Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

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

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

So many bastards, so little time.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

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

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

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54Comments

  1. 1.

    Sister Golden Bear

    #WhiteFragility is freaking out over the fact that Greeks and Roman actually painted their white marble statues different colors.

    Professor’s essay about the original color of classical statues is mocked by conservative websites — and then she receives online threats

    Earlier this month, Bond published an article in the online arts publication Hyperallergic saying that research shows ancient Western artifacts were painted in different colors but have, over time, faded to their base light marble color — giving the false impression that white skin was the classical ideal.

    “Modern technology has revealed an irrefutable, if unpopular, truth: many of the statues, reliefs and sarcophagi created in the ancient Western world were in fact painted,” she wrote. “Marble was a precious material for Greco-Roman artisans, but it was considered a canvas, not the finished product for sculpture. It was carefully selected and then often painted in gold, red, green, black, white and brown, among other colors.

  2. 2.

    Calouste

    While Johnson was speaking in the House of Commons, a Conservative MP got up and “crossed the floor” to join the LibDems. This means that Johnson no longer has a majority in Parliament.

  6. 6.

    Tony Jay

    BREXIT ALERT

    “When we said yes, you never mentioned anything about bringing a bear”

    Well here we are then, three years into this extended audition for last place in the ‘Best Country to Retire To – All Nations Tournament’ (tied with Mordor and Latveria) and maybe today we’ll finally start to get some sense of how hard this little old country of ours is going to hit the bumpers. Too hard and we go smashing through the last, flimsy barrier and down, down, down into the uncharted abyss where dwelleth nightmares and the fell beasts of dystopia. Too softly and we bounce back a little, doomed to repeat this again and again until the adults say “Non. C’est fini” and send us to our room with no cake and nothing on TV but endless Piers Morgan interviews with… oh, anyone, they’re all awful.

    Hit them just right, though, and this shit could start getting mopped up.

    Because today is the day Parliament re-opens for business after the long summer recess, during which Clown Prince Flobalob’s unelected cabal of lab-grown slime-moulds and undigested prairie-oysters took advantage of the lack of (technically) adult supervision to get really, really blotto on cheap Harrods champers and stumble around Biarritz, Helsinki and other godless Euro-Bloc locations cosplaying as Earth-3’s Imperial Britannic Government for the entertainment of their deluded supporters back in Blighty. They’ve made portentous pronouncements aplenty about leaving the EU “Deal or No-Deal”, all breathlessly regurgitated by the pinch-cheeked fanbois that make up our ‘independent media’ but ultimately proven to be about as meaningful as the last, heartfelt call-to-arms made by Fritz Hoffelhoof, goat-mascot of the 13th Brandenburger Light Infantry Regiment, as the Russian noose tightened around a frozen Stalingrad and Hans the Regimental Quartermaster advanced on him with a sharpened bayonet and some scavenged onions. Bleat all you like, mein kamerad, no one understands your language and despite your surprisingly intense personal loyalty to Der Fuhrer, you’re nothing to us but meat that we need to eat.

    Yeah. Metaphor.

    Anyway, here’s the situation going into today’s abattoir of hopes and dreams.

    Johnson gave an ‘emergency speech’ in front of Number 10 last night in which he basically lied through his teeth about his intentions, claiming that he (and the country, for they are One Swollen Being Entire, dontchaknow) intended to concentrate on getting a ‘better deal’ from Europe and really, really, really didn’t want an early General Election, honest, while at exactly the same time his gofers were eeling their way through the journalistic crush to brief the big guns of political reporting that, should Parliament get its act together and pass legislation strictly forbidding a 31st October exit from the EU without a withdrawal agreement, Johnson would consider that akin to a confidence vote and immediately table a motion asking Parliament to vote for a General Election to take place no later than October 14th.

    A few of things to unpick about this. Back in the day General Elections could be called at any time in a Government’s 5-year term and were often called a bit early if the Government of the day thought the timing improved its chances. That all went out of the window a few years ago when the Tory/Lib-Dem Coalition Government, presided over by David “Big-Pig in Little-Pig” Cameron, passed the Fixed-Term Government Act, which basically forbids calling snap General Elections during a fixed 5 year term unless, a) the Government asks for it, and b) 2/3 of MPs vote for it. Theresa May’s Government used this part of the Act to bring about the 2017 General Election (in which she lost her Tory majority and all chances for an early Brexit – I blame Corbyn!) and it’s the main thing that later prevented the fall of her Tory/DUP alliance following the historically humiliating Parliamentary defeats of her shitty Withdrawal Deal back in 2018 and early 2019.

    Now, Labour have been calling for a General Election pretty constantly ever since the last one, because of course they have, they’re the Opposition and would love a chance to unseat the Tories and start fixing the damage caused by decades of right-wing orthodoxy, but there’s genuine trepidation about the timing of this one that will almost certainly lead to Labour saying no.

    It works like this. The first thing the cross-party alliance opposed to a No-Deal Brexit will do on returning to Parliament is wait for a gap in proceedings (which will be early this evening) to call for a debate and a vote on what’s being called the Benn Bill, which would instruct Johnson to ask the EU for an extension until 31 January 2020, with an additional clause ordering him to accept any alternate extension date the EU proposes unless Parliament says no, so effectively taking back the power to decide when the UK is supposed to exit the EU from the executive to the legislature and removing the threat of a No-Deal crash out from Number 10’s armoury. It would also keep control of the vote’s progression through its Commons and Lords stages under Parliament’s purview so that the current Government couldn’t proceed with their threat to prorogue (shut down) Parliament early next week. No funny business, you fuckers.

    (Would the EU give another extension? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on what the extension would be for and how well EU heads of government could sell that to their own electorates. It’s been out there for a while that the EU would happily give an extension in the case of a new election or a referendum, though, anything to get the whole rancid carcass of Brexit in the back of the van and moving ‘somewhere’. If they don’t, well, cross that bridge when we come to it)

    Now, Johnson’s threat to respond to this vote by tabling an immediate motion for a snap General Election looks like a no brainer. Labour want one, and with their votes he gets to 2/3 easily enough, but wait one shiny, pink minute! The process to turn the Benn Bill into law takes time, at least a couple of days at maximum warp and even longer if the Government’s minions throw their bodies on the tracks to slow it down. Without its passage then voting for a General Election to take place on the 14th of October would allow Johnson to dissolve Parliament 25 days prior to the Election, at which point he could then use his Prime Ministerial authority to unilaterally change the date of the Election to early November, bringing the threat of a No-Deal Brexit back to life regardless of what the now dissolved Parliament voted for. It would be an insanely dangerous and destructive thing to do, but in case no one has noticed this is the right wing of the Conservative Party we’ve talking about, the fiendishly sexy ‘Draco in Leather Pants’ bad-boy Britain’s woefully biased political correspondents fall asleep every night dreaming sweaty dreams about. So many of them would be flinging themselves open-mouthed and glistening with Vaseline in the direction of his junk for doing something so maliciously cunning that the ensuing mass concussion incident as their heads collided would clog up London’s Accident & Emergency wards for weeks.

    No, much more likely Labour and the other anti-No Deal parties reject Johnson’s motion and deal with the inevitable bullshit aftermath as best they can. “Waaaah! What are you scared of?” and “Why won’t you just GET ON with it!?!” will be the sum total of coverage from the Daily Heil, the Sexpress and the Murdoch stable of rags, with the BBC echoing the same narrative in slightly less punchable terms. We might then get the Government pushing the little known (as in, it’s only been mentioned today) clause of the Fixed-Term Parliament Act which lets the PM basically stick two fingers up to Parliament and call an Election by simply writing “notwithstanding the FTPA we will be having a General Election on such and such a date” in biro on the toilet wall and sending pictures of it to MPs via his Instagram feed. They could do that, but I’m hard pressed to think of anything more likely to torch the last tattered rags of Tory Party unity and lead to an immediate Vote of No Confidence.

    No, strike that, there is one other thing he could do that would be even more incendiary. He could be a good little boy and toddle off to the EU meeting on the 17th of October and make the request for an extension on behalf of the UK Parliament, and then, acting as the head of government for one of the 28 constituent member states of the EU, veto the extension himself. Parliament would go ballistic, yes, but the natives of Gammon Island would erect giant statues in his honour across the hills and dales of their White Free State. One thing’s for sure, if Johnson goes all in on preventing Parliament from delaying Brexit by any means necessary, he leaves a good chunk of Tory MPs with no other choice than to use the only mechanism left available to remove him. We’d still get an Election, but one where an Interim Government holds the reins rather than the far-Right revolutionary cell currently holding the country hostage.

    Yeah, so, crazy things could happen. Meanwhile in the background we’ve had the revelation in the Torygraph by its Europe Editor that he has proof from private strategy meetings held by Johnson that his senior political advisor, Dominic “Kneel before My Giant Head” Cummings, was happy to admit that their entire policy of renegotiating anything with the EU was a complete sham designed to drag proceedings out until Parliamentary counteraction was ruled out. Bear in mind, the entire Government case against Tory Party rebels voting to prevent a No Deal crash-out is based on the claim that removing the possibility of leaving without a deal “cuts the legs out” from under the UK’s negotiating position. This morning the former Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer Phillip “Stiff” Hammond was on the BBC absolutely slaughtering this claim and pointing out that the Government isn’t actually ‘negotiating’ with anyone, so there are no negotiations to sabotage. And he’s right, it’s all obvious lies, but the idea that a Tory MP of his standing would actually say that on television left three BBC journalists in a state of tonic immobility and caused the Director-General to cancel his 11 a.m. spanking session with Madam Von Thwacky in order to apologise to Johnson directly via a tearful phone call and the couriered-over heart of his firstborn child.

    Oh, and let us not forget the trio of court cases being brought against the Government to stop prorogation and prevent a No-Deal through legal means. The Edinburgh case could be decided today and that alone could inflict another humiliation on the gobshite parade in Downing Street.

    What’s going to happen? Fuck knows. The current Parliamentary manoeuvres are all about pushing back the day of decision so Conservative MPs don’t have to make difficult decisions, but Johnson’s mob of nihilistic moral eunuchs seem to be following a program of maximum fuckery in order to close off any escape route other than the one marked Vote of No Confidence. He knows that his only pathway to a full term as PM goes through an Election campaign where he can claim to have been this close to forcing those European johnnies to surrender to British demands before the Remoaner majority in Parliament sabotaged it for everyone. Only with the majority of Tory voters and Farage’s BXP fascist-cultists backing him (with or without Nigel’s approval) can he hope to scrape back into Number 10 past a divided anti-Brexit vote, at which point he’s got a maximum of 5 years to enjoy the trappings of power and do favours for the right people. It’s all about the Benjamins, yo.

    So, expect fireworks, but not just yet, give it a few days. I’m sure the Prick of Pennsylvania Avenue will be along any minute with something to occupy y’all in the meantime. 8-)

    Oh, hang on.

    ++++++++++Breaking News++++++++++++

    While Flobalob was giving his latest package of lies and misused Classical allusions to Parliament the Conservative MP for Bracknell Phillip Lee stood up, crossed the chamber, and sat down on the Lib Dem benches.

    Tory majority down to zero. It’s gone. Now it’s a minority Government.

    Ha!

  8. 8.

    PaulWartenberg

    This was the quietest movie summer I’ve had in a long time. I didn’t see a single movie since the 4th of July with Spider-Man Far From Home. I’ve usually done at least two movies a month between May through August since 1994. I’m disappointed in Hollywood this year.

  9. 9.

    Bruce K

    Uh … if the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom no longer has a working majority in Parliament, whiskey tango foxtrot happens next?

  10. 10.

    SFAW

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    Not sure what made WP cranky.

    Probably easier to list all the thing that doesn’t make it cranky.

    ETA: “Easier” in the sense of less time to type. Of course, figuring out the item that extremely short list is the tough part.

  13. 13.

    Ohio Mom

    Today is Ohio Dad’s first day of his new job. After having him home for four lovely months, it’s an adjustment for me — though I recognize of course that it’s a much bigger one for him. Hoping the report tonight is very positive.

    Only seven and a half more years of this and he can retire.

  14. 14.

    Tony Jay

    Fucking hilarious. The only thing that would make it better is if a half dozen or so had planned this and one stood up and did the walk every ten minutes or so. Flobalob would lose it.

  20. 20.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    I’d like to know if any of you jackals have ever met anybody famous and what that experience was like, good or bad.

    I got to meet Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini (the boxer from the 70s and 80s) back in 2015. It was at the banquet center I used to work at and it was some dinner or something for a charity of his. He wasn’t busy so I said hi and asked him for his autograph. He was very nice and gracious and signed the bit of lined paper I had with me. He even sent me a signed picture of his in the mail a few days later. A very nice man.

    Other than that, I haven’t met anybody else famous. I’ve been thinking about going to a Star Trek convention in a few years and getting a poster or something signed by a few TNG cast members. I’m almost afraid to, only because I’ve heard some horror stories of fans having bad experiences at these signings.

    On the one hand, I can understand the grueling schedule of a convention, having to meet with hundreds of people all day, and meeting some annoying/weird fans who can’t separate the actor from the role. Not to mention answering the same questions at these conventions for years now. At the end of the day, they’re just people who might be having a bad day.

    On the other hand, they agree to do these conventions and get paid to do them. It’s not like some rando fan accosting them on the street for an autograph. It’s not too much to ask for a little politeness (Brent Spiner, while having a known sarcastic personality, can be an asshole, confusing questions about his interpretations of his character for the fan not knowing if Data is real or not. “You do know Data, isn’t real, right?”)

  21. 21.

    Tony Jay

    I’m stuck on a bus, but according to those watching the show Flobalob is getting his saggy, white arse handed to him so brutally Tory MPs are already slipping out of the chamber rather than watch.

    He’s just not very good at this politics lark.

  22. 22.

    catclub

    @Tony Jay:

    No, strike that, there is one other thing he could do that would be even more incendiary. He could be a good little boy and toddle off to the EU meeting on the 17th of October and make the request for an extension on behalf of the UK Parliament, and then, acting as the head of government for one of the 28 constituent member states of the EU, veto the extension himself. Parliament would go ballistic,

    This will be a thing.

  23. 23.

    Dev Null

    @Tony Jay: Don’t take this as a criticism, because it isn’t; it’s an observation: your writing is so entertaining that I almost always realize after reading one of your comments …

    … that I’ve no idea of the substance of what you posted.

  28. 28.

    sixthdoctor

    Maybe if being called a traitor bothers you, I don’t know, stop being a traitor?

    “Calling me Moscow Mitch is over the top,” McConnell tells Hugh Hewitt— Manu Raju (@mkraju) September 3, 2019

  30. 30.

    Dev Null

    @Gin & Tonic: [groans]

    It goes without saying that I wish I’d said that.

    But “you will, Oscar, you will” seems highly unlikely, and not only because I’m not Oscar.

  31. 31.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:

    I was lucky enough to have two long and interesting careers, both of which allowed me to meet and often spend considerable time with well-known people. As a classical music/cultural affairs producer for NPR stations, I met and interviewed (and often socialised with) literally scores of famous musicians, actors, dancers, painters, writers, etc. And subsequently, during my 25-year career with the Canadian Consulate General in Atlanta, I met and worked with senior elected and appointed officials from both countries. Whether artists or politicians, there are wonderful people, ordinary people, and a few real assholes. Just like people everywhere.

  34. 34.

    mrmoshpotato

    @sixthdoctor: Oh Mitch. If being called out for being Putin’s bitch, a traitorous shit, bothers you, then…ummm…do I really have to spell it out for you?

  35. 35.

    Marigold

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I haven’t interacted with anyone on the level of Star Trek, but I volunteered as a guest handler years ago, and still attend a couple nerd conventions a year. I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Everyone I’ve met has been extremely gracious, and used to interacting with the young, shy or nervous.

    Basic guidelines: practice good hygiene, ask before touching them, be aware of whether there’s a long line behind you. If they have hours for autograph sessions, don’t ask them for a photo during dinner or in the hallway because they need that downtime, or you can block traffic. (A smile or brief pleasantry is fine: “Thanks for coming,” or “I hope you’re having a good time.”)

  36. 36.

    Sab

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I dated Caleb Carr for about a week in college. We didn’t hit it off. He wasn’t famous then, just very bright, quite weird, and insanely provincial.

    I met Loudon Wainwright in the hall of my grad school once. He was wandering the campus asking people if the jokes he planned to tell were too incendiary. I had to tell him I studied so much I wasn’t plugged in at all to campus politics. Embarrassing. Funny thing is my boyfriend at the time as waiting in the audience for his concert to start, and he hadn’t invited me, and he was an utterly devoted fan. Ha!

    ETA I also shook Al Franken’s paw at a Democratic event during the Kerry campaign. He was very charming and surprisingly short.

  39. 39.

    Bmaccnm

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: My then 8 year old son stood in line to meet Yo Yo Ma after a concert with the Oregon Symphony. Mr Ma was genuinely kind to my son and drew him a cartoon when my son said he saw Mr Ma on “Arthur.” It was a real human interaction.

  40. 40.

    Matt McIrvin

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I met lots of renowned physicists when I was in grad school (including a couple of Nobel winners, and Lisa Randall who later became more of a pop-science celebrity), but that’s a specialized version of famous.

    Briefly shook hands with John Lithgow at a campus event at one point. Also met jazz musician Ravi Coltrane (John’s son) through a mutual acquaintance at the Montreal jazz festival. They seemed nice, not much more to say.

  41. 41.

    Just One More Canuck

    @ Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) : my daughter recently went to the Fan Expo here in Toronto and got the autograph of some voice actress I’ve never heard of (Tara Strong) – she was apparently quite nice and engaging (I want there – she went with one of her nerdy friends and her even nerdier dad)

  42. 42.

    Anotherlurker

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: In my 40+ years as a broadcast tech, I met many famous people. Sports figures, “master of the universe” corporate types, actors, directors producers, etc.
    Some were wonderful and some were out and out trash/assholes. People are people and are part of an entire spectrum of personalities.
    Rumors of a celeb’s. personality, shared within the tech. community, were usually accurate. For example: Cosby and a certain orange stained, grabby handed, dumb as f’n dishwater “president”.
    These rumors almost always took the form of an instruction: don’t ever be alone with _________, always bring someone from production with you. You can’t trust his people . This was given to A2s who were there to mic. him up or people who were there to discuss the script, etc.
    Those techs who worked on Lord Smallgloves “hit network tv show”, are traumatized that they helped to re-start the asshole’s career and re-wedge him into the Nation’s consciousness. Seriously, some are now in therapy.
    In sum: people are people and watch your ass around a good deal of them.

  43. 43.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Marigold: I remember going to a little convention back in the Nineties where Walter Koenig was one of the autograph-signing guests. Later spotted him walking around the floor seemingly trying very hard to be polite to a starstruck nerd who was following him around, saying things like “I can’t believe I’m having a conversation with CHEKOV…”

  44. 44.

    The Moar You Know

    “Calling me Moscow Mitch is over the top,” McConnell tells Hugh Hewitt

    @sixthdoctor: I agree, it’s far too clever a nick to be wasted on a vile piece of shit like Moscow Mitch.

    But, y’know, the truth hurts and all that. You go with what you’ve got.

  46. 46.

    Yutsano

    @Just One More Canuck: I have met Tara as well. And it’s no surprise your daughter was very excited to meet her as Tara more than likely voiced her childhood. If you look up her IMdB page, you’ll see she has a TON of credits.

    Oh and she’s Canadian. And Jewish.

  48. 48.

    Citizen Alan

    @Marigold:

    My favorite convention memory: DragonCon 1998. As I’m walking around the convention floor, a little old lady makes a bee-line straight towards me. She looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t quite place her. She apparently noticed my expression because, when she gets to me, she says “Hi there! I played Jason’s Mother in Friday the 13th. Can you direct me to the food court?” I take a few seconds to process that and then point her in the right direction, and she thanks me and heads off, presumably for a delicious Chik-Fil-A (this was back before we all knew they were evil).

  50. 50.

    Ruckus

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
    @SiubhanDuinne:
    First, SD, yes, people are people, pretty much everywhere I’ve traveled or worked around the world.
    Goku I’ve met quite a few famous people, although some of them might only be famous within a smaller circle than what you are probably asking. I have met the chairman of the board of Ford, Bill Ford. And I met a lot of athletes who are famous in their respective sports, as I worked in two completely different professional sports and from two completely different sides.

  52. 52.

    Skepticat

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Whether artists or politicians, there are wonderful people, ordinary people, and a few real assholes. Just like people everywhere.

    As president of a public-private organization that held a popular speaker series, I got to meet quite a few very famous people—presidents, athletes, politicians, humorists, experts on whatever—and I thoroughly agree with that assessment. I also went to college with Stephen King, who’s become one of the wonderful ones, though he was an SDS wild man at the time.

  53. 53.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Echoing what’s been stated above, they span the gamut. The pressure to be “on” (and make no mistake, that is work which can take a toll) is better managed by some than by others.

    As for the conventions themselves, the same holds as to spanning the gamut, dependent on the focus and skill of the people running them. Regardless of that, however, some advice: plan your visit beforehand. Check the schedule and events online in advance, mark off which ones are a must for you, and show up early so as not to be shut out when a room for a popular panel or screening reaches capacity. Include free time allowing you to wander and/or be distracted by things/stuff which catch your fancy. Also too, down time for yourself to decompress while there. Wearing comfy footwear a must, and if the vendor’s area is something which entices you, doesn’t hurt to bring along a sturdy shopping bag.

    Oh, and have a blast. At a well-run convention, I’ve always made it a point to find someone in a staff capacity and thanking them for providing a good experience.

  54. 54.

    Marigold

    @Citizen Alan:
    I love DragonCon! I don’t normally like huge crowds, but the atmosphere there is so positive that I rarely notice it. I had my breathless fangirl moment there with Peter Beagle, author of the Last Unicorn–my badge listed where I live, and he had been to Sandusky as a young man, so we had a nice chat. Mostly I stick to panels, though, instead of one on one.

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