As in England.

    My main beef with the place is the same beef I have with anyplace that’s not the West Coast: it’s a damn wet furnace in the summer.

  31. 31.

    zhena gogolia

    @Mart:

    Really? I thought Matt Damon did a great job. It was too long, and Kate McKinnon wasn’t funny, but Aidy Bryant was perfect as the “female prosecutor.”

  32. 32.

    MagdaInBlack

    My late husbands great-grandfather was, at one time, a member of the klan, small town south of Moline, IlL. Had to do with Catholics, the story was.
    I’ve not had contact with that side since his passing, but…I strongly suspect the mentality continues. It was not an enlightened area.

  34. 34.

    Kathleen

    @gwangung: I went to college in Portland in the late 60’s/early 70’s. The university I attended had quite a few students from Hawaii, one of whom began dating a white student, who told me about the stares they got when they ventured into the city.

  35. 35.

    trollhattan

    @gwangung:
    Having grown up in Seattle I’m familiar with the PNW’s large city/small city-rural cultural divide and since those days have never lived anywhere without a significant Asian population. Portland, compared to Salt Lake or Phoenix or Medford seems rather more at ease but I only am a frequent visitor, not a resident and won’t claim a wealth of experience.

  36. 36.

    Mart

    @zhena gogolia: For me the problem with the opener was it was too close to the real thing. Thought Matt looked great, punch lines were lacking. I thought Kate would kill it, but her outraged Ms Graham had no zip.

  38. 38.

    Shana

    @MagdaInBlack: What town was that, if I may ask? I grew up in Rock Island, right next to Moline.

    No arguments about the racism. We had a “race riot” among students at my high school while I was in Junior High, early 70s.

  41. 41.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Mnemosyne: It’s not so bad in Eugene, where the UofO is located and the sight of Asians is not so strange. But we have our shitheads even in this town. Today in the Register-Guard there was a letter from a MAGAt complaining that people like him are uncomfortable, mainly because they bring the hate.

  42. 42.

    Original Lee

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: A friend of my daughter’s, who had a full ride scholarship to a well-known institution of higher education in Oregon, stuck it out for two years before transferring to a school closer to home. She is Filipina-American, even her grandparents were born in the U.S., but she was constantly harassed for being either Mexican (and therefore probably illegal) or Native American (and therefore a criminal) and had to carry her passport with her constantly.

  43. 43.

    theturtlemoves

    @Villago Delenda Est: Just venture about 10 miles west of Eugene where I live and all the Art Robinson signs pop up semi-annually like hideous tulips. It’s a very strange contrast, particularly given the proximity of the annual “sell overpriced knick-knacks to hippies and wannabe hippies” venue.

  45. 45.

    The Pale Scot

    @Mnemosyne:

    my co-workers who is half-Japanese went to Portland for a tech conference last year and felt slightly uncomfortable

    Maybe he/she is exotically attractive?

  46. 46.

    stan

    @The Moar You Know: My experience has been that NH is a hell of a lot further to the right than Vermont is.

    Of course most of the state’s population is living in suburbs of Boston so there’s that. Great skit.

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