Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

It’s not even safe to go out and pick up 2 days worth of poop anymore.

Where tasty lettuce and good mustard aren’t elitist.

Naturally gregarious and alpha

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Yes we did.

Shocking, but not surprising

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

I did not have this on my fuck 2020 bingo card.

Deploy the moving finger of emphasisity!

Let there be snark.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

This really is a full service blog.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

This is how realignments happen…

The revolution will be supervised.

This blog will pay for itself.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

‘Forty-two’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

This is a big f—–g deal.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

You are here: Home / 2016 / March / Archives for 3rd

Archives for March 3, 2016

Big Hands You Know You’re the One

by | 87 Comments

This post is in: 

turgidson
Trump’s latest brag, that he could have told Mitt Romney to “drop to his knees” as part of Romney’s endorsement, is pushing us further into the homoerotic territory first explored by Marco Rubio with his comments about Trump’s hands (by which he meant, of course, his dick). The last time a penis figured so prominently in our politics was the Clenis, but that popped up in a heteronormative context. In other words, the Donald’s wang and his concern about its measure, as well as his contemplation of jamming it into Mitt Romney’s smug piehole, is leading us into uncharted waters for a national campaign.

How far do you think this will go? Will the Donald regale us with thoughts about other places he’d like his member to occupy? Will he challenge others to whip out their manhood during tonight’s debate? Is Trump’s cock bigger than Putin’s, and if it isn’t, how can he be expected to run our foreign policy effectively?

We must not allow a penis gap!

Big Hands You Know You’re the OnePost + Comments (87)

Hey Ladies

by | 118 Comments

This post is in: 

via GIPHY

So apparently the wimmin-folk at the Supreme Court picked up an ultrasound wand and beat some slack-jawed yokel solicitor general from Texas about the head and neck for a couple hours and there wasn’t a GOD DAMNED thing John Roberts could do about it:

It felt as if, for the first time in history, the gender playing field at the high court was finally leveled, and as a consequence the court’s female justices were emboldened to just ignore the rules. Time limits were flouted to such a degree that Chief Justice John Roberts pretty much gave up enforcing them. I counted two instances in which Roberts tried to get advocates to wrap up as Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor simply blew past him with more questions. There was something wonderful and symbolic about Roberts losing almost complete control over the court’s indignant women, who are just not inclined to play nice anymore.

***

So frustrated is Justice Elena Kagan by the conservatives’ repeated insistence that perhaps the clinics just coincidentally all closed within days of HB 2’s passage that she finally has to intervene. “Is it right,” she asks Toti, “that in the two­-week period that the ASC requirement was in effect, that over a dozen facilities shut their doors, and then when that was stayed, when that was lifted, they reopened again immediately?” Toti agrees. “It’s almost like the perfect controlled experiment,” continues Kagan, “as to the effect of the law, isn’t it? It’s like you put the law into effect, 12 clinics closed. You take the law out of effect, they reopen?”

***

Ginsburg begins by asking Keller how many Texas women live more than 100 miles from an abortion clinic. When he tells her that women in El Paso can hop over the border to New Mexico, she stops him short. “That’s odd,” she muses, “that you point to the New Mexico facility. New Mexico doesn’t have any surgical ASC requirement, and it doesn’t have any admitting requirement. So if your argument is right, then New Mexico is not an available way out for Texas because Texas says to protect our women, we need these things.” (This is where I want to call up each of the men who demanded that Ginsburg retire in 2014 and just smile, and smile, and smile.)

Sotomyor tags in: “According to you, the slightest health improvement is enough to impose on hundreds of thousands of women.­­ Even assuming I accept your argument, which I don’t, necessarily, because it’s being challenged, but the slightest benefit is enough to burden the lives of a million women. That’s your point?”

Ginsburg: “I can’t imagine. What is the benefit of having a woman take those pills in an ambulatory surgical center when there is no surgery involved?

Read the whole glorious piece by Dahlia Lithwick. I can’t wait to hear the audio, and I would seriously love 5-6 women on the court. Common sense for a damned change.

Hey LadiesPost + Comments (118)

Who wants to break the news about uncle Joe

by | 56 Comments

This post is in: 

This seems a little extreme:

“I would sooner vote for Josef Stalin than I would vote for Donald Trump,” said Mr. Boot, who expressed optimism that Mr. Trump could still be defeated.

I’d like to think that if either party nominated Stalin, I’d make the principled decision to support the other party’s candidate. Maybe I’m giving myself too much credit here.

But I don’t really understand why people talk about Stalin in the context of elections in democratic countries. Stalin was never democratically elected. He didn’t have to appeal to soccer moms or NASCAR dads.

You know who did rise to power in a democracy though? I defy you to read this and not think it sounds a lot like “Bush doesn’t really hate the gays” (when Rove did all the anti-marriage equality stuff in 2004) or “Trump won’t really deport 11 million people” (now) or “the GOP candidate won’t really add trillions to our deficit with that crazy tax plan” (every election of my lifetime).

Who wants to break the news about uncle JoePost + Comments (56)

Please Proceed, Governor

by | 380 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , ,

I admit it. I’m only posting this so I can use that title.

Mitt Romney did his blind pig act today, speaking truth, up to a point, to the looming power that is breaking the china at what should have been the dancing-horse-rider’s-husband’s party:

“If we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished,” Romney said in a nationally televised speech at the University of Utah…

“Dishonesty is Donald Trump’s hallmark. He claimed that he had spoken clearly and boldly against going into Iraq. Wrong. He spoke in favor of invading Iraq. He said he saw thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating 9/11. Wrong. He saw no such thing. He imagined it…He’s not of the temperament of the kind of stable, thoughtful person we need as leader. His imagination must not be married to real power”

“Mr. Trump has changed his positions, not just over the years, but over the course of the campaign, and on the Ku Klux Klan, daily for three days in a row. We will only know if he’s the real deal or a phony if he releases his tax returns and his tape of the interview with the New York Times. I predict there are more bomb shells in his tax returns,” Romney said. “I predict he told The New York Times that his immigration talk is just that, talk.”

[via TPM]

James_Ward_-_Ferrets_-_Google_Art_Project

R-Money being who he is, the reason he gave for the urgency in stopping Trump was not for The Donald’s sin of describing Republican views and gut-feelings accurately, but because it would ensure a Clinton presidency — and that family is, of course, simply too gauche, too nouveau for true representatives of better-established dishonest money to accept.

But thanks anyway, [former] Governor! Plenty of good stuff there for ads in the fall.

Or, as the man said:  please proceed.

Image:  James Ward, Ferrets, undated, before 1860.

Please Proceed, GovernorPost + Comments (380)

Faunasphere: World Wildlife Day Edition

by | 17 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Happy World Wildlife Day Juicers! This year’s theme is elephants, a noble species whom we all love and cherish despite its having been appropriated as a symbol by the T.rump party. But a species nonetheless in peril. Click the above link to see a cool global map of WWD-related events, and maybe attend one.

world wildlife day posterAlso, check out Humane Society of the U.S. president Wayne Pacelle’s exclusive WWD interview with President Obama. (And for a less sanguine view than Obama’s of how TPP will affect animals, click here.)

More links below. As always, your fauna-related thoughts, views, news, and ideas are welcome in the comments. – Hillary

  1. Kenya to host Africa’s biggest-to-date conservation summit. Afterwards, the delegates will burn 120 tons of ivory to show “zero tolerance” for poaching.
  2. Remembering Tyke, an elephant who fought for her freedom in Hawaii. (Netflix is streaming a new documentary based on her story, Tyke Elephant Outlaw.)
  3. Federal court ruling reinstates 120 million acre “critical habitat” for polar bears. The Alaska Oil and Gas Association and state of Alaska had contested it as an impediment to oil drilling.
  4. Slaughterhouses kill people, too. “Domestic violence, social withdrawal, drug and alcohol abuse, and severe anxiety….Slaughterhouse workers, in essence, were ‘desensitized,’ and their behavior outside of work reflected it.” Speaking of which…
  5. Canada having trouble filling slaughterhouse jobs; hoping Syrian refugees will take them.
  6. New vegan food options from Hampton Creek (brownies, muffins, pancake mix, etc.) and Daiya (Ranch, Blue Cheeze, and Caesar salad dressings).
  7. Trusted news outlet reports on soybean farm brutality.

 

Faunasphere: World Wildlife Day EditionPost + Comments (17)

Standing Athwart History Yelling Stop (Taking My Lunch Money!)

by | 206 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

trumpster fire

Connoisseurs of schadenfreude should head on over to NRO’s Corner blog and take a gander at how the Trumpenproletariat in comments are feasting on the doughy entrails of Jonah and the gang. The author of “Liberal Fascism” is getting an object lesson in the real fucking deal these days, though he lacks the self-awareness to appreciate the irony.

If Goldberg and crew weren’t the horrid people who ginned up the mob in the first place, pity might actually be possible, especially when these worthies attempt a timid assertion among their newly hostile audience, such as that it really shouldn’t be so hard for Trump to immediately and unambiguously denounce the Klan.

It doesn’t go well, even though Goldberg clears his throat by affirming that of course liberals are the real racists, but come one guys, can’t we agree David Duke and the KKK are, you know, bad? And isn’t it kinda terrible that Trump insults us conservatives by thinking we’d be offended if he denounced the Klan? Here’s a few sample replies:

Anymore – blacks and browns are the majority of toxic racists in the US. America needs a lot less black and brown. America is traditionally a non-Mexicali, Non-Africali, non-Midestracali stronghold. Look – Black and brown people aren’t as smart as white people by a mile – all the tests prove it.

So let me guess, the GOP establishment is going after trump because he won’t disavow the KKK. I simply think the GOP Establishment is race bating Donald Trump to bring him down and it’s not working. It may have worked in the past but this Donald Trump and none of the tactics that the GOP Establishment have, has NOT worked on Donald Trump and they are simply running out of options. Sooner or later the GOP establishment is going to have to wake up and realize that Trump is taking over the GOP and tossing the old guard to the curb.

I haven’t decided who I will vote for in November but NR has convinced me of one thing. I will vote against whoever the NR endorses. A vote against NR is a vote for America. #NoMoreNR

You’re making a fool of yourself, Jonah, as are all your NR friends.

It’s all so amusing until you realize that when wingnuts work out their pathologies on the world stage, it has potentially horrendous consequences for all of us. Much as how the Bushes’ daddy issues therapy sessions had such an appallingly high body count.

Anyhoo, against that backdrop, there’s just not enough popcorn in the world for tonight’s GOP debate. I know I’ve been saying I hope Trump dropkicks Lil’ Marco from Detroit clear to a gator and python-infested swamp in the Everglades because — did I mention I despise that smarmy little jumped-up ex-Bushling creep?

But now I’m wondering if maybe the empire will strike back with limited success tonight, taking Trump down a peg or two, and whether that might be a good thing in the long run. I don’t think we libs should underestimate Trump, but let’s not make him 10 feet tall and bulletproof in our minds either.

Trump is a crass, thin-skinned carnival barking fraud, and even the vile Cruz and nonentity Rubio should be able to score a few points. So I’m rooting for maximum disarray and investing in popcorn futures. You?

Standing Athwart History Yelling Stop (Taking My Lunch Money!)Post + Comments (206)

Reporters Don’t Want to Count

by | 170 Comments

This post is in: 

This AP story about Trump’s path to the nomination is getting some attention:

A close look at the delegate math illustrates Trump’s problem. So far Trump has won only 46 percent of the delegates that have been awarded, even though he has won 10 of the first 15 contests. It takes an outright majority of delegates to win the nomination.

Going forward, Trump would have to win 52 percent of the remaining delegates to claim the nomination. That’s doable but difficult with three or more candidates claiming delegates.

This is an example of ignoring the elephant in the room, which in this case is winner-take-all primaries.  The Republican schedule is backloaded with 15 of them, many of which are in big states. Let’s do a little simple math and see why all the talk of a brokered convention is so much horseshit.

Based on this table at Real Clear Politics (and who would know the rules better than them?), I put together this spreadsheet [link to a Google sheet].  It’s based on a few simple assumptions that we can all argue:

  1. Trump will continue to collect delegates in proportional races at the same percentage he has in the past (about 44%). Since Trump’s support in the Republican race is growing, and since there are states with thresholds and other obscure machinery that could award him more delegates to the top finishers, this is a pretty conservative estimate.
  2. Trump will win all the winner-take-all primaries except for Ohio, Kasich’s home state.
  3. Any contest where the delegates are unbound (112 delegates) is fodder for a floor fight, so those don’t count towards anyone’s totals.  This assumption doesn’t matter because the rat pack of Cruz, Rubio and Kasich will keep fighting for scraps, so none of them will end up anything near Trump’s total.

Unsurprisingly, since the primaries are set up so that the leader of the pack can clean up in the later parts of the race, Trump goes into the convention with 1,472 delegates in this scenario. That’s 239  more than he needs.  And Cruz and Rubio combined only get to about half of the 1,237 delegates needed to win.

I threw this model together in 10 minutes this morning, so it is crude. But it’s probably good enough for the purpose at hand, which is to show that anyone talking about a brokered convention or a Cruz/Rubio ticket needs to show why Trump will shit the bed in a pretty spectacular fashion in the next couple of months.

Reporters Don’t Want to CountPost + Comments (170)