Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

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

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

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

“Alexa, change the president.”

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

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

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

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

You cannot shame the shameless.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Bark louder, little dog.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

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Exposing the heart of the con…

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In a post this afternoon Matthew Yglesias gets to the heart of the scam being run by modern conservative media in print, online, the radio and on the teevee:

At some point conservatives need to ask themselves about the larger meaning of this kind of conduct—and Andrew Breitbart’s—for their movement. Beyond the ethics of lying and smear one’s opponents, I would think conservatives would worry about the fact that a large portion of conservative media is dedicated to lying to conservatives. They regard their audience as marks to be misled and exploited, not as customers to be served with useful information.

I’ve got nothing to add, so let’s go Open Thread.

Cheers

Exposing the heart of the con…Post + Comments (101)

Open Thread: The GOP’s Other POC Issue?

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Severely tongue-in-check report from Wonkette:

RNC Treasurer Randy Pullen dropped a line to members of the party’s budget committee yesterday just to let them know Michael Steele has hidden about $7 million in debt from him lately. This made the RNC’s “war chest” (boobs) look bigger than usual, so this was a job well done by Mike. However, that is not exactly legal, so the party could face huge fines from the Federal Election Commission for doing this…
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The Washington Times also has learned that former Federal Election Commission Chairman Michael E. Toner has been retained as outside counsel to the RNC, a move Mr. von Spakovsky called unusual and significant…
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Can we get Tom Vilsack to fire Michael Steele? Yeah, he doesn’t have any justification for firing Steele either, but this is just getting sad.
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Just fire him, Republicans. If you are worried about the black thing, hire Alan Keyes. Certainly he is available. YES, he may be a bit crazy, but you have to at least try somebody else.

‘Mr. von Spakovsky’, incidentally, seems to be professional ratfvcker Hans A. von Spakovsky. Can I pull a full-Fox, and use Cavuto Marks to imply that Republicans hope to use Andrew “Danegeld” Breitbart’s race-baiting antics to distract attention as they shitcan the RNC’s Token Black Person? Yes, YES I CAN!

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Interesting random data

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Off topic — today’s topic being SHERRODGATE — the Brookings Institution (via ThinkTanked and HuffPost) has some neat data on which metropolitan areas are the least and most educated, using various measures. Using “percentage of population over 25 with bachelor’s degrees” or “percentage of population with a graduate degree”, 24 of the top 25 areas are in states that went for Obama in 2008.

I don’t mean this to be all “Republicans are teh stupid” or “people without a lot of formal education are teh stupid”, I just find this kind of demographic data interesting and thought you might too.

Also too, you may use this an open thread to refudiate any of the things said on this blog today.

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The “It Was About the Audience” Lie

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The new lie is that this film wasn’t about Sherrod, it was about the “racist NAACP audience reaction.” None other than Rich Lowry puts this to bed:

Jonah, the problem with the audience defense made by your e-mailers is that Sherrod told her listeners this before launching into the white-farmer story:

    When I made that commitment [to stay in the South], I was making that commitment to black people, and to black people only. But you know God will show you things, and he’ll put things in your path so that you realize that the struggle is really about poor people.

So, the audience knew what the up-shot of the story was going to be. In a disservice to everyone, Andrew’s source clipped the video to exclude this key introduction, which would have only added about 20 seconds more in length, but an entire world in additional context.

The audience knew from the beginning of the speech that this was a tale of redemption, and were in no way cheering racism. This bullshit about audience reaction is just shifting the smear from Sherrod to unknown black people.

Not that folks like Ed Morrisey won’t give it the old college try, anyway.

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Center Right Nation

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Hello again.

I was kay the commenter and now I’m Kay.

I live in a rural Ohio county and I’m active in the county and state Party.

I’m a political minority here, and I am sometimes photographed standing next to the other Democrat, so I get  email “notices” like this from local Republicans who know me, or somehow got my email address:

Jul 17, 2010 … Jerry Garcia in concert. MONTPELIER -The public is cordially invited to a Southern gospel concert with Jerry Garcia at 10:30 a.m. Sunday.

It says Jerry Garcia so it goes to the Democrat.  That one was actually pretty funny.

I don’t mind at all being a being a numerical political minority here.

I think of us as “scrappy” rather than “the designated losers”.

In any event, all Democrats are a political minority, regardless of numbers, because as you-all know despite the math, this is a Center Right Nation.

Thanks for having me, John.

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Early Morning Open Thread: Catnip for Geeks

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The Guardian tracks an ‘exclusive’ on Stephen Fry’s next project:

“It’s a bit of a secret but the BBC have commissioned me to do a five-part series on language, called Planet Word,” he said. “Language is my real passion. So, I’m going to Beijing to interview the man who invented Pinyin, a phonetic version of the Chinese language. He’s 105 years old … if he dies on me I’m going to be so annoyed.”
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Fry revealed details of his highbrow new project to 14-year-old Eden Parris in an interview for a Radio Times feature that enabled young readers to meet their TV heroes.
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In a conversation that ranged from Harry Potter to Wagner, darts and porridge oats, Fry said: “I haven’t seen a good documentary about language, where it comes from, how we speak it, the variations of it, whether languages are dying, whether we are better at speaking than we were. There are so many questions.”

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I Was Wrong

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There was one group of people who were immediately defending Sherrod from the Breitbart smears. Charles Johnson and the Lizardoids at LGF, yesterday:

Let me sum it up; Breitbart has EARTH-SHATTERING video of Shirley Sherrod, USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development, speaking at the 2009 NAACP Freedom Fund dinner in Georgia. But wait, it gets even worse.

Sherrod tells a story about a white farmer who patronizes and condescends to her, which leads to her not wanting to go out of her way to help the guy. She ends up referring him to a white lawyer to continue pursuing his case.

Can you BELIEVE IT! I don’t know how the NAACP will ever recover from Andrew Breitbart’s devastating master stroke.

OK, I’m being a little sarcastic. This is actually really really stupid and inconsequential.

CJ then consistently defended her the last 24 hours.

I Was WrongPost + Comments (199)