(h/t commentor Freelancer)
__
Doghouse Riley, on his way to a masterful fisking of George Eff Will’s latest dribble:
… The Dallas Cowboys Football Club, Ltd., is the most valuable sports franchise in the United States, and second in the world. It’s owned by Jerral Wayne “Asshole” Jones, who made his money by being born wealthy and increasing it. Mr. Jones is therefore what is known, in some circles, as a “jobs creator”, though he created neither The Dallas Cowboys, nor the search for natural resources, his other hobby, and cannot perform either highly remunerated function without assistance. No one I’m aware of argues that either pursuit would go unfunded if Jones did not exist.
And Jerry Jones is widely, if not unanimously, considered to be the worst human being to own a professional sports franchise. Even if you don’t know anything about professional sports franchises, just imagine what the competition must be like. He is also the General Manager of Cowboys football operations. As with everything else he touches, Jones has been highly successful at this. So long as other people were doing the work.
The Cowboys suck, but they’re worth billions. The Cowboys are worth billions, but it’s the taxpayers who built the largest domed stadium on earth so they’d have a place to play. It was projected to cost $650 million, and actually cost $1.3 billion, give or take a few fabrications.
Now, then, let’s talk entitlements…
**********
Apart from making glibertarians and other rightwingers cry, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
redshirt
Still reveling in the sweet, sweet Wingnut tears.
So wonderful!
cathyx
The rich are different.
mai naem
CBS piece by Jan Crawford. I know I shouldn’t laugh but jeez, I cannot help it.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57547239/adviser-romney-shellshocked-by-loss/?pageNum=1&tag=page
Truly hilarious tumbler site. I felt guilty for laughing.
http://whitepeoplemourningromney.tumblr.com/page/8
NotMax
While dribble kinda, sorta works, methinks you meant to say drivel.
General Stuck
We are all walking on egg shells here at the last place on earth apartments. The Fish and Wildlife guys stopped by to tell us there is a large mountain lion hanging around the property, so secure your pets and watch it when going out at night.
The last time one of these cats was seen hanging around a neighborhood a few miles from here, it ended up eating some guy. That was four years ago, so I figure this time too, Obama must have something to do with it.
Punchy
Gubbnah Scott unable to explain why his fucking hellhole state is such a fucking hellhole state
NotMax
@General Stuck
Perfect time to tweet out for an all-Republican flash mob.
Chris
Open thread question – anyone seen Wreck It Ralph? Is it any good?
ranchandsyrup
trolling glibertarians and conservatives by telling them that at least I can respect Eric Donderooooooooooo because he has the courage of his convictions while they prefer to say the same things in “quiet rooms”.
redshirt
@General Stuck: That is scary! I imagine it limits your outdoor time in some respect.
I now live deep in the woods, but it’s Maine and there’s nothing that bad out there. At least I tell myself. But just a few weeks back I encountered a bull moose in my driveway. Hi!
I often forget it’s the “woods” out there, but the moose was a good reminder.
Linda Featheringill
I’m in the process of moving way over to another state. I guess I’ll be an east coaster. Today, we’re at the cleaning and packing stage and I am exhausted. I’m getting too old for this crap.
redshirt
@Linda Featheringill: I hate that stage. But then, there are so many stages of moving to hate.
jayackroyd
Thanks Anne/Freelancer. Hadn’t seen that. Awesome job by Maddow. Makes a great case.
Anne Laurie
@NotMax:
No, I read the Will piece (pro tip: don’t) and it’s the word-based equivalent of what a man with self-respect would clean off before leaving the restroom.
Mojotron
From SNL and UHF alum Victoria Jackson’s twitter feed:
Military Absentee Ballots Delivered One Day Late, Would Have Swung Election For Romney
WASHINGTON, DC – Sources confirmed today that hundreds of thousands of military absentee ballots were delivered hours after the deadline for them to be counted, with preliminary counts showing that they would have overturned the vote in several states and brought a victory for Governor Mitt Romney.
Before tweeting this link or commenting on this story (using Facebook credentials no less) one might think about how many troops are stationed overseas currently versus the “hundreds of thousands” of ballots. One might also read the story and find some of the details fairly implausible if not outrageous. One might also see the link on the side to the story about “Boredom, Liver Cleanliness Determined Cause Of Death In Okinawa Barracks Tragedy” and realize that it’s a satirical website that one has been angrily retweeting.
One might have a sense of shame about the whole thing, but sadly one does not.
Anne Laurie
@Linda Featheringill: Congratulations (?) on the move, and condolences on the hateful, draining packing-&-cleaning parts!
NotMax
@Anne Laurie
Okey-fine.
chopper
like beef bourguignon, wingnut tears are even better the second day.
NotMax
With so much focus on Rove, let’s not neglect the fail of smarmy Ralph Reed:
Kineslaw
The FSM knows I HATE to defend Jerry Jones, but as a citizen of the city in which the new stadium sits, I must correct the record.
The stadium was estimated to cost $650 million and Arlington agreed to split the cost with Jerry, but they capped their costs at $325 million, so the difference between Jones’s $325 million share estimate and the $1.2 billion total cost was borne exclusively by Jerry Jones. The taxpayers were not on the hook for more than they originally agreed to.
While Jerry has been a horrible GM of the Cowboys, the stadium really is a technological and engineering marvel. Driving past it makes me feel a bit like how an ancient Egyptian must have felt staring at the pyramids.
Linda Featheringill
@Anne Laurie:
I think I’m moving to a better situation. If I can survive the move. Thanks.
Tom S
I dunno, the Redskins’ owner Dan Snyder is a pretty miserable human being, as is the Orioles’ Peter Angelos.
blingee
Not a huge Maddow fan but THAT…WAS…AWESOME!
gnomedad
Random but awesome:
Oh, this? Just some teenage girls from Africa who invented a urine-powered generator.
freelancer
@Anne Laurie:
Thanks for the hat tip. That upload cut off the end of what she was saying. Here’s the overlap. Sully even frontpaged it, and he is usually dismissive of Maddow because he finds her to be smug.
Gwangung
@Chris: fun movie. A little soppy sentiment, lots of video game in jokes, about 10 percent of which this old fart caught.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Speaking of Rachel, she is cracking me up ripping on Turdblossom and the GOP as a whole.
trollhattan
@mai naem:
Bwa-ha-ha!
http://whitepeoplemourningromney.tumblr.com/image/35300018251
Lordy that whole Chic-whateverthefuck imbroglio was a lifetime ago. And now it’s all they’ve got.
ArchTeryx
@Chris: Absolutely. From this old gamer, it was made of awesome and win. A little soppy and sentimental at the end, but it was basically a middle-of-the-road Pixar movie…and that’s nothing but a good thing.
redshirt
Wow! I have watched zero TV news over the past 3 years or so, and had forgotten how awesome Maddow can be. That clip gave me tingles. The cut off sucked though – she was bringing it home!
Democrat Partisan Asshole
Only because Al Davis is dead.
However, unlike the vile Jerry Jones, Asshole Al not only created the Raiders but the entire NFL as we know it. Jerry would just be another third-rate daddy’s money oilman, just like you-know-who, if not for Al Davis.
ArchTeryx
@Chris: Absolutely. From this old gamer, it was made of awesome and win. A little soppy and sentimental at the end, but it was basically a middle-of-the-road Pixar movie…and that’s nothing but a good thing.
redshirt
Wow! I have watched zero TV news over the past 3 years or so, and had forgotten how awesome Maddow can be. That clip gave me tingles. The cut off sucked though – she was bringing it home!
SiubhanDuinne
@General Stuck:
Please do not let my beloved Charlie out of your sight!
Oh … And you be careful, too :-)
We need you here.
rikyrah
I’ve watched this segment at least a half dozen times. it’s righteous.
SiubhanDuinne
@gnomedad:
Pee-troleum?
Dr. Squid
Whitewater trivia: While Bill Clinton and most other investors pissed away their money in the Whitewater development, only two people made money off Whitewater. One of them was Jerry Jones.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@efgoldman: Bingo.
Jay in Oregon
http://rollingjubilee.org/
Seems like a good idea to me…
Felonius Monk
@Mojotron: Twitter in the hands of the criminally stupid should be illegal.
PurpleGirl
@efgoldman: Don’t forget George Steinbrenner.
ETA: He may have been in baseball but he was still an awful person.
28 Percent
@Kineslaw: You have a sneaking suspicion that you’re going to be buried alive in the Superdome?
burnspbesq
@efgoldman:
Pikers, the lot of them. To see true fan hatred of ownership, there is no place like the English Premier League.
danielx
Digesting birthday dinner I made for my sister in law’s birthday…filet, garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus steamed with butter and white wine, and King’s Ridge pinot noir, with lemon cake following. Food coma is setting in rapidly.
maryQ
We are all Macaca now.
burnspbesq
The real reason there are 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire is that Blackburn Rovers’ fans launched a sustained and intensive mortar attack the last time the club’s absentee owners (who run the Indian chicken company Venky’s) were in town.
NotMax
That may have been one of the Top 25 moments in commentary on TV that just aired 3 minutes ago on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show.
Trying to describe it would be fruitless. Seek out the rerun or video when it is posted. Just before the bottom of the hour.
burnspbesq
Also, too, your boy Doghouse’s research-fu is weak.
The Cowboys are neither the most valuable franchise in the US nor the second-most-valuable in the world. The annual Forbes ranking has them joint third with the Yankees, behind Manchester United and Real Madrid. And the Forbes list ignores the value at which the Dodgers changed hands in an actual market transaction between unrelated parties, which slots them into second, between ManU and FURM.
freelancer (iPhone)
@NotMax:
Full Screen Dick Morris?
NotMax
@ freelancer (iPhone)
Yup. And the accompanying performance by O’Donnell.
piratedan
@Tom S: afaik… Snyder was one of the few NFL owners that actually wrote a check for Katrina relief efforts out of his own pocket, outside of NFL charities. He is/can be a tool quite often but he’s not completely irredeemable.
freelancer
@NotMax:
I was kind of meh about it, but I liked the simplicity. Lawrence thinks he’s funnier than he actually is.
The Edith Childs interview made me weepy though. Damn.
NotMax
@ freelancer
True, true.
Without deconstructing it too much, the audio enhancement of his footsteps and then the use of silence on a show titled “The Last Word” was A+ clever performance art.
As always, YMMV.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Mojotron: Sigh. Poor miz Jackson was really the least intelligent creature in the “Toonces the Driving Cat” skit, wasn’t she.
fuckwit
The shell-shock I’m seeing among the RMoney folks reminds me a lot of the stunned disbelief I saw from the neocons when the Iraq war turned out to be a fucking disaster.
Just as the faith-based neocons really, really did expect the Iraqis to greet us with flowers, I think the RMoney camp really, really did expect us peons to coronate them joyfully as our new corporate overlords.
This election, like 2008, really was about reality versus fantasy.
Reality won. May it keep winning.
Now, can we all acknowledge the reality of climate change and a liquidity trap, please?
Xecky Gilchrist
@Chris: Yes, liked it. I was a sixteen-year-old arcade dweeb when the fictitious Ralph game was released and I’d have loved it, so I had the big nostalgia rush going. But the show would have been just fine without that, IMO.
Overall, I agree with @ArchTeryx: at 33.
I’ll add that the design work for the Sugar Rush world is worth seeing the movie for all on its own, if you’re a CG details geek.
2liberal
@efgoldman:
wasn’t it billy sullivan for the pats? and he wasn’t despicable , just sort of a clown. and victor kiam wished he was as bad a person as jones but just didn’t have a big enough stage to play on.
Tonal Crow
I’ve not infrequently argued that Republicans have lost sight of the fact that their propaganda *is* propaganda, and have instead adopted it as the truth. This article suggests that Team Romney — and quite possibly Romney himself — genuinely believed the “unskewed polls” nonsense that numerous GOP propagandists recently spread.
Ha. Ha. Haha. Hahahahahahahahaha stupid sheep!
Hal
I feel like a vampire the last few days, sucking in all this right wing despair. It literally makes me smile from ear to ear when I read a post on Facebook from someone saying America is fucked, and welfare, foodstamps, communism, and why hast thou forsaken us Lord! Love it.
That clip Maddow aired yesterday with Karl Rove furiously denying the reality of an Obama win, Meghan Kelly’s walk of shame down to the “numbers guys” to verify, Sarah Palin’s gi-fucking-normous mushroom head (eat a sandwich, share with Al Sharpton) throwing out her typical word salad over the utter disbelief of an Obama win.
This will sustain me for months, maybe years. Good or bad, instead of watching puppies and kittens on youtube, when I’m feeling down, I will watch Fox News clips dated 11-7-2012.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
Is there any chance Dr. Maddow may someday consider a run in olitics herself? I’d vote for her! Grace, good humor, and intelligence: a trifecta!
SatanicPanic
@Hal: Being arguing with people here and there on FB. Started to get into it with a libertarian but then thought… nah, why bother? Their era is over. They’ll either come around or they won’t.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.): Ah, the importance of proofreading: “olitics” should, of course, be “politics”.
Kane
Every liberal should make a copy of the Rachel Maddow video. And then on Thanksgiving after all the family and friends have enjoyed their meal and they are about to have their second slice of pumpkin pie, you should play the video. Reality is good for the digestion.
Anonymous At Work
I’m sorry, but did the NY Yankees and/or the Steinbrenner family disappear suddenly? (No, really, tell if they have and I’ll buy the next few rounds)
Bill Murray
@Democrat Partisan Asshole: Al Davis did not invent the NFL as we know it, that was Pete Rozelle. Davis didn’t even support the AFL/NFL merger as AFL commissioner
patrick
I love Rachel……
anyone see the new installment of Barack and Luther?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX8tL3PMj7o&feature=youtu.be
Andy Hall
“And Jerry Jones is widely, if not unanimously, considered to be the worst human being to own a professional sports franchise.”
Whoever wrote that has never heard of Bud Adams.
But the rest of it, yeah, pretty much.