Why doesn't Andrew Cuomo shut down all the roads everywhere? He is the king, after all.
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) January 2, 2014
The Duke of Albany hath ordered the expressways open. "Open," he bids them.
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) January 3, 2014
The man who called GWB the “first great leader of the 21st century”, and who still supports the Iraq war, senses the yoke of tyranny descending on his delicate shoulders because Andrew Cuomo shut down part of the Thruway during a blizzard.
Where I grew up, in a state where you can carry as many guns as you want (which as we all know is the true test of freedom), the major highways had gates that could be closed during blizzards. We didn’t whine about our precious freedoms when the governor closed them, we just understood that the roads needed to be plowed, and it’s hard to plow a highway strewn with abandoned or wrecked cars. Apparently that little bit of common sense is a bridge too far for JPod.
Baud
Those tweets are Noonanesque.
The Red Pen -- PEN DAMMIT!
You know who else closed the thruways during a blizzard?
pharniel
He should self-deport to ND.
the Conster
Why don’t all these anti-government fucktards just go to Somalia already, where there’s no snow, no government, no regulations and no infrastructure to maintain? JPod could be the warlord/king of all the other fat-assed useless fucktards, where we could then nuke them from space.
Napoleon
Talk about being disconnected from reality. How do people like him manage to make it day to day?
Belafon
Maybe New York can pass a new Podhertz law: The state can never close a freeway, but if the snowplows find your car stuck on the road, the workers have the right to have it towed at your cost, strip the car for parts, or set it on fire.
Roger Moore
FTFY.
cmorenc
But the free market will take care of snow-stuck or snow-abandoned cars in the way of state snowplows! (Or would, if only the snowplows were privatized). Want to get your car freed or towed out instead of pushed off the road into a ditch in a crumpled mess by a snowplow? Pay up, buddy – at whatever price the free market could bear. Or alternatively, in glibertarian environmentalist thinking mode – the state should have to pay Podhoretz a fee in exchange for his private right to drive on that highway during snowstorms.
Roger Moore
I think it’s time for Mr. Podhoretz to engage in a bit of civil disobedience and go out driving on unplowed roads in the middle of the blizzard. That’ll teach Cuomo who’s boss!
Cacti
@the Conster:
I propose Antarctica as the site for Galt’s gulch.
kindness
What I really would like to see is the tweets that mocked Podhoretz.
Isn’t he related to Norman the bloody (twit)?
the Conster
@Cacti:
What have penguins ever done to deserve such a horrible fate?
Jack the Second
Where I grew up — Posey County, Indiana — had a major snafu with Interstate 64 in a blizzard.
The section of I-64 running through the county had been under construction, down to one lane in each direction, for something like five years. It was a minor annoyance, a local running joke, until it became a scandal when a blizzard dropped a couple of feet snow.
Since the highway was down to one lane, this ended up being one lane full of stopped cars buried under two feet of snow, with a few here and there on the shoulder for good measure. It took them forever to clear it, but the next year they finally finished construction.
slippytoad
So, what I’m getting here is that when Governor Christie shuts down a freeway to get a dig in at a political opponent, it is just the same as when an actual governor who does actual governing shuts down a freeway to prevent thousands of freeway deaths.
No, I haven’t read puthurtz’ original blathering, I’m just sensing the meta-conversation that he’s trying to have with . . . . himself, I guess.
Fucking stupid conservatives. Always looking for that equivalence, eh?
Cacti
OT but holy fuck:
For his execution, Kim Jong Un’s uncle was fed alive to a pack of 120 hungry dogs.
Raven
@Jack the Second: I remember being on that highway when it was so cold the diesel turned to jelly.
David Hunt
That’s a cruel and inhuman solution. These weird specimens need to be saved from all the horrible things happening around them. So, we load them all into Space Ark B…
Elizabelle
@Cacti:
I couldn’t bear to read that story so tell me, is it factually true? Or just an “account”? Which TPM should not be publishing, if it cannot be verified.
Cacti
@Elizabelle:
The original source is NBC news.
Botsplainer
Jesus, it isn’t as if the state troopers, fire departments and national guard don’t have other things to do during a blizzard than to dig stranded glibertarians out of snowdrifts or to dodge stuck cars on the way to emergencies.
Talentless Hack
@Belafon: Or push it off the road with that ginormous plow blade in front. You know, like the local plow drivers have been known to do to your garbage cans if you leave them in the way like an asshat.
TR
I would give Podhoretz a weekly column in the NYT if I could. His patented brand of arrogance and ignorance would help kill off conservatism forever.
Elizabelle
I’m not on twitter, so could anyone who’s following it post the smarter responses JPod gets to his idiotic comments?
All JPod has is outrage and spittle. Not even a funny comment.
Belafon
@Elizabelle: The report cites NBC, which is quoting from a Chinese newspaper.
IowaOldLady
NBC is reporting that the Supreme Court rejected the nuns’ appeal to be allowed to deny health insurance coverage for birth control.
Elizabelle
@Cacti:
Wow.
Still can’t bear to think of the cruel demise.
I think Kim Jong- un should face murder charges. And no one should ever take him seriously again, if they did before.
He’s not proven he’s a ruthless leader. He’s proven he’s got a half inch dick. He should be an international laughingstock.
oldster
@Cacti:
Yikes–a new genre of Yakov Smirnov jokes.
“In South Korea you eat dog. In North Korea, dog eat you!”
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
@Elizabelle: I tried to look for them, he’s in some long backslapping conversation with Glenn Thrush and Mark Halperin and I got bored.
Belafon
@Talentless Hack: Fine. We could add a few more. I was just looking for a way to set Podhertz’s car on fire. :)
TR
@Elizabelle:
Looks like he only has loyal followers.
Aji
@the Conster: Too many brown people. Podhoretz would wet his pants on arrival.
Not that that would be an unusual state of affairs for him.
eric
Ask the folks that got stuck on LSD for 6 hours in Chicago about not shutting down the roads. (Not edited for clarity.)
shelly
Or crush it into a cube.
Smithers: Phone call for you, sir.
Mr. Burns: Is it about my cube?
Botsplainer
@Cacti:
They got their story from a news program from a Chinese news organ with close leadership ties. It may well be real, and if so, I’m wondering if Beijing is again creating distance from the obnoxious little shit. I can’t think of any culture in the world that would deem that an acceptable method of execution.
Baud
@IowaOldLady:
Shit. What am I going to do with the 10,000 “Sotomayor sold us out. She’s worse than Scalia” bumper stickers I just ordered?
Aji
@Baud: Auction ’em at FireDogLake. You’ll make a killing.
Napoleon
@slippytoad:
I think that is exactly why he mentioned it. The right is full of such idiots that people like him think he is making some kind of salient point.
SiubhanDuinne
@kindness:
Norman is his father. The equally vile neocon Midge Decter is his mother. And, via his mother’s first marriage, Eliot Abrams is his half-brother-in-law. Thanksgiving dinner at that house must be a hoot.
eric
@Botsplainer: it is interesting because of the tension between the two countries. It is quite possible that the Chinese press organ lied to create bad PR for the North Koreans. Both sides are capable and nothing surprises me. Sounds a little like Keyser Soze by Kim.
tybee
@eric:
<
wait. what?
Flying Squirrel Girl
@Aji: I love this thread so much.
MattF
@Botsplainer: I think this is the real story-within-the-story. The Chinese leadership thinks the N. Korean leadership is completely nuts.
FWIW, it would not surprise me if the story is false– but ‘Chinese leadership makes up crazy story to make N. Koreans look bad’ is still interesting news.
Baud
@Aji:
That’s the same place where Kim Jong Un’s uncle was executed, right?
eric
@Baud: North Korea is cray-cray, but not THAT cray-cray
Gravenstone
Hows about we plop Herr Podhoretz in a SUV out in the middle of the interstate during the height of the storm. We let him get good and snowed in, then let him try and extricate himself – virtuous He Man that I’m sure he pictures himself to be. Bonus points if he’s out of cell coverage, so his incoherenet screams of rage can’t be heard. Then, we can thaw his corpsicle out next spring, and point as a demonstration that the terrible, terrible Nanny State really does help protect us from our worst selves.
Belafon
@eric: I’m thinking it’s true, and it’s a signal to everyone not to think that the new leader is going to start making any plans on opening up the country.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
Zounds! I thought I knew my neo-cons! Midge is the one who wrote the essay on Donald Rumsfeld as a sex symbol, right?
Seanly
Conservatism is always going to be against whatever a Democrat does or liberals want. It’s not just Cleek’s Law, but Pvt Joker & the Virgin Mary conversation from Full Metal Jacket.
So I guess props to Kim Jung Un for going full Games of Throne on his uncle?
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
He didn’t get any smart responses, just a few comments from people even dumber than he is.
eric
@Gravenstone: not so fast smart guy, given that Podman is likely a strong supporter of the Second Amendment (a/k/a the only what that matters), i am pretty sure he could shoot himself some food, build a fire, and survive for weeks at a time just like any good Riverside Jew could.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Botsplainer:
I can’t think of any culture in the world that would deem that an acceptable method of execution.
I’m sure there are some American conservatives that would.
Gravenstone
@tybee: Lakeshore Drive in Chicago a couple of years ago turned into a royal clusterfuck when a nor’easter rolled through and dumped nearly a foot of snow. The city wasn’t able to keep up with snow removal and there were hundreds of drivers, as well as city buses, stranded as a result.
Baud
@Seanly:
Every TV or radio news story on North Korea should start of the Game of Throne’s theme music.
@Roger Moore:
Good. I like it when their idiocy is ignored.
Elizabelle
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
Doesn’t even work as snark.
Being fed to a large pack of hungry dogs is nothing to ever, ever joke about. It’s a pornographic level of cruelty and perversion.
mike with a mic
@eric:
Execution by dogs is evidently a thing in NK. Also let’s not forget this is a man who has already executed someone by artillery. When it comes to NK James Bond level villainy isn’t out of the question.
Elizabelle
@Roger Moore:
What a surprise. Thanks. Do let us know if anyone sensible shows up on JPod’s thread.
kindness
@eric: You think deer & other critters hang around the NY State Thruway during a blizzard?
JPod is obviously a dumb ass but critters have only their own whits to live by. I think the critters have the better hand.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@slippytoad:
That’s my assumption, too — it’s an attempt to rehabilitate Christie because Both Sides Do It, so Christie should get a free pass.
Conservatives tend to have trouble with the difference between “necessary” and “unnecessary” anyway, so expect to hear lots of, Dur hur hur, Cuomo shut down a highway, too! from your wingnut relatives.
Lurking Canadian
@Roger Moore: I do not know the laws of New York, but here in Ontario, a road closure actually creates a localized libertarian utopia.
“Road closed” doesn’t mean, “It’s illegal to drive on it and we’ll punish you if you do”. It means, “It is not safe to require municipal and provincial employees to be out driving”.
So, you can drive on a “closed road” if you want to. However, once it is closed, no plow will clear it, so good luck with the drifts. When you do go into the ditch, or somebody’s prize elm no emergency vehicle will come to your aid: not fire, not ambulance, not police. And, since insurance companies are profit-seeking enterprises not usually run by complete morons, your auto insurance policy is void.
So, really, it’s a little microcosm of the world the libertarian assholes want for all of us. No support from government, and if you get screwed by a private corporation, well, sucks to be you! I’d think Podhoretz would be all about that sort of thing.
Roger Moore
@Botsplainer:
Doesn’t mean they aren’t out there. In any case, this kind of thing shouldn’t be too surprising. Barbaric methods of execution are used as a way of sending a message about the seriousness of the offense being punished; it’s not enough that the person is dead but that they died horribly. And I doubt that Kim really cares what the world thinks about it. If the reports are true, the real audience is in North Korea.
Citizen_X
@eric:
Well, that stuff does last a long time…
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist: She’s the one. Subsequently wrote a whole book about Rummy, I think. The two of them (Midge and Don) were Co-founders or co-directors of some think tank, Something Something Freedom. Basically a hawks’ nest.
Edit: Committee for a Free World.
Another edit: Committee for THE Free World
Baud
@Roger Moore:
And it’s not like his uncle was a sympathetic figure like a dissident or a human rights activist. Hell, had his uncle won the power struggle, he might have done the same thing to Un.
Amir Khalid
@oldster:
Sounds fair to me.
Citizen_X
What’s with his Twit picture? Does he force his kids to play that Nazi version of 20 questions from Inglorious Basterds where you end up with everyone shooting each other?
catclub
@slippytoad: “thousands of freeway deaths”
well, dozens. Which is still a lot
Patrick
@the Conster:
These hypocrites are no more anti-government than you or me. They had no problem using my tax money to fund our government’s idiotic war on Iraq. They also have no problem using the government to be against abortion, against gay marriage and other fake Christian goals. The list goes on and on.
They love the government when it serves their purposes.
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist:
Thank you for trying. What you described is beyond the call of duty.
elmo
@Belafon:
Where I used to live in the high Sierra, there were snow poles delineating the right-of-way. We’d get several multi-foot snowstorms during the winter, and the town would send out these huge, Jurassic-looking mechanized snowblowers with six-foot-tall intakes. If your car extended out into the right-of-way, they would not veer. They would simply keep going, and you could hear the screeching crunch of metal for blocks.
We called them “eaters.”
Baud
@Patrick:
I was watching Rachel last night, and she had a piece on the spread of drug testing for welfare recipients in red states, even though it has proven costly and ineffective in Florida, and even declared unconstitutional by the courts. So here we have a program that:
(1) Expands the “war on drugs”
(2) Wastes taxpayer money
(3) Runs all over the Fourth Amendment
Yet where is the “libertarian” outrage?
tl;dr: What you said.
Pogonip
@MattF: And the Chinese leadership is right.
matt
isn’t this just a clever ‘gotcha’ response to the mess chris christie finds himself in, idiotic American pundit style?
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@matt:
It probably is. But gotchas along the ‘both sides same thing but dems are really totally worse’ BS tend to gain purchase with the media like wildfires.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Elizabelle:
Sorry, I meant there are American conservatives who would think that is an appropriate for of execution. Not that I think it’s appropriate for some American conservatives.
Belafon
@Baud: The libertarian outrage is that welfare recipients are using the money of hard working white male Americans to stay alive.
Mike in NC
Having grown up in New England and experienced many brutal winters, I first observed the phenomenon of people abandoning their cars on a highway in a snowstorm when I moved to the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. Driving along Route 270 near Rockville at night, to be exact. All I could think was, “Are they insane?”
Baud
@Belafon:
And it would be perfectly consistent for libertarians to oppose welfare altogether, but they should be opposed to drug testing if they at all cared about distinguishing themselves from conservatives (which they don’t except to try to fool gullible people).
Morbo
@Botsplainer: A skeptical take on the whole thing
Dead Ernest (Thought Wrangler)
120 dogs? Why 120?
Would 130 dogs be a ‘greater’ punishment …maybe as a shocking number in a press release.
If I had to choose how many wild, starving dogs were to be my executioners, I would not pick 120. I think 6 or 7 would be fastest. More than that and the end up fussing with each other to see which 6 or 7 get to slay you.
The real nasty end would be, maybe 2 or 3 hungry, wild (little) dogs. Maybe even just 1 dog. That would leave the victim some time to worry, to try and survive.
120, Hell, that’s gonna be faster than hanging or an electric chair.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Baud:
You forgot (4) — Is completely unsuccessful at its stated goal, because it turns out that only something like 1% of welfare recipients test positive for drugs.
But these are the people who wholeheartedly support abstinence-only sex education even though it has a worse track record in preventing teen pregnancy than fact-based sex education, because it’s morally better to tell teens not to have sex than it is to make sure they make good decisions when they do have sex.
Shana
@Mike in NC: Yes, yes they are.
Baud
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I thought that was inherent in “wasting” taxpayer money, but you’re correct to point out that the positive rates are extremely low. And I wonder how much of that is pot, which is another thing at least some libertarians supposedly think should be legal.
Belafon
@Dead Ernest (Thought Wrangler): The article stated that the uncle and five of his closest aides were executed this way.
feebog
@matt:
If it is an attempt at false equivalence, it is a big time fail. Closing a highway for five hours in the middle of the night during a snowstorm in order to plow and protect public safety is not the same as closing two lanes leading to the busiest bridge in the country. It also infers that His Largeness was behind the bridge closures, something his Largeness keeps denying.
slippytoad
@catclub:
When responding to the idiocy of conservatives, I tend to make the biggest assumptions about the damage their stupidity will cause.
It is pretty awful being right, so frequently.
Geeno
@Lurking Canadian: It’s the opposite in NY. If a road is closed, and you aren’t in a government authorized vehicle, you’re looking at a fine of up to $500.
slippytoad
@Dead Ernest (Thought Wrangler):
I just keep going back to the comment that Lil’ Kim must have a Lil’ man problem. He’s been told all his life he’s someone special, and has to make sure everyone knows it.
eric
@slippytoad: wait, since when has W been running North Korea?
Patricia Kayden
@Cacti: Did Dennis Rodman get to watch?
aimai
@Elizabelle: Who would arraign him? You do realize he runs his own country?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Baud:
It’s literally a moral stance, though: the MORAL thing to do is to test welfare recipients for drug use, so they’re going to do it despite the utter failure and uselessness of the program. To these guys, it’s never a waste of government money to enforce morality.
aimai
@Mike in NC: This happened on Lake Shore Drive last year, I think, during an unexpected snowstorm. People just had no choice *but* to abandon their cars since no help was coming and they ran the risk of freezing to death.
tazj
Really, any normal person should understand why the Thruway should be shut down in a blizzard. Cars eventually run out of gas creating a parking lot on the road. People become trapped and are cold and most are without food and water.
Such a scenario actually took place around the Buffalo area in 2000, when they didn’t close the Thruway. George Pataki-R was the Governor. I don’t know his involvement in the decision.
Anyway, the situation was almost disastrous as many people were stranded. Fortunately, those who had gas and supplies shared their cars with those that didn’t. Even the Bills’ quarterback at the time, had to hitch a ride with a stranger. It took a long time to clear the roads of stalled cars.
Yes, shutting down the Thruway in a blizzard is merely sanity and any comparison to what Christie might have done is ridiculous.
Baud
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Absolutely correct for traditional religious conservatives. Libertarians aren’t supposed to think in those terms.
Bex
@Jack the Second: I’ve driven that stretch of 1-64 many times and vaguely remember a construction phase. Driven the back roads of Posey County too. Lovely.
IowaOldLady
Our highways have gates that can be closed too. They’re closed not just for plowing but because with blizzard winds coming across open fields, they’re just too dangerous.
Ferd of the Nort
Abandonned cars are known to snow-plow operators as the crunchy bits.
If on a closed highway, they are the fun crunchy bits.
eric
On a long and lonesome highway, east of Omaha….
Roger Moore
@Baud:
Except that libertarians mostly are religious conservatives. They’re conservatives of a different religion- Mammon worship- but their views are held with just as much religious fervor as the ones who worship Jeesus (not to be confused with Jesus).
Chyron HR
@Dead Ernest (Thought Wrangler):
And that’s just in terms of pet ownership.
tybee
@Citizen_X:
i was thinking 6 hours wasn’t a long trip…
D.N. Nation
This is J-Pod:
http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowldc/files/2013/01/Podhoretz_Swim.jpg
Maybe he can help himself by taking a jog through the snow to get where he needs to go.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
All conservatives worship Mammon, regardless of whatever else they worship.
pharniel
The whole ‘dog’ thing being reported by a Chinese political organ is actually Very Bad – it’s most likely a response to lil kim killing his uncle who was very popular (profitable) up in China.
It also gave the leaders a serious loss of face.
True or not this has ‘yellow cake’ written all over it – IE when China decides to ‘intervene’ they’ll use this as their cassius belli.
LABiker
Democrats close roadways for blizzards, Republicans close them for revenge.
Baud
Baud
Anyone know what this is about:
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle:
So should George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald von Rumsfailed, and all the neocon scum that were all so happy to invade Iraq and destroy the lives of millions.
Once they’re convicted, have them fed to hungry ducks.
Suffern ACE
@Dead Ernest (Thought Wrangler):
I think 120 little dogs period would be quite painful. A mix of chihuahauas, pomeranians and yorkshire terriors would be terrifying and an awfully embarassing way to go. Not so much eaten, but nipped.
Jay C
Even by right-wing-tweet standards, this is nonsense: you just know that if Andy Cuomo were a Republican, JPod would be posting effusive praise of him for being so smart and on top of an emergency, unlike those inefficient statist liberals….
Speaking of which, I just caught new Mayor Bill De Blasio’s “emergency” presser, and he, at least, is not only overseeing widespread and coordinated efforts to deal with the snow and cold: but is also making sure he is being seen to oversee them: and, moronic questions from the Imbecile Media aside (“How many layers is he wearing?” “Was Dante shoveling snow?” “How good does he think his Spanish is?” – I swear those were actual questions) – he did, IMO, a pretty good job. I guess it’s the “Katrina effect” – no official anywhere in charge of any considerable population is going to want to be viewed as unresponsive to “natural disasters”.
BTW, there was clip on the news of De Blasio shoveling off the walk of his house in Brooklyn himself: I couldn’t help but think that was one thing we NEVER saw Mike Bloomberg doing….
danielx
@TR:
Can’t be done; they already tried that experiment with Bloody Bill Kristol.
All together now:
Conservatism can never fail, it can only be failed*.
*Digby deserves a prize for coming up with that line.
Jibeaux
Yesterday a lady here drove around a flashing light train barrier that was down & got herself killed by, you guessed it, a train. She died free, my husband noted.
piratedan
@Baud: supposedly he’s openly advocated for the assassination of Obama, but it’s not like he’s commented on a family picture or anything……
Suffern ACE
@Jay C: Oh, I already have my first FB picture of snow on the streets in the upper west side taken by one of my Manhattan friends. Snow this long after the snow in Manhattan below 125th street is taken as proof that de Blasio is robbing the only New Yorkers who matter of their resources.
Baud
@piratedan:
I missed that news somehow. Why is he not in jail? Tom Levenson is also on the Twitter talking about it.
cleek
when a man’s income depends on bitching, you gotta expect that he’s gonna find things to bitch about, even if the pickings are slim.
ruemara
@Baud: this is not as important as metada-no, spying- on my Amazon shopping list. Now every one will know I use soft curlers. Damn Obama for inventing spying!
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
Ah, but that’s where your mistake is: you think conservatives are serious when they talk about being “libertarians.” Plus you misunderstand what being “libertarian” means to them — it means they get to oppress all of the little people around them, because might makes right.
Gene108
A lot of right wingers viewed GWB as the greatest President ever after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. We have many disturbed people in this country.
J.D. Rhoades
@Cacti:
The original source is NBC news.
Which says the “story cannot be independently confirmed.” So why the fuck report it, except for sensationalism? This stuff makes me crazy.
Baud
@Mnemosyne:
No. I said exactly the opposite:
Suffern ACE
@Baud: Yeah. It makes me feel more than a little inhumane, but I am more upset that dogs were kept starving so that they could be used as executioners than I am that one of the North Korean awful ruling family members was eaten.
Baud
@ruemara:
Gasp.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Aw, c’mon, we all know the drill; if Cuomo hadn’t closed the Thruway then JPod would have been whining that he’d irresponsibly endangered thousands of motorists. JPod and his fellow travellers have their noses out of joint because they aren’t running the country. Right, because whining at America’s problems would surely make them all go away.
piratedan
@Baud: and coincidentally, Faux has had him on as their Benghazi expert, but hey, I’m sure that the folks over at Faux will fire him immediately as soon as he says something incendiary, like he supports the ACA or Immigration reform with a path to citizenship.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
It’s about this column. The guy is pretty far down the slide into complete crazy, and is apparently calling for the assassination of Obama and David Cameron.
Shakezula
@Aji: [Laughs so hard co-workers look up.]
Well played.
Tone In DC
@Belafon:
That’s a great three step plan; perfect for folks like JPod who don’t like things to be too complicated, nuanced or non-Manichean. Cuz, the effects of bad weather, facts and reality in general, all have a liberal bias.
StringOnAStick
I’m going to add myself to the chorus that thinks the “NK executed by dogs” story is China yanking the NK chain, hard. I suspect the uncle had Chinese connections, likely mutually very profitable ones, and nephew decided there can be only one fabulously rich corrupt leader. China is not at all pleased about this turn of events, and the nephew is just psycho enough to think he can win against China.
On the other hand, I can also see that it wouldn’t be hard to come up with 120 starving anything in NK, and that being the 3rd generation from Great Leader most likely means the nephew is the very definition of a psychopath-trained-from-birth. This could be the start of some interesting and very dangerous times between China and NK, and given the weapons both sides possess, the rest of us are included in the equation.
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
I don’t think we’re actually disagreeing. For these guys, “libertarian” means I get to do whatever I want and fuck everyone else. So mandatory drug testing fits perfectly into their worldview: if those peasants didn’t want to be drug tested, they would be Galtian overlords like Podhoretz.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tone In DC:
Which drives dipshits like JPod crazy. Which is how things should be.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
I don’t want my metadata associated with that clown, so I’m not going to leave the boat. But thanks.
Baud
@Mnemosyne:
I would agree 100% if mandatory drug testing weren’t paid for with taxpayer dollars, which does not fit within their (theoretical) worldview.
catclub
@Roger Moore: “guy is pretty far down the slide into complete crazy”
I read it. Agreed.
Funny that he mentions Nixon was impeached but not Clinton.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud:
This is a good example of how their worldview is HIGHLY theoretical.
In reality, they’re just assholes who should be fed to the dogs.
elm
On a related-but-not-identical note: Winter storm season is now in full swing, and I know that people still have to travel. If you must travel in bad weather, please remember the following:
If your car gets stuck in a winter storm outside a town STAY WITH YOUR VEHICLE.
Prepare before you go by keeping blankets, warm clothes, food, and water in your car, but don’t leave your vehicle.
Clear snow away from the tailpipe, run the engine for 5 minutes per hour with the window cracked open (so you’re not breathing exhaust), but stay with your vehicle.
Maybe you passed a farm just a mile back, but cold weather, high wind, and deep snow will kill you before you can walk a mile (or even a quarter of a mile). Stay with your vehicle.
stratplayer
Has that little fuckmaggot ever had any real responsibility for anything in his worthless little life? It is impossible to be a bigger tool than JPod.
scav
I have to admit, I am rather enjoying the sureal image of the Chinese media picking up a NoKor Onion eqivalent piece and infecting NBC with it.
Villago Delenda Est
@StringOnAStick:
The source for all this is a Chinese Communist Party newspaper, so that’s as good a theory as any. The uncle was well regarded in China, and apparently lil’ dipshit did not like that.
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
Sure it does — the government exists to enforce the laws that the elite want to have enforced on the little people. Plus, if those moochers want government money, they’ll have to jump through hoops to get it, even if that means using government money to build those hoops.
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
Nixon was never impeached. He resigned before Congress could impeach him.
Baud
@Villago Delenda Est:
This is going to be a thing now, isn’t it?
GregB
How soon before the Peak Wingnuts start declaring their admiration of Kim Jong Un for being a decisive leader?
Christ, this is the year these people are going to finally run headlong off of the cliff. All of this snow is making money for the ski business and local DPW guys, the auto industry is back, 10 million more people have insurance, the discussion of economic inequity is front and center.
That is what is driving them crazy, and for a long time that has been a really short trip.
catclub
@IowaOldLady: I think you misread. The government is now arguing
that the mandate should continue. No decision made.
Villago Delenda Est
@stratplayer:
Oh, I disagree. There are lots of tools of JPod dimensions scattered across the scarred landscape of Wingtardia. One has to get down to the quantum level to discern which one is the biggest tool, because up here in the Newtonian universe they all seem pretty much the same in their toolishness.
catclub
@Mnemosyne: I miswrote. Scheuer wrote something like
“the powers that be think only Nixon was worthy of impeachment”.
catclub
OT:
Cheerios drops genetically modified ingredients
USA TODAY – 17 hours ago
But those were the best parts!
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud:
It’s an old thing. 20 years ago Worf was talking about feeding Duros to the dogs. Then there was that scene in The Vikings where Ernest Borgnine jumps into the hungry dog pit.
Kim Jong Un is just catching up on the DVDs, I guess.
catclub
@Baud: So Kim III let the dogs out?
Baud
@Mnemosyne:
I guess we have different understandings of what theoretical libertarianism is all about. No matter. Real-world libertarians are conservatives and should be regarded as such.
Violet
Someone linked this brilliant takedown of David Brooks in an earlier thread. Yeah, he smoked pot. Must read.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
True, and only after a group of Senators approached him and said that the votes to acquit him were not there…he’d be convicted in an landslide. The “smoking gun” tape made defending Nixon impossible.
Suffern ACE
@Mnemosyne: the government paying for drug tests is the humane thing to do. The real conservatives want to charge user fees to take the test.
beltane
When will there be a FP post providing proper analysis and mockery of David Brooks’ “Pot turned me into a loser” piece?
catclub
@Villago Delenda Est: Also, Hannibal Lector story used pigs. The just got to nibble Hannibal’s toes before he was rescued.
Probably no pigs available in NKorea
Baud
@Villago Delenda Est:
If Kim Jong Un really wanted to be both cruel and creative, he would have used 120 hungry cats.
LanceThruster
@David Hunt:
He and his lot are expendable, but can we keep the telephone sanitizers this time?
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
Okay, that’s where the disconnect is. I’m talking about real-world libertarians, not libertarian theory. In theory, all of these guys would be up in arms over the drug testing, but they’re only libertarians in theory, not in practice. In practice, they’re more than happy to use the government to oppress other people — they just don’t want the government to have any power to oppress them.
@Suffern ACE:
I forgot about that part. I think that was what made it a profit center in Florida — everyone had to pay to get their drug test, and in theory they were refunded if they passed.
In theory.
Dead Ernest (Thought Wrangler)
@Chyron HR:
Oh SNAP!
Delightful Chyron.
Yatsuno
@Roger Moore: That was nothing but incoherent babble. It had distortions and flat-out wrong facts from the very first sentence. I bet he gets a nice visit from the SS folks here soon.
Suffern ACE
@Baud: no need to starve the cats. One bucket of water dropped in a room full of cats with Uncle Kim as the tallest standing object in said room. It would be quick and no animals would need to be starved. Mildly tortured, yes, but not starved.
Roger Moore
@catclub:
Just because it’s factually completely backward?
Baud
@Roger Moore:
If you remove the question mark, you’ve articulated the conservative creed.
IdahoFlaneuse
@Mike in NC:
I grew up around Rockville Maryland. What you fail to mention is that the abandoning of cars occurs with a half inch of snow.
ruemara
@LanceThruster: You could just wipe your own phones.
catclub
@Baud: Scheuer is crazier than just conservative. Almost orthogonal.
MomSense
I’m just so sick of all of the drama. Does anyone else feel like we are pointing and mocking while the world burns?
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud:
No one has EVER accused a Kim of being creative and lived to tell the tale!
Baud
@MomSense:
All the time. But the world isn’t burning. The heat you feel is from the massive flameout conservatives are going through.
David in NY
@Lurking Canadian: NY Thruway is really limited access — with tolls — so they can and do put up barriers to entry.
Or used to. Spent a night when I was young, maybe 40 some years ago, sleeping, sort of, in a bus up in a snow-belt storm outside a gate on the Thruway on the way from Michgan to NYC. Still hadn’t opened by morning so the bus headed down on two-laners through central NY state — it was beautiful and the bus made pretty good time, since everyone else had the sense to stay home.
Villago Delenda Est
@David in NY:
Isn’t there a stretch around Buffalo where it’s not toll? And with greater access than the rest of the Thruway?
bemused
@Violet:
Too funny! I’m not shocked that Davy was a dweeby schmuck from the get go.
scav
@Villago Delenda Est: Certainly the bit I’ve travelled has that switch in it. Only been on the bit from PA to Rochester, so no idea what locals actually call that bit. The naming of roads is sometimes a near quantum complicated thing and follows not the mere physicality of tarmac. PCH1 is fun.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I was sitting here nodding in response to your comment, then realized that you might not be able to see me. So… yes, yes I do.
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle, @Cacti:
There is some skepticism.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
But there is global warming.
Elizabelle
@MomSense:
@WaterGirl:
I feel like that too.
Important stuff goes unaddressed, or badly addressed, or not even attempted.
And today people are joking about people being eaten by dogs, which is horrifying.
FWIW: I cannot watch Chris Hayes at 8 p. It’s too soon after dinner, and he’s shrill and emoting about the latest rightwing idiocy — last night’s lead was idiots who won’t believe in global warming.
At some point, the hysteria numbs one. We should be in the streets. Not pointing and laughing on blogs.
Jay C
So: let me see if I read David Brooks’ commentary re smoking dope correctly:
1. Smoking pot when young can make you into an idiot.
2. David Brooks smoked pot when young.
3. David Brooks is an idiot.
Funny: when you frame the syllogism that way, it’s hard to argue with!
LanceThruster
@ruemara:
I’d rather die!
xD
cleek
@Villago Delenda Est:
yep. there’s a little section in and around Buffalo that’s free, and a couple of small connectors around NYC that are free, too. but most of it is tolled.
sparrow
@IowaOldLady: Thank god. Every time this argument comes up, I just about lose it. If you think that you should be able to personally disallow others to have medication because YOU don’t like it and for no other reason, you don’t believe in democracy, fairness, or “freedom”. You’re on the side of religious totalitarianism. And there’s really no way you can twist “forcing my religious beliefs on others” into “religious freedom”, sorry.
Sorry I get a little worked up about this one. Stupid women-haters.
Origuy
@Villago Delenda Est:
That was back when Republicans used the same math as the rest of us.
Elizabelle
@IowaOldLady:
Too bad those “nuns” weren’t better people who are midwives.
Again, birth control would be a sacrament.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Origuy:
Then they unskewed it, and here we are.
geg6
@Cacti:
Actually, I think the original source of the story is one of the Chinese newspapers, one which is considered a megaphone for the regime. And if China is reporting this, it means they aren’t very happy with young Kim.
I don’t know why I have this feeling, but ever since the old man died, I’ve been feeling as if North Korea is about to blast wide open. I only hope that I’m right and that it happens in such a way that my description of it is not literal.
ellie
@ruemara: People are spying on my Amazon shopping list? Holy crap.
aimai
@StringOnAStick: I think the story is that this is China getting back at Kim for nuclear threats against China, and reminding him that they have a better connection with the rest of the world than he does. But the dogs story strikes me as indeterminate–as far as I know the Chinese could just as easily smear him with accusations of various kinds of sexual promiscuity and the traditional way that Kim has executed people in the past (blowing them up or machine gunning them is pretty bad and not,a s far as I know, even in dispute. Why the dog story? IS this particularly more hellish and/or believable than anything else about NK under Kim’s leadership?
geg6
@Botsplainer:
I wouldn’t put it past the Saudis. Or, when they were in power, the Taliban.
Or, for that matter, should they ever effect a takeover of the US, the American Family Association.
Elizabelle
@IowaOldLady:
Was NBC correct re Supreme Court denying nuns’ case? WaPost sounds like there’s no decision yet.
Here’s a NYTimes story on the case.
Sorry to see the nuns in question are the Little Sisters of the Poor, because they do good work, but maybe they don’t belong in charge of nursing homes if they cannot accommodate modern health care requirements.
They should be comforting the sick and changing bed pans, not dictating birth control to any employees.
Get them out of that business, if they cannot accede. I think religion should lose its tax exempt status, too.
Religion, like “patriotism”, is too often the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Tax ’em. Use the monies to provide services for all.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: I loved chris hayes on his 2-hour show that aired on saturday and sunday mornings. I felt like I was at a party with really interesting people and I always learned a lot. But once he moved to evenings, he started to seem like everyone else.
I am as guilty of this as the next person, but I do feel that sometimes we spend a lot more time blah-blah-blahing about the thing of the day rather than talking about things that really matter. Or talking about silly things, that’s important, too.
geg6
@beltane:
He and Ruth Marcus must have been mind melding today then. Because she has what I consider the stupidest column ever on pot legalization. But I’m willing to accept that Bobo’s is vastly more stupid. Because it’s Bobo, after all.
pseudonymous in nc
@Roger Moore:
Foucault, etc.
Even if this didn’t happen, and I suspect it didn’t happen, then the point is symbolism. There was lots of “worse than a dog” rhetoric in the official NK state denunciation, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the end that the regime promulgates to the masses, even if the purgees were just taken out and shot.
Grandaddy Kim sent all of the factional modernisers to run piggeries and dig ditches when he purged them.
Origuy
I couldn’t find anything on nbcnews.com, or anywhere else, about the full Court making a decision. What I did find was the Justice Department’s response, as required by Sotomayor. Note that the Little Sisters of the Poor are not required under the ACA, to provide coverage for birth control. What the ACA does require, and they were apparently objecting to, was providing a notice to the insurer that they would not cover it, so that their employees could get coverage directly from the insurer. This is all about filling out a form!
Mnemosyne
@Origuy:
Actually, no — burnsesq linked to some coverage of it. The problem was that their third-party insurance administrator, which would normally handle the contraception coverage if the Little Sisters of the Poor filed their paperwork saying they refused to do it on religious grounds, is ALSO a Catholic organization (Christian Brothers), so they were refusing to handle it as well. Basically, the work-around for religious organizations that the Obama administration set up hit a snag because the third–party administrators were also claiming to be a religious organization.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: Yes, but though from the perspective of an employee who wants contraception that’s a problem, for the Little Sisters of the Poor it’s not a problem.
What they’re apparently objecting to is filling out the waiver form even though their employees couldn’t get contraception that way anyway, because in a hypothetical situation their employees might have been able to get it if they had some other insurer, and therefore it’s immoral for them to sign the waiver. Therefore the contraception mandate needs to be overturned, even though it doubly doesn’t apply to them. Unless I’m missing something else.
GregB
Poor J-Pud, first they came for the open thruways.
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
Here’s the link that seems to explain the case:
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2014/01/not-quite-hobby-lobby-nonprofit-cases.html
This blogger seems to think the issue is that the third-party insurer is ALSO claiming a religious exemption from providing birth control. Otherwise, the Little Sisters don’t have a case any more than Notre Dame does (which is also extensively discussed in the same post).
ETA: The wrinkle that interested Sotomayor seems to have been the third-party insurer issue, because the SC has already decided in previous appeals that the “pass through” objections are invalid.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
Maybe the religious organizations that aren’t willing to provide legal insurance should get out of the insurance business rather than act as a bunch of godbothering assholes. It’s worth a try, at least.
Joe Max
I lived outside of Buffalo for many years, and almost every winter the NY State Thruway was closed at least once. It’s a normal occurrence, and has been for decades.
MomSense
@WaterGirl: @Elizabelle:
Right now there are projections of a 7.2 degree rise in global temperature by 2100 raising the threat level from dangerous to catastrophic. The news about ocean acidification, colony collapse–this could become a long list-is just devastating. We seem to be incapable of even discussing these issues in a serious way let alone coming up with some plans to try and mitigate the inevitable human suffering.