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Super Bowl

White House Mulls End to Spying on Foreign Leaders, Obamacare Loses Cover Girl, Business Lobby Groups Lining Up Against Tea Party: P.M. Links

Ed Krayewski | 10.29.2013 4:30 PM

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Large image on homepages | White House
(White House)
  • has she let you down one last time?
    healthcare.gov

    The White House is considering whether to end the practice of spying on friendly foreign leaders, while Spain's public prosecutor has begun a preliminary inquiry into reports of US spying on Spanish citizens.

  • The anonymous face of the Obamacare website is no more. The head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, meanwhile, apologized for the botch roll out of the website, promising it was "fixable." The White House admitted some people may not be able to keep their insurance plans; about 2 million people have been affected so far.
  • Upset over the partial government shutdown, business lobby groups are apparently lining up to challenge Tea Party candidates in upcoming Republican primaries.
  • Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests government employees are 38 percent more likely to be absent from work than their private-sector counterparts.
  • The Texas Attorney General is asking a federal appeals court to overrule a judge who deemed Texas' new abortion restrictions, which were supposed to go into effect today, unconstitutional.
  • The CEO of Barney's denies any employees were involved in alleged racial profiling incidents at the Manhattan store that also included plainclothes officers of the NYPD. The New York Attorney General is reportedly demanding information from the company, and Macy's, about their policies for stopping, detaining, and questioning customers based on race.
  • San Francisco is considering a soda tax.
  • The owner of the Washington Redskins will meet with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell about the controversy over the team's name. Daniel Snyder insists he won't change it.
  • Two Kenyan soldiers were jailed for looting the Westgate mall in Nairobi during a terrorist attack. A third soldier is under investigation, but authorities deny the looting was "widespread."

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NEXT: Minnesota Supreme Court Says a Legally Required Alcohol Test Is Voluntary

Ed Krayewski is a former associate editor at Reason.

Super Bowl
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  1. The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc   12 years ago

    The owner of the Washington Redskins will meet with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell about the controversy over the team's name. Daniel Snyder insists he won't change it.

    I could get behind the Washington Looters.

    1. Tonio   12 years ago

      Also, first. Thanks for keeping FoE on his toes.

      1. CE   12 years ago

        You're assuming they're not the same person. There are only 10 or 11 actual different people posting here.

        1. Tonio   12 years ago

          I've long suspected something like that.

          1. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

            I always assumed I was a sockpuppet for someone on staff at reason.

            1. fish   12 years ago

              I always assumed I was a sockpuppet for someone on staff at reason.

              The plot thickens......

            2. The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc   12 years ago

              You're programmed to be unaware of your hidden nature as a sockpupppet.

              Next thing you know you're going to put two bullets into Commander Welch's chest.

              1. CE   12 years ago

                Or maybe just a bot that quotes one of the bullet points, then tacks on a Koch-brothers talking point.

              2. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

                This has been pondered. (This was after the weekend of the Great Troll Attack that eventually led to registration.)

        2. Enough About Palin   12 years ago

          Off by a factor of ten.

          1. Brandon   12 years ago

            There's only one person posting here?

            1. BiMonSciFiCon   12 years ago

              We are all shrieks now.

              1. The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc   12 years ago

                What if we're all just imaginary characters in Tommy Westphall's snowglobe?

                1. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

                  I'd rather be an imaginary character in Tommy Wiseau's snowglobe, if it's all the same.

                  /ohhai"theroom"reference

                  1. BakedPenguin   12 years ago

                    That comment is tearing me apaht!

            2. Enough About Palin   12 years ago

              It's been posited here before.

    2. Restoras   12 years ago

      Looters? How about Weasels? Nice alliteration, and it is still appropriate.

      1. CE   12 years ago

        The Washington Weasels, sponsored by Koch Industries?

    3. SugarFree   12 years ago

      Washington Abortorapists

      1. JW   12 years ago

        How could you miss the obvious Washington Foreskins joke?

        Oh yes, I mock your pain.

        1. SugarFree   12 years ago

          They perform abortions with rape. This is no laughing matter, you cheap whore.

          1. JW   12 years ago

            Cheap!?

    4. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

      How about Warshington Redskins?

      1. KDN   12 years ago

        That would be some artful trolling.

        "We have decided to end this needless controversy regarding the name of our illustrious and historic franchise. From this point forward we will be known as the Landover Redskins. Thank you, and hail to the Redskins."

      2. Krios   12 years ago

        +1 A+ in spelling

    5. PD Scott   12 years ago

      Washington Bureaucrats. They promise to score in triplicate and return the ball eventually.

      1. GILMORE   12 years ago

        i vote REGULATORS

    6. Fatty Bolger   12 years ago

      Washington Parasites.

    7. itsnotmeitsyou   12 years ago

      Washington Bravehearts?

      1. BardMetal   12 years ago

        Hey as a man of Scottish descent I take offense at that.

    8. Fatty Bolger   12 years ago

      The DC Drones

    9. PapayaSF   12 years ago

      I suggest the Washington Multiculturals.

    10. HazelMeade   12 years ago

      The Washington Insiders

    11. Fatty Bolger   12 years ago

      The Washington One-Percenters

      1. SugarFree   12 years ago

        Or the simpler: Washington Millionaires

        1. fish   12 years ago

          I'm partial to the "The Fightin Scumbags"......as a name not a personal care product.

        2. Mickey Rat   12 years ago

          That suggests some of those people have made a productive contribution to society.

    12. AnonCowHerd   12 years ago

      I liked the idea of keeping the name, but changing the logo to a potato.

      1. Tonio   12 years ago

        Or a peanut.

      2. Big Chief   12 years ago

        This is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that made this country great.

        +10 internets to you, sir!

    13. Invisible Finger   12 years ago

      Couldn't they just put a peanut on the helmet?

      1. PD Scott   12 years ago

        Jimmy Carter could be the mascot.

        1. fish   12 years ago

          Only if they draw him like Chief Wahoo!

          http://obiter-dicta.ca/wp-cont.....s_logo.png

    14. DJF   12 years ago

      Name them the Washington Cowboys and watch peoples heads explode!

  2. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

    ...business lobby groups are apparently lining up to challenge Tea Party candidates in upcoming Republican primaries.

    I assume these are favored businesses.

    1. trshmnstr   12 years ago

      This fight is what will define whether a third party rises to ascendancy. If these business groups push too hard, people will be happy to slap the "corporate crony" label on the GOP and walk on over to a third party.

      1. Restoras   12 years ago

        I agree.

      2. Brett L   12 years ago

        Done.

      3. CE   12 years ago

        If by "people" you mean the half-dozen or so of us here who haven't already, well yeah.

    2. Fatty Bolger   12 years ago

      Oh noes the crony capitalists are upset! Darn you, Tea Party! Darn you to Hell!

    3. Scruffy Nerfherder   12 years ago

      National Retail Federation
      Chamber of Commerce
      Business Roundtable
      National Association of Manufacturers
      National Federation of Independent Business

      This I can reasonably say, the USCOC has been a crony capitalist organization for a very long time. I expect that everybody else is either completely driven by credit or hanging by a thread in these economic times. Interruptions to the credit market have repercussions far and wide in the US since very few businesses operate out of the cash pool anymore (I am an exception to that). If credit freezes up, everybody freaks out.

      1. JW   12 years ago

        They gotta do something to protect their phony baloney jobs.

        1. Mad Scientist   12 years ago

          Harumph!

          1. Swiss Servator, Bow to Bern!   12 years ago

            Only one harumph?! Take that man's name!

  3. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

    San Francisco is considering a soda tax.

    Society has no problem that cannot be solved by taking people's money.

    1. trshmnstr   12 years ago

      They were going to spend it on their healthcare for being fat anyway!

      /prog-fascist

    2. gaijin   12 years ago

      Will they tax pop too?

      1. CE   12 years ago

        Maybe even soda pop.

    3. Wags   12 years ago

      How bout orange juice?

      1. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

        Yes. That can also be fixed by taking people's money.

    4. Fatty Bolger   12 years ago

      It's a sin tax.

    5. Krios   12 years ago

      Can it fix gravity?

  4. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

    The New York Attorney General is reportedly demanding information from the company, and Macy's, about their policies for stopping, detaining, and questioning customers based on race.

    Shouldn't he be going after the NYPD?

    1. Andrew S.   12 years ago

      I'll assume that question is rhetorical.

  5. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

    The owner of the Washington Redskins will meet with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell about the controversy over the team's name

    I'm beginning to suspect the nation's concern trolls have too much time on their hands.

    1. Tonio   12 years ago

      Hey, anything to distract from that totally fake, absolutely not a real crisis with...hey, look, over there!

      1. John   12 years ago

        Come Tonio, it is not like the team has been around and had the same same for going on 80 years or something. I mean this is a really urgent issue.

  6. SweatingGin   12 years ago

    "has she let you down one last time?"

    That's just shameless fan service. NTTAWWT.

    1. a better weapon   12 years ago

      If I had cocktail parties, Krayewski would now be getting invites.

      1. Certified Public Asskicker   12 years ago

        Careful, he'll eat all your meatballs.

        1. Brett L   12 years ago

          Its okay, I invite a couple Irish to keep the Polacks from drinking all my liquor.

    2. Brett L   12 years ago

      Positive reinforcement.

    3. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

      Glitch Girl is the Cleveland Browns of the internet.

      1. Bobarian   12 years ago

        The Cleveland Browns are the ACA of football.

        1. Boisfeuras   12 years ago

          There's no sugarcoating it. The Cleveland Browns might not win the Super Bowl this season.

      2. hamilton   12 years ago

        Inspirational quotes on the walls at the Browns facility are "almost all.. misattributed, incorrectly transcribed, or indeterminately fraudulent."

        1. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

          They don't call it the Mistake on the Lake for nothing.

  7. Brett L   12 years ago

    Hey, didn't someone tell us that we would make money on the GM bailout?

    The U.S. government has booked a loss of $9.7 billion on the nearly $50 billion bailout of U.S. automaker General Motors Co, according to a quarterly report to Congress on Tuesday.

    1. Jordan   12 years ago

      When did we bail out GM? I only remember us bailing out the UAW.

      1. Brett L   12 years ago

        Its a fair cop.

    2. Ted S.   12 years ago

      But the Dow and S&P are at all time highs!!111!!!

      1. Jordan   12 years ago

        I'm sure gold will crater any day now!

        1. CE   12 years ago

          Only if a golden meteorite hits.

          1. Enough About Palin   12 years ago

            Golden meteor showers?

    3. trshmnstr   12 years ago

      I think that on behalf of the administration, shreek would like to say:

      shrike|2.22.12 @ 6:40PM|#

      *shrugs*

      So I lied. It's what I do.

    4. Bobarian   12 years ago

      Which doesn't even consider the ass-pounding the original stock and bond holders took on the Obama led reorganization.

      1. PD Scott   12 years ago

        Don't concern yourself with those enemies of the people, comrade.

    5. Krios   12 years ago

      I wonder who it was that told us that?

  8. The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc   12 years ago

    Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests government employees are 38 percent more likely to be absent from work than their private-sector counterparts.

    They make up for it by being 76 percent more important and valuable.

  9. Brett L   12 years ago

    I'm sure a bunch of you young'uns will be sad to find out the Jonas brothers broke up.

    1. a better weapon   12 years ago

      Now that Lou Reed is dead, what difference at this point, does it make?

  10. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

    Some More Of That Progressive Love and Respect We've All Come To Love and Respect, or Amanda is... kind of a dick (Pt LXIII)

    Worthen's proof of a turning tide are a motley crew of rather strange-sounding people[...]

    Rita Viselli found herself pregnant at age 35 with the child of a man she was casually dating. She was a recovering drug addict, the troubled daughter of a single mother herself, and a recent convert to evangelical Christianity. In 2000 she began a Bible study for single mothers in her living room in Southern California. She taught them what she had realized: "I have a husband. His name is Jesus Christ[...]

    Reads less "heart-warming example of traditional family values" and more "comical representation of how religious conservatives can bend themselves into pretzels trying to reconcile their ideals with reality."

    Amanda should put "laughing at the travails of the less fortunate" next to "butchering the English language" and "talking about her 52 cats" on her online dating profile.

    1. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

      Seriously though, Amanda is a legitimately terrible person with zero ability to empathize:

      Then there's the one non-Christian example Worthen drummed up, who inspires more terror than pity:

      Sharon Secor is "a minarchist libertarian, an anarchist who acknowledges that there is a small role for government," she told me. Her views owe much to a history of nasty encounters with the state, from adolescent trauma in the foster care system to more recent run-ins with Child Protective Services. A college dropout who has read deeply in history and psychology, she fled upstate New York for South Texas with her three daughters. There she could home-school without state interference. She earns a living as a freelance copywriter and is writing a survivalist cookbook.

      Watch out Democrats.

      Would it be small of me to note that other things which inspire "more terror than pity" include Amanda's writing ability and general disposition? Might explain why her last meaningful relationship was with a guy who calls himself "punkass marc"...

      1. Metazoan   12 years ago

        How could anyone not like being abused by the dreamy State?!

      2. Night Elf Mohawk   12 years ago

        C'mon, man, if you can't see why Amanduh would be terrified of a copywriter, I don't know what to tell you. She probably knows how to form coherent sentences and all kinds of scary things.

        1. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

          Plus, she is a miniarchist libertarian -- further proof that proofreading, as a wholly owned subsidary of Koch Industries, is the enemy.

    2. Metazoan   12 years ago

      Wow, progs really can't stand when people solve problems in ways they don't like.

    3. John   12 years ago

      The thing about someone like Amanda is that that women is not a person to her. Other people are just props in Amanda's personal morality play. She doesn't see them as people to be loved or helped. She sees them has props upon which she projects her personal morality play. So the moment that women stopped conforming to Amanda's projection she ceased to be of value to Amanda. Her purpose as a single mother is to be the archetype of the struggling oppressed single mom. If she chooses not to do that, then Amanda has no reason to profess sympathy for her.

      1. Metazoan   12 years ago

        The thing about someone like Amanda is that that women is not a person to her.

        Well, expanding a bit, I think this is common to left-wing feminists in general. Women are not individuals free to pursue their own ends; rather, they must live for the cause! Hence we cannot allow sexual freedom or anything like that.

      2. trshmnstr   12 years ago

        Single Women? are of import to Amanda, because she can use the emotional undertones to her advantage. She doesn't have to deal with the messiness of having one single victim underpinning her message, she has a complete class of favorable victims. Classes of victims are much harder to argue against than a single victim.

        This is why things like patriarchy, privilege, othering, and microaggressions are the go-to tools of the statist. Those are offenses made by classes of people against other classes of people. You can't say "well, I didn't mean it that way", because it's not about you, it's about every stereotype they could possible condense into a generic "person" and lumping as many people into that class.

        1. John   12 years ago

          There is a great line in the novel Cancer Ward. The communists loved the People, the giant political abstract, but hated individual people, whom they found dirty and brutish and forever non compliant to their dictates.

          1. T   12 years ago

            This is how you get the mentality, common amongst utopian socialists, that any individual can be sacrificed for Humanity.

    4. Andrew S.   12 years ago

      Amanda is... kind of a dick (Pt LXIII)

      Rape culture!!!

  11. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

    The White House is considering whether to end the practice of spying on friendly foreign leaders...

    No consideration given on the spying on Americans.

    1. PD Scott   12 years ago

      Have you seen the latest poll numbers? Obviously Americans aren't friendly.

  12. gaijin   12 years ago

    The White House admitted some people may not be able to keep their insurance plans; about 2 million people have been affected so far.

    If I was running for office against ACA in 2014, I'd just play youtube clips for my ad campaign! Here's the makings of a nice 60-second spot

    If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. Period.

    1. Sevo   12 years ago

      Major media outfits:
      'Did you hear what the rethuglicans did today?! Why, it's outrageous!
      Oh, and there are some minor problems with O'care, but they'll be fixed soon. About those rethuglicans!'

    2. trshmnstr   12 years ago

      You could make a whole series based upon that. Get a bunch of favorable folks (single mothers, old ladies, war vets) on camera just simply talking about their experiences with obamacare.

      Start each spot with Obama saying you can keep your plan, put the person's testimony in the middle, finish up with Obama smiling and waving.

  13. Brett L   12 years ago

    Obamacare plan cancellations are just creative destruction!

    however, this looks very different. For those with junk plans who were healthy and never had to use them for anything beyond routine care, the plans seemed like a great deal.

    You idiots didn't know what you needed!

    1. Jordan   12 years ago

      I see that these morons still believe in False Consciousness.

    2. Metazoan   12 years ago

      Obamacare plan cancellations are just creative destruction!

      I'm sure that's what the resident "classical liberal" will say.

    3. Ted S.   12 years ago

      Let's blow up a couple of hospitals. Creative destruction! Stimulus!!

      1. R C Dean   12 years ago

        There's a couple hospitals down the street from mine you can start with.

    4. gaijin   12 years ago

      You idiots didn't know what you needed!

      I was once a moron. I thought I knew what was best for my family and myself. But, I see now the prideful error of my ways. The sloth and ignorance the led me to reject your teachings. Now, having heard the Words and the truth, O bringer of light, I confess my guilt and I throw myself on your mercy. Thank you for helping me see the light.

      1. fish   12 years ago

        This works much better if you imagine the speaker prone and weeping with his arms wrapped around Obamas dainty ankles.

        1. gaijin   12 years ago

          I like it!

    5. R C Dean   12 years ago

      For those with junk plans who were healthy and never had to use them for anything beyond routine care,

      They will now get vastly more expensive plans that they will never use for anything beyond routine care. So what are they bitching about?

      1. John   12 years ago

        It is like I said RC. The whole program was based on the Prog fantasy that everyone hated their health insurance and were just dying for Progs to come and fix it.

        1. HazelMeade   12 years ago

          I think John really has it here.

          The progs have been selling this myth of people constantly getting screwed over by insurance companies for so long they started to really believe it.

          They really thought that people would LOVE paying twice as much for insurance in exchange for never having to worry about pre-existing conditions.

          But we all know that, in reality, people weren't really getting screwed out of claims that often.

          1. Brett L   12 years ago

            Except that she admits that there is no negative consequence. Hell my "junk plan" had a $3M/year coverage ($30M lifetime) and $10k/yr max OOP with a $5k/yr deductible. It wasn't junk, it just was meant to protect me from large unplanned expenses while my HSA would both pay for expected expenses, and even absorb a major illness or ER trip.

            1. John   12 years ago

              Gee Brett, it is almost as if you are a better judge of what is best for you than the top men who wrote Obamacare. Well knock me over with a feather.

            2. Apatheist ?_??   12 years ago

              And just pay out of pocket if you can. An HSA is a bonus tax advantaged retirement account. I'm not going to spend any money out of mine.

            3. fish   12 years ago

              Except that she admits that there is no negative consequence. Hell my "junk plan" had a $3M/year coverage ($30M lifetime) and $10k/yr max OOP with a $5k/yr deductible. It wasn't junk, it just was meant to protect me from large unplanned expenses while my HSA would both pay for expected expenses, and even absorb a major illness or ER trip.

              So it was insurance then?

  14. Sevo   12 years ago

    "The White House is considering whether to end the practice of spying on friendly foreign leaders, while Spain's public prosecutor has begun a preliminary inquiry into reports of US spying on Spanish citizens"

    He's only lied twenty out of twenty times; I believe him this time! Hey, he says no one's losing their medical insurance too!

    1. Ted S.   12 years ago

      They'll just declare that the leaders they've been spying on are by definition unfriendly.

  15. The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc   12 years ago

    Paul Krugman has a chart

    Aha ? somehow I didn't know this existed. The Bank of England has produced some very, very long-term series; spreadsheet can be downloaded here. Here's debt and interest rates since the Bank was founded:

    The print is a bit small, but the blue line is the ratio of public debt to GDP, measured on the right axis, and the red line is the yield on long-term government debt, measured on the left.

    You might think that these data, and the relationship they show ? or, actually, don't show ? should have some impact on our current debate, especially given the tendency of many players to reject modeling and appeal to what they claim are the lessons of history.

    Or are they claiming that this time is different?

    Right, and public debt and spending exploded to pay for World Wars I and II. Clearly we need another massive war to get the best 'yield' from debt.

    1. Metazoan   12 years ago

      Clearly we need another massive war to get the best 'yield' from debt.

      It honestly wouldn't surprise me if the soulless Krugnuts believed that.

      1. Brett L   12 years ago

        If we just bulldoze houses to destroy the supply problem...

        1. Brian D   12 years ago

          But we need to keep the housing construction industry going, so we'll pay people to build houses that we'll mark for demolition.

      2. Ted S.   12 years ago

        Instead of bombing Pearl Harbor, bomb Chicago to smithereens.

        1. Restoras   12 years ago

          Aren't Chicagoans already doing that from the inside?

        2. Bobarian   12 years ago

          This is a plan I could get behind.

          Ted S. for Illinois Governor.

          1. Brett L   12 years ago

            Ted S. for Illinois Governor.

            Is he felon enough?

            1. Jordan   12 years ago

              Ted's a Masshole, I believe.

              1. Brett L   12 years ago

                I'm not sure, unless he came up in Boston politics, that he has the right... temperament... to be an IL governor.

                1. Bobarian   12 years ago

                  Illinois Governors save all their best felonies for when they're in office.

                2. gaijin   12 years ago

                  Ted clearly does not have what it takes to be IL governor. From his comments here I can tell he does not have a sub-100 IQ.

              2. Ted S.   12 years ago

                Er, no. I live in the middle of nowhere in the Catskill Mountains of New York.

                1. Restoras   12 years ago

                  Monticello Hillbilly!

                2. gaijin   12 years ago

                  in the Catskill Mountains of New York.

                  Did you know Patrick Swayze?

                  1. Swiss Servator, Bow to Bern!   12 years ago

                    Or his Ghost?

                    *ducks and runs*

                    1. gaijin   12 years ago

                      +1 (")

      3. Scruffy Nerfherder   12 years ago

        Alien invasion = STIMULUS

    2. John   12 years ago

      England has over the centuries borrowed huge amounts of money during crisis only to later pay it back. So in one sense, Kruginuts has a point. Just because you borrow a lot of money, doesn't mean you are necessarily doomed. Yes the British borrowed like there was no tomorrow to pay for the Napoleonic wars or to rebuild the country after the glorious revolution. But all of those events ended and the government stopped borrowing and paid that money back. The problem is that Kruginuts never gets to the pay it back part.

      1. PD Scott   12 years ago

        Obviously we/they are in a permanent, never-ending crisis, so paying off the debt is just not in the cards for now.

        1. Bobarian   12 years ago

          paying off the debt is just not in the cards forever.

          FTFY

      2. PapayaSF   12 years ago

        Yes, there's a critical difference between borrowing to fund a temporary crisis and borrowing to fund endless entitlements.

      3. Free Society   12 years ago

        England, over thew centuries didn't have a fiat currency and a Ponzi system of international banking cartels where creditworthiness was less valuable than the coercive force of legal tender laws.

        I think when your government owes more than double the value of all the gold and silver on planet Earth, the doomsayers make a good point.

        1. VG Zaytsev   12 years ago

          half way there.

          The reality is that US federal 'debt' is doesn't exist in the sense of liabilities that must be paid to some exogenous entity. The 'debt' is entirely a fiction to hide the debasement of the currency, aka inflation. Which in the current international 'trade' paradigm is effectively an inflation tax on the entire world.

          You have to go back to the Roman Empire to develop proper analogies to the current situation.

    3. Invisible Finger   12 years ago

      You misspelled "Shart".

      1. Doktor Kapitalism   12 years ago

        +1

  16. Night Elf Mohawk   12 years ago

    Daniel Snyder insists he won't change it.

    I wonder what Goddell has up his sleeve when he's told to pound sand.

    1. Steve G   12 years ago

      I'm ordinarily a pick-your-battles kind of guy, but in this case I'd be a little stubborn too...

    2. Tonio   12 years ago

      I suspect that Snyder knows that the change will be forced upon him one way or another. I also suspect that he knows exactly what price he's going to extract from the NFL for this.

      1. Night Elf Mohawk   12 years ago

        I'm not so sure. Crap like this usually requires someone who can be guilted. Snyder doesn't strike me as that kind of person.

        I'd be pretty surprised if the NFL has any contractual or legal ground to stand on. Is the NFL going to start just referencing his team as Washington or something?

        1. Brett L   12 years ago

          To say that Snyder has no sense of shame is an understatement.

    3. a better weapon   12 years ago

      I think he absolutely will change it, but is trying to wait until the offseason.

      Unless the reports aren't true, it is extremely suspicious that his next door neighbor TM'd "Washington Bravehearts" for "football entertainment purposes." My guess is there are a few other trademarks from associates that have been filed recently.

      I think he's already caved and he's just trying to keep the news in the box for a little bit longer.

      1. PapayaSF   12 years ago

        You know what might be cool (though which might be tricky to do)? Call for a nationwide referendum in which only people of Native American blood can vote. If most say thumbs down, change the name. If most don't, the rest can shut up.

        1. Auric Demonocles   12 years ago

          The only poll I know of that did this found 90% of Native Americans had no issue with the name. For context on the 9% who said it was offensive, 11% of Americans say the moon landing was a hoax.

          1. Andrew S.   12 years ago

            To be fair, the Annenberg study from 2004 was bullshit. Metrics and questions were terrible.

            1. Auric Demonocles   12 years ago

              Find your own study,

            2. PapayaSF   12 years ago

              I suspect it's close to the truth, though. Most people understand that you name a team after people you admire, so it's not an insult.

    4. Andrew S.   12 years ago

      I'd feel differently about this if I didn't despise Dan Synder. I want whatever will make him suffer. Therefore, if forcing him to change the name will cause Dan Snyder to suffer, I want to force a change.

  17. Fist of Etiquette   12 years ago

    The White House admitted some people may not be able to keep their insurance plans; about 2 million people have been affected so far.

    Like anyone is going to hold Obama accountable one way or the other.

  18. Brett L   12 years ago

    Another IL politician goes home.

    Former Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. has reported to a federal prison to serve a 2 1/2-year prison term for misusing campaign funds, a prison official said Tuesday.

    1. PapayaSF   12 years ago

      There is still some justice in the world. And it makes this funny.

      1. Enough About Palin   12 years ago

        Sweet fucking shit!

      2. Boisfeuras   12 years ago

        From one of the reveiws:

        I had to give this Pulitzer Prize non-winning book 4 stars, only because it failed to include a chapter on how not to get caught. Other than missing info about how to avoid the Feds from breaking down your door to steal the stuff you previously stole, it's a great read.

      3. Brett L   12 years ago

        Holy hell.

  19. Derpetologist   12 years ago

    The Marcotte Letters: Update

    I emailed Karen Straughan about the debate challenge. Here is her response:

    http://platedlizard.blogspot.c.....manda.html

    I don't do twitter, but anyone here does, feel free to post these emails on Amanda's fee.

    1. Tonio   12 years ago

      Good luck.

    2. Jordan   12 years ago

      That's pretty good. Unfortunately, I'm not on Twitter either.

    3. fish   12 years ago

      Karen Straughan is straight up loopy....she intimated that Amanda, might, under the right set of circumstances by considered "almost pretty"....sorry man but that's just crazy talk!

      1. Boisfeuras   12 years ago

        What BAC level does "right set of circumstances" translate to?

  20. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

    Some good old-fashioned progressive cluelessness about poverty for y'all?

    Unable to afford the $18 a week it takes to keep a baby in clean disposable diapers, many parents living in poverty have taken to reusing dirty ones[?]

    This weekend she talked to NPR's Arun Rath about witnessing the cost-saving measure:

    I was working with families who had a variety of different things going on in their lives. But what they all had in common was a level of really abject poverty. And I would visit them and see firsthand them taking a diaper off their child, emptying out the solids and putting it back on.

    Food stamps and similar programs don't cover diapers, but even if they did, it would not help this situation[?]The government needs to step in and provide diapers to needy families in the same way that WIC and SNAP provide food.

    This is nonsense. Not only is this nonsense, it is really obvious nonsense. Only someone as blithely oblivious and out of touch as a middle- to upper-class prog could believe that the poor people who do this to their children do so because they've exhausted all other possible recourse.

    I suspect that progressives actually understand this at some level, and that they paper over disdain for the poor with calls for government social welfare programs.

    1. Spoonman.   12 years ago

      ...Cloth diapers?

      1. Spoonman.   12 years ago

        My wife and I are planning to (maybe a key word) use cloth diapers on the baby due any day now...because we're cheap. Also, I work from home, so it's pretty easy to run a bunch of loads of laundry.

        That might be harder if you don't have a washing machine, but as Jordan points out below, billions of babies have been kept clean before disposable diapers.

      2. Tonio   12 years ago

        Yeah, but cloth diapers have their own problems, particularly for poor families. Many don't have their own washers and have to pay by the load for apt/laundromat. Plus transport to laundromat, etc. Those cloth ones are expensive.

        Which isn't to shill for more social welfare.

        1. KDN   12 years ago

          There's always the bleach and slop sink method.

        2. trshmnstr   12 years ago

          They did have this amazing invention before laundromats. I think it was called a washboard. (i'm not being sarcastic here, i'm just not sure that's its name)

          I completely don't buy into this "we've progressed beyond that technology" crap that says that poor people deserve cable tv, broadband internet, washers and dryers, and a smartphone. There was technology back in the day that allowed you to wash your clothes almost for free.

        3. Jordan   12 years ago

          I don't think it would be particularly difficult to wash them by hand in the bathtub. Yeah, it's gross and not as easy as a washing machine, but them's the breaks.

          1. Brett L   12 years ago

            Yeah, it's gross and not as easy as a washing machine, but them's the breaks.

            Do you not rinse the solid waste in the sink anyhow? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the process.

            1. trshmnstr   12 years ago

              Results from a 10 sec Google search

            2. Jordan   12 years ago

              Well, I've never done it myself, so I don't really know.

        4. Night Elf Mohawk   12 years ago

          Unless something's changed since my kids were in diapers, a diaper service that picked up and delivered was cheaper than disposables.

        5. CE   12 years ago

          They have to "pay be the load".... funny...

    2. Jordan   12 years ago

      Hmm, I wonder how parents kept their children clean before Pampers. It is a mystery. I guess Pampers have just existed since the beginning of time.

    3. R C Dean   12 years ago

      I got $20 that says these poor downtrodden people who don't have $18/month for diapers somehow find multiples of that every month for their smartphones.

      1. PapayaSF   12 years ago

        If you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em.

      2. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

        I don't mind people having cell phones any more than I mind people consuming any type of addictive substance or enjoying the finer things in life -- but if you're spending money on those things and not food for yourself or diapers for your kids, your priorities are wrong and no amount of government intervention will fix broken priorities.

      3. Ted S.   12 years ago

        Don't they have free Obamaphones?!

    4. CE   12 years ago

      I thought reusable diapers (cloth ones) were better for the environment anyway. Where are the "the landfills are full of dirty disposable diapers" trolls today?

      1. Entropy Void   12 years ago

        They had kids and learned "Diaper Truth".

      2. Entropy Void   12 years ago

        They had kids and learned "Diaper Truth".

    5. Apatheist ?_??   12 years ago

      Not a parent yet but it takes 2 seconds of googling to see that $18 a week is way too high.

      1. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

        Yup.

        /Parent of three

    6. ChrisO   12 years ago

      This is just Big Diaper looking for a subsidy.

    7. Red Rocks Rockin   12 years ago

      $18 a week for diapers? Where the fuck did they come up with that number? You can buy a box for $25-35 at Sam's Club or Costco that will last you three weeks or longer.

  21. Doktor Kapitalism   12 years ago

    http://dailycaller.com/2013/10.....miserable/

    Has this story been seen over here yet?

    1. PapayaSF   12 years ago

      Gavin McInnes can be very entertaining.

  22. Steve G   12 years ago


    Race hustlers among us

    A couple days old, but I immediately thought of the Maher episode that Matt Welch where Monica Mehta brings up the point about Asian immigrants rising above and he just casually just dismisses her saying "not everyone can do that". Bullshit

    http://reason.com/blog/2013/09.....bill-maher

    1. gaijin   12 years ago

      Speaking of race hustlers, here is an interesting take on reparations... African Americans and Indians should pay royalties for use of white civilization

      1. Heroic Mulatto   12 years ago

        If Reed was speaking seriously, as opposed to a Swiftan proposal sort of thing, then he can go fuck himself. Those "royalties" were paid for in full by 400+ years of unpaid labor, degradation, and murder.

        1. gaijin   12 years ago

          I'm pretty sure it was parody.

        2. fish   12 years ago

          ....as opposed to a Swiftan proposal sort of thing,

          It is exactly this sort of thing.

        3. Steve G   12 years ago

          So we're even then? sweet!

    2. a better weapon   12 years ago

      A painful moment came for me years ago, when I was on the lecture circuit, after a talk at Marquette University, when a young black student rose and asked: "Even though I am graduating from Marquette University, what hope is there for me?"

      I enjoy Sowell's writing, but I don't believe that really happened.

  23. Thane of Steelport   12 years ago

    SugarFree, is that you?

    1. SugarFree   12 years ago

      I am not nearly as ubiquitous as you people assume.

      1. Thane of Steelport   12 years ago

        What do you mean, "you people"?!?!!

        1. SugarFree   12 years ago

          Buckeyes

    2. Ted S.   12 years ago

      I hope SugarFree knows the difference between "its" and "it's".

  24. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

    Princeton Professor Robert P. George hates to say he told you so, but he told you so -

    "The logic of the sexual revolution continues to play itself out in exactly the way defenders of "traditional" marriage and norms of sexual morality saw (and said) that it would. When I and many others noted that the abandonment of the idea of marriage as a conjugal union and its replacement with a conception of "marriage" as sexual-romantic companionship or domestic partnership would swiftly be followed by the mainstreaming of polyamory and eventually demands for the legal recognition of "poly" partnerships and families, we were accused of "scare mongering" and making illicit "slippery slope" arguments....

    "Today, fewer and fewer people on the liberal side of questions of marriage and sexual ethics are even pretending to have moral objections to polyamorous sexual relationships or their recognition. Increasingly, the pretense is not regarded as politically necessary. "Poly" groups no longer need to be pushed into the closet in order to depict redefining marriage as a "conservative" cause; "polys" are now even welcome to march in pride parades and the like. Polyamory is swiftly becoming one more hue in the multi-colored flag."

    http://www.firstthings.com/blo.....-families/

    1. Jordan   12 years ago

      So?

      1. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

        Well, are you cool with all the government policies currently applicable to married couples applying to married multiples? Multiple spousal beneficiaries under Social Security? Multiple people to sue florists (I can't wait for the feminist florist forced to cater the wedding of a patriarchal polygamous family)? Multiple people to benefit from family leave policies? Etc.

        To which the libertarian response is to discuss how things would be in Libertopia. As if that's where we lived today.

        1. Metazoan   12 years ago

          Yeah, sure. We could use it to show how all of those government requirements are stupid in the first place.

        2. Doktor Kapitalism   12 years ago

          "feminist florist forced to cater the wedding of a patriarchal polygamous family"

          *gets popcorn*

        3. Tonio   12 years ago

          In libertopia (as I envision it) there would be no state sanctioned marriage. Retirement plans would be private matters.

          1. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

            I'm not arguing about libertopia's family policy, any more than I am arguing about family policy on the planet Metebelis Three - neither is particularly relevant to this country.

        4. Jordan   12 years ago

          I'm going to ask you the same question I ask everyone who responds like this: should we have kept the laws banning interracial marriage in place?

          1. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

            No.

            Let me ask you two questions:

            Numero uno, what exactly makes polyamory equivalent, for public-policy purposes, to interracial marriage? The defenders of interracial marriage haven't claimed that until quite recently, so I suppose it's far from obvious. Please explain.

            Numero two-o, how many SSMers or polyamorists (assuming they're all adults) have gotten 25-year suspended sentences like the interracial Lovings?

          2. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

            No.

            Let me ask you two questions:

            Numero uno, what exactly makes polyamory equivalent, for public-policy purposes, to interracial marriage? The defenders of interracial marriage haven't claimed that until quite recently, so I suppose it's far from obvious. Please explain.

            Numero two-o, how many SSMers or polyamorists (assuming they're all adults) have gotten 25-year suspended sentences like the interracial Lovings?

            1. Jordan   12 years ago

              Numero uno, what exactly makes polyamory equivalent, for public-policy purposes, to interracial marriage?

              You asked me if I'm okay with expanding the definition of marriage if it means extending federal benefits to more people. So, it looks like we are both okay with it.

              Numero two-o, how many SSMers or polyamorists (assuming they're all adults) have gotten 25-year suspended sentences like the interracial Lovings?

              Irrelevant.

            2. tarran   12 years ago

              Numero uno, what exactly makes polyamory equivalent, for public-policy purposes, to interracial marriage?

              The fact that people should be free to make family groups to their taste, be it with one or more niggers, kikes, wops or greasers.

              Numero two-o, how many SSMers or polyamorists (assuming they're all adults) have gotten 25-year suspended sentences like the interracial Lovings?

              I can count 15 people in the pictures here. Federal pen too.

              1. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

                Ah, a photo from 1888.

                1. Heroic Mulatto   12 years ago

                  Last I heard, "bigamy" was still illegal with prison a sentencing option.

              2. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

                "The fact that people should be free to make family groups to their taste"

                And they can't now? Or do you object to the fact that government recognizes some "family groups" but not others? Or that it fails to de-recognize all of them?

        5. BardMetal   12 years ago

          "To which the libertarian response is to discuss how things would be in Libertopia. As if that's where we lived today."

          Thats usually the same response you get with immigration too.

      2. Ted S.   12 years ago

        Eduard gets his rocks off on the "Oh noes! They're persecuting Christians!" stuff.

        1. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

          Maybe if the Copts in Egypt smoked more weed, their travails get more coverage here.

          1. PapayaSF   12 years ago

            Zing!

          2. BardMetal   12 years ago

            I think a lot of posters here think they're are too cool to take up a cause that the SoCons support.

    2. Metazoan   12 years ago

      Polyamory is swiftly becoming one more hue in the multi-colored flag

      So what?

      1. SugarFree   12 years ago

        Where would Eddie be if he didn't have something to stamp his feet and get all red in the face about? He's pure culture war SoCon and only comes here to troll.

        1. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

          Let's see, I've tried to start threads about marijuana, Star Wars, and many other non-SoCon topics, but (apart from Star Wars) I don't get as many responses as when I do the SoCon standbys. I also comment on threads started by y'all or by the staff, and the topics include police abuse, guns, etc.

          The fact that you feed my SoCon comments only encourages me. Engage me when I comment on MJ, etc. and see if I don't discuss the topic as much as I discuss polyamory.

          And how would you enforce a rule against SoCon discussions, anyway? Block off talk of guns? Remember the trilogy of God, Guns and Gays - we all know which side of the culture wars guns are on. Or what about govt overspending and welfare? Those are traditionally considered SoCon wedge issues. etc.

          1. SugarFree   12 years ago

            My main issue is that you are so very boring.

            1. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

              Perhaps I should discuss the Smoot-Hawley tariff?

              1. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhiCFdWeQfA

              2. Heedless   12 years ago

                Tariffs are a species of monumental stupidity favored only by rent seekers, con artists, and the economically ignorant. Hit them over the head with On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation until they see reason. Or until they start to bleed out of their ears.

                What else is there to discuss?

            2. VG Zaytsev   12 years ago

              Funny dat,

              I think you are.

          2. trshmnstr   12 years ago

            Step 1: Push all recognition of marriage to the states. If a program needs to know your marital status, it doesn't belong in the fedGov

            Step 2: In a few intrepid states, start a "faith based initiative" to treat marriage a bit like we treat healthcare under obamacare. You now have an option to either go to your local place of worship to get a marriage license (the government doesn't keep any record of it), or you go to the government "exchange" to get your license.

            Step 3: You let the chaos that comes from having a million different places that keep marital records slowly peel back some of the dependencies, both public and private.

            Step 4: You get rid of the government option for licensing marriage

            Step 5: you get rid of whatever is left.

            There, five incredibly hard steps to marriage freedom.

            1. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

              I'm against licensing marriage. What we now call licenses should be called mandatory paperwork, and even that may be too oppressive. Letting churches keep their records without giving them to the govt would be fine with me.

              The question is - what marriages the government should *recognize,* if any, and I say the kind with one man on one side and one woman on the other.

    3. John   12 years ago

      The thing is that just because they don't have moral objections, doesn't mean they don't have emotional objections. Absent religious pressure to keep people in line, polymorous relationships will never be preferred or common. For whatever reason, they just don't work for most human beings male or female.

      Search the interent sometime for polymory. You will find all kinds of blogs people have written about their new polymorous lifestyle. The blogs usually last about a year and end with a post saying something to the effect of "Jane and I have decided to divorce and pursue our lives separately..."

      Unless we end up with real no kidding enclaves of religious Muslims or Mormons where people are coerced into such a life, I really don't see polymory ever being that common.

      1. Metazoan   12 years ago

        I agree with this, in general. A former gf and I thought about polyamory. As it turned out, even though I have no moral objection to it at all, it's really not so great. Maybe some small number of people really like it; that's fine, but I agree that it won't be a big thing.

        1. Doktor Kapitalism   12 years ago

          I'd say that over time, it will become more prevalent, but will probably never be the norm.

        2. John   12 years ago

          I just don't see how you get over the jealousy. And as far as Polygamy goes, how in the world do you make such a complex dynamic work? Even the happiest couples are going to get on each others' nerves some of the time. Introduce a third and you triple that so that someone is always mad at someone.

          Sounds fun to order the Russian beauty off the internet as a second wife. But I can't see it being very fun for very long.

      2. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

        Well, same-sex marriage isn't that common, either - as I understand, only a minority of gays are same-sex married.

        Human beings' natural inclinations agains polyamory haven't stopped whole countries and regions from recognizing and establishing polygamy.

        1. Metazoan   12 years ago

          I guess I just don't see why it matters. I have made my decision; I'm not going to stop others from doing the same.

        2. John   12 years ago

          The reason why those countries have laws against polymory is that they have religious cultures that enforce it. If you have a country where women are basically sold off as property by their parents and are killed for disgracing the family if they leave their husband, the you need to have the government step in.

          The US in contrast doesn't have that. Maybe some day we will. But given our western tradition and our general respect for the rights of women, I don't see how.

      3. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

        More importantly, Muslims and Mormons will never be fashionable to the point that their relationships will be held up as positive models in the same way as homosexuals have been retained as fashionable among the class of people who create media products for consumption.

        Polygamy is illegal? Who practices it? Some fundie nuts and psychopaths who blow themselves up once they get here? Fuck them.

        1. CE   12 years ago

          Mormons will be the majority eventually. They have larger families. But they banned polygamy a while ago.

          1. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

            There are separatist groups of Mormons with polygamy. I know because they're on TV.

            1. trshmnstr   12 years ago

              +5 wives

              1. Enough About Palin   12 years ago

                "The definition of bigamy is one wife too many. The definition of monogamy is the same."

                - Oscar Wilde

                1. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

                  I remember Ambrose Bierce having a quip about bigamy, but it's not nearly as funny as I remember:

                  "Bigamy, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy."
                  ? Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

      4. Tonio   12 years ago

        Polygamy, a specific form of polyamory, has been the norm throughout much of history.

        Also, ultra orthodox jews continue to practice polygamy but keep it on the DL.

        1. John   12 years ago

          Yes. It all depends on how you define it. Some people would say a couple that stays together out of a sense of duty or whatever but looks the other way when they each have the odd affairs is polymorous. And technically I suppose they are. But I would say that the fact that they recognize the affairs as outside the marriage makes them no quite what George is talking about.

          I take him to be referring to real no kidding group relationships. And those I think are always going to be fairly rare outside religious communities. Without the societal pressure to stay and make it work, people get pretty tired of such arrangements pretty quickly.

        2. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

          Jeez Tonio, next you're going to bring up the Biblical Patriarchs, those pernicious purveyors of alternative lifestyles who are never spoken of in GOOD CHRISTIAN HOMES?

          1. John   12 years ago

            They totally speak of them. They were just Hebs who hadn't had Jesus set them straight in their ways.

        3. PapayaSF   12 years ago

          I would argue that polygamy is socially destructive, because it means that rich men end up with lots of wives, leaving other men with none, leaving lots of angry single men who turn to violence. The Muslim Middle East is Exhibit #1 for this.

          1. John   12 years ago

            Yes. But both poor men and pretty much all women won't willingly do it. So absent the rich men using the force of law or culture to enforce it, it never usually happens.

          2. ChrisO   12 years ago

            In most Muslim societies, polygamy is rather rare, as I understand it. This is largely because few men in those countries are capable of supporting more than one wife.

            Polygamy has to become way more common than that before it destabilizes society.

        4. CE   12 years ago

          You know who else was on the DL?

          1. Swiss Servator, Bow to Bern!   12 years ago

            Several leading men in Hollywood, back in the day?

      5. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

        Also appropriate

        1. Thane of Steelport   12 years ago

          Seinfeld's "The Deal" should be required material in sex ed classes.

      6. HazelMeade   12 years ago

        I've known multiple polyamorous couples.

        It can work for some people but there are usually limits. I.e. the wife is the wife and the third is the third and either you accept that status difference or you go away.

        Which is to say that it usually works where you're still basically monogamous but you "swing".

        What doesn't generally work is having three people in a relationship as equals. First wife always gets jealous of second wife, and if there is not a definite status hierarchy where first wife is in charge then you are in for trouble.

        1. John   12 years ago

          I agree with that. And that sort of thing went on a lot more in the past than we admit. Back when you couldn't divorce for pretty much any reason, society was actually a bit more tolerant of infidelity provided it was done discreetly.

    4. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

      Appropriate

      1. Ted S.   12 years ago

        Damn you, Jesse! You're going to drive me nuts trying to figure out what 1930s actress that is!

        1. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

          I tried to reverse image search it, but it's being used so ubiquitously for pearl clutching that I'm having a hard time finding an origin image.

        2. PapayaSF   12 years ago

          I suspect it's silent era, '20s or earlier.

  25. The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc   12 years ago

    Elizabeth Warren: Fannie and Freddie did not cause the financial crisis

    "While the crisis was massive and painful -- and its impact continues to weigh on middle-class families to this day -- its underlying cause was fairly clear," she said in remarks to the Mortgage Bankers Association's 100th Annual Convention & Expo in Washington. "The GSEs [government-sponsored enterprises] made significant mistakes -- mistakes that cost taxpayers dearly -- but those mistakes were not the underlying cause of the crisis."

    "Although Fannie and Freddie purchased securities backed by subprime loans, and some of those purchases helped fulfill their affordable housing goals, the St. Louis Fed economists found that the housing goals had no impact -- no impact -- on either the number of subprime loans originated or the price of those loans in the private-label market," she said. "Affordable housing goals have been scapegoated by those who have been itching to get rid of the goals for a long time, but I think it's time to drop that red herring."

    Warren blamed Fannie and Freddie's mistakes -- they have cost taxpayers $187 billion since being taken under government conservatorship in 2008 -- on trying to make increased profits to please shareholders.

    She manages to assert that Top Men could make affordable housing schemes feasible and blame evil profit-seekers.

    1. Ted S.   12 years ago

      Technically didn't the Fed cause it?

      1. The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc   12 years ago

        Yes, but that's clearly not the Marxoid senator from Massachusetts thinks.

      2. Invisible Finger   12 years ago

        Although Fannie and Freddie purchased securities backed by subprime loans, and some of those purchases helped fulfill their affordable housing goals,

        Based on Chief Wannabe's statement, it sounds like Congress caused it.

    2. PapayaSF   12 years ago

      Cripes, we're going to have to listen to that lying fraud for years to come.

      1. Cytotoxic   12 years ago

        Shoulda voted for Brown LIKE I TOLD YOU TO.

      2. Doktor Kapitalism   12 years ago

        I had a friend (hardcore liberal in her jurisdiction) compare her to Ron Paul because she's free of corporate influence.

        Um, no.

        1. PapayaSF   12 years ago

          "Free of corporate influence" is small consolation when she's a cheerleader for state control of pretty much every aspect of your life.

    3. CatoTheElder   12 years ago

      The ability of progressives to advance narratives that so clearly deny reality is quite impressive.

      The GSE's were doing exactly what they were being told to do by Congress, and were routinely praised by Congressmen and Bush for making "affordable" mortgages. Except for a few conservatives, nobody was trying to rein in the GSE's.

      The only semi-true statement in the article is that CRA was a relatively small element in their $187 billion collapse. Most of their crappy lending had nothing to do with CRA, though the crappy underwriting standards that CRA inspired indirectly contributed to the entire mess.

      1. Invisible Finger   12 years ago

        The ability of progressives to advance narratives that so clearly deny reality is quite impressive.

        That is how a progressive shows his/her bona fides.

      2. ChrisO   12 years ago

        Yeah, it was the CRA that gave the banks and investors the taste for increased risk in MBS back in the late '90s and early '00s.

        So, yes, the CRA and Fannie/Freddie had a lot to do with creating the problem.

  26. Coeus   12 years ago

    He's advocating personal responsibility!!! Burn him at the stake!!!

    I am reminded of Tannie Ackley's remark about what Ramsey offered: a way out. Ramsey appeals to people in financial trouble by offering what appears to be an easy-to-follow path to fiscal sanity and prosperity. If we can exercise self-control over our wallets, he says, the rest will take care of itself. But for all too many people in the United States of 2013, that's not really true. Larger forces overwhelm their best efforts. And the sooner we admit that, the faster we can begin to address the real causes of our personal finance woes.

    1. Certified Public Asskicker   12 years ago

      He has very debatable advice, but for probably 75% of people, they would be well suited to follow his advice.

      1. Coeus   12 years ago

        Not championing him or anything, just found it amusing what they took offense to.

    2. Brett L   12 years ago

      What? The core of Ramsey's message is get your income higher than your minimum expenses. Take a 2nd job, sell your shit, take a 3rd job, sell plasma, cancel your cable and cell phone, but get your ins more than the sum of your minimum outs.

      I would also argue (although I don't agree with everything, Ramsey would certainly get the average wage-earner safely through life) that he does very well address the real causes of the woes, people buy shit they can't afford.

    3. John   12 years ago

      Telling people their lives are hopeless. That ought to work out well.

      1. Terr   12 years ago

        Exactly. Read the Sowell article linked above.

  27. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

    Matthew Yglesias is on vacation.

    ?and yet, with the replacement columnists at Slate it seems as though he never left us. Check out this column on NSA spying, and just tell me it doesn't have The Master's fingerprints all over it.

    Why is that? Basically, we don't like it when the government?ours or other people's?collects our data for national-security purposes, but we're more or less cool with private companies collecting our data for revenue purposes[?] Data-sharing between private companies: A-OK. Data-sharing between a private company and the government: creepy.

    Sure, we willingly offer up our data when we use Facebook, Google, or any other similar site or service. But the bigger issue is [insert proggie KKKorporation screed]

    "Besides that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"

    1. Killazontherun   12 years ago

      So, choice? What's it good for? For the left, except for abortion, and certainly not whom you choose to associate with and voluntarily give information, absolutely nothing.

      Squirrels be willing, I'll say it again.

    2. Metazoan   12 years ago

      Even beyond that--none of the KKKorporations can have us imprisoned or executed.

      1. Tonio   12 years ago

        That's not what proggies believe. IP anyone?

  28. Cooter   12 years ago

    Racially-ambiguous Obamacare babe was either A) invovled in some sordid matter that would be extraordinarilly politically-inconvenient were it to become known, thereby causing the O-care PR apparatus to make a few changes or B) freaked out by the sudden infamy her stock photo (which she probably assumed would only be used in dental ads and college catalogs) had achieved and got it pulled herself.

    Personally, I'm looking forward to her coming out in pure spread-eagled splendor in a Hustler issue around the time the penaltax kicks in.

    1. John   12 years ago

      I am going with B. Hell, it wouldn't shock me if she was some contractor's niece and had no idea she was headed for such infamy until it happened.

  29. The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc   12 years ago

    New Jersey congressman lashes out at Republicans during Obamacare hearing

    He's essentially blaming GOP saboteurs for wrecking the law.

    1. Brett L   12 years ago

      What about kulaks and hoarders?

    2. Killazontherun   12 years ago

      Well, it certainly be because central planning functions only so long as far more resources are thrown into the system than the product comes out. That's crazy talk.

      1. Killazontherun   12 years ago

        Well, it certainly couldn't be because central planning functions only so long as far more resources are thrown into the system than the product comes out.

        1. Killazontherun   12 years ago

          Well, it certainly couldn't be because central planning functions only so long as far more resources are thrown into the system than the product comesing out.

  30. Killazontherun   12 years ago

    Upset over the partial government shutdown, business lobby groups are apparently lining up to challenge Tea Party candidates in upcoming Republican primaries.

    I didn't really know what fruitcakes run Wall Street until I saw a report on the donations going towards Bill de Blasio. The guys a fucking communist with an agenda to shake them for loot, for shits sake. Yet, these scoundrels are far more upset over budgetary brinkmanship that resulted in a tiny furlough of 17% of the federal workforce. May your daughters all marry Occupiers, and you yourselves wake up one morning cold, hungry and suicidal in their rape tents, Mr. Establishment.

    1. pmains   12 years ago

      That malediction is hilarious.

      In all seriousness, though, do you ever wonder if the scumbags are right? I mean, if they're billionaires and we're not and they're giving money to this de Blasio character, shouldn't we wonder if they know something that we don't?

      1. Killazontherun   12 years ago

        Except that they made the same mistake backing Obama in '08, I would. Russell Kirk made the observation seventy years ago that the idea of a capitalist conspiracy is absurd because the actual capitalist are constantly voting against their own self interest in reversal of how false consciousness is suppose to play out.

      2. Cytotoxic   12 years ago

        God I hope so but more often than not Lenin's dictum about capitalists giving them the rope to hang them with is proven right.

    2. John   12 years ago

      In all seriousness, what the hell is going to be these guys' campaign theme?

      "Look, the Congressman just isn't stealing enough and making sure local business get's theirs. He is not bringing home the bacon"

      What kind of a bubble do these guys live in that causes them to think this can work?

      1. Killazontherun   12 years ago

        Cruz got an eight minute standing applause on his first return back to Texas. The party establishment is going to reach for the control one day to stop the meddling parasites, and find a handcuff strapped to their wrist.

        1. Killazontherun   12 years ago

          Or, so I hope.

      2. Cytotoxic   12 years ago

        Yeah, at first I was kind of scared thinking this could snuff out what little hope there is. And then I thought about what this will actually look like and realized it was funny.

  31. Coeus   12 years ago

    No charges will be filed in the Ohio State fake rape incident.

    Proggies are in the comments are inconsolable. And rushing to blame anyone but the girl.

    Posideon ComradeRutherford ? 4 hours ago ?
    You've tapped on some of the issues that really bother me about this story...

    1. Nolan should be charged for his actions. Peter Nolan knew that posting the video would be harmful to the young woman... in NJ there was the case of the college student who was video tapped in a homosexual encounter and committed suicide after it was posted on the web.

    2. Slut shaming.
    If a guy shows his sexuality and does something like this he is a stud... and gets back slapping approval. If a woman shows her sexuality... she gets called a slut and ridiculed.

    Men and women have equal sex drives... why do we have to put women in a box that is the product of an archaic, outdated, puritanical morality that no longer serves society and causes more harm than any perceived good?

    1. Coeus   12 years ago

      Got that? It's the guy who helped exonerate the student's fault, and, despite this:

      Blackburn also confirmed the man was assaulted while the case was investigated.

      "The assault on him came from a citizen who appeared to be disgusted by that type of activity taking place in public, not because he was concerned about the safety of the female," Blackburn said.

      It's really the woman who was harmed. Calling a woman bad names (though the only one called a slut on the tape was the guy) is worse than the man getting beaten up. This concludes our feminist "rape culture" lesson.

    2. Coeus   12 years ago

      Also, the title they used "No charges will be filed in Ohio rape case that was recorded and posted on social media" tells you all you need to know about these morons.

      1. Entropy Void   12 years ago

        Pics or it didn't happen!

    3. Thane of Steelport   12 years ago

      Well, issue #2 is largely on target

    4. SugarFree   12 years ago

      Men and women have equal sex drives...

      Herp de-derp herp herp!

    5. R C Dean   12 years ago

      the college student who was video tapped in a homosexual encounter

      RC'z Law.

      Loomin' large.

      1. Bobarian   12 years ago

        Refresh? How does it work?

    6. Killazontherun   12 years ago

      If she didn't cry rape, I'd high five her just as I soon would the guy. I don't discriminate against sluts, they made my youth tolerable.

    7. Ted S.   12 years ago

      No charges will be filed in the Ohio State fake rape incident.

      Poor Sloopy.

    8. Bobarian   12 years ago

      Video tapped?

      Freudian?

    9. Apatheist ?_??   12 years ago

      But he did say he'd asked police not to file public indecency charges against the pair.
      "The public embarrassment of what has gone on is more than a misdemeanor charge could be," Blackburn said.

      All in all the prosecutors office appears to have actually handled this whole thing properly for once. Which is nice I guess.

      1. Coeus   12 years ago

        Except she won't be charged for a filing a false complaint. So this will be one more added to the "rapists who go unprosecuted" stat.

        1. Apatheist ?_??   12 years ago

          Could give two fucks about the stats. We don't know what happened behind closed doors. It appears everyone cooperated and it got worked out. I can definitely see the benefit of closing the book and moving on from this one.

          1. Coeus   12 years ago

            Could give two fucks about the stats.

            You should. They have been wielded like a club in the push for college kangaroo courts, and they will be used to eventually change the burden of evidence required in rape cases.

    10. Entropy Void   12 years ago

      I thought the guy on the video was getting in her box???

  32. AuH20   12 years ago

    So, 3 days to go until I embark on National Novel Writing Month. I'm currently torn between my character riding a 2012 Victory Cross Country or a 2013 Indian Chief Classic. Any actual riders have a preference?

    1. Killazontherun   12 years ago

      If you are going to write a novel in a month, don't sweat the details.

      1. Doktor Kapitalism   12 years ago

        Sweating the details is generally a bad idea on any first draft.

      2. Ted S.   12 years ago

        Dostoevsky wrote one of his novels in a month. Either The Gambler or The Idiot, I'd have to look it up. But he basically had a contract to complete a novel in a certain amount of time, and dictated it to his secretary, whom he eventually married.

        (After checking Wikipedia, it's The Gambler.)

        1. John   12 years ago

          He wrote it after losing a huge amount of money at the Baden Baden casino. The casino is still there. I went there once. You have to wear a suit and tie to get it. It is just fucking awesome. You feel like you are in a James Bond movie.

          1. CatoTheElder   12 years ago

            No, John, it is not. A casino cannot be fucking awesome unless it has a craps table.

            However, I think they now play poker there. It would be a step up from the joint where I play, but I imagine that a single buy-in is larger than my bankroll.

            1. John   12 years ago

              It has several craps tables. And it is fucking awesome.

              1. CatoTheElder   12 years ago

                Okay, I stand corrected. If it has craps now, it is awesome. (I haven't been there for about 30 years.)

    2. SugarFree   12 years ago

      Unless it is a plot point, it really doesn't matter. If it is a plot point, figure the plot out and the type of motorcycle will be implicit in your solution.

      1666 words a day is very doable, so don't get discouraged.

      1. AuH20   12 years ago

        It isn't a plot point. Just figured I'd have all my Is dotted and Ts crossed.

        1. SugarFree   12 years ago

          One idea that I've had some success with is to never end a session of writing at the end of a chapter or a section. It forces you to write something you've already got worked out rather than starting cold the next time.

          1. AuH20   12 years ago

            Thanks for the advice. If I don't make it, tell my wife, "Hello."

            1. SugarFree   12 years ago

              Filthy neutral.

          2. Doktor Kapitalism   12 years ago

            Noted.

        2. CE   12 years ago

          The type of motorcycle is a minor detail. Just make sure he wears a leather jacket.

    3. Ted S.   12 years ago

      Girl on a Motorcycle. It's hilariously bad.

      1. gaijin   12 years ago

        Cycle Sluts From Hell!

        I wish You were a Beer

    4. Invisible Finger   12 years ago

      Novels that make it a point to note product brands always suck.

      Sell the brand choice to the highest bidder.

      1. AuH20   12 years ago

        The true libertarian choice!

        Also, as a non-biker, I will say that the Indian stuff looks awful purty.

        1. Warty   12 years ago

          If you don't know anything about motorcycles, leave it as an anonymous bike. The reader will be able to tell you're faking.

    5. Brandon   12 years ago

      Victory Cross Country. The Indian looks cooler, but you don't want to have to go back and change it in 80 years.

    6. Mad Scientist   12 years ago

      I'd say the bike choice is largely dependent on the character riding it. If the guy (or gal) is short, go with the Chief because it has a lower seat height and, even though it weighs more, is slightly easier to maneuver at low speeds.

    7. The Bearded Hobbit   12 years ago

      Don't know if you'll read this, but a new bike? Bikers don't ride new bikes.

      Check out my motorcycle story on my webpage (click on my name.)

      ... Hobbit

  33. The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc   12 years ago

    Depressed bachelor, unlucky in love, severs his own penis

    A Chinese man frustrated at being single cut off his own penis then, in agony, decided to cycle to a hospital for treatment.
    When he arrived doctors told him they couldn't help save his manhood and ordered him to cycle back home to get the penis before he could be treated.
    When Yang Hu, 26, eventually arrived back at the hospital with the severed member, doctors told him that it had been without blood for too long, and it was impossible to reattach it.
    Yang's friends said that he had been increasingly depressed about the fact that since moving to the city he could not find a girlfriend.

    Where is fancy bred? In the heart or in the head?

  34. AuH20   12 years ago

    So, I went to my third Unitarian Universalist service in my life this Sunday. Dear fucking lord...

    There was a guy who gave a "lay sermon" that lauded Greenpeace in the UK (for opposing McDonald's and getting them in a long, costly legal battle), confused the revenues of McDonald's with their profits (he never once mentioned profits, just total revenues), and talked about the 10 dollar minimum wage.

    I left about a quarter of the way through to go have a cigarette and didn't return until after. They do a good post-Church spread, but good god, is there something about religion that makes them socialist whack-jobs (I was raised a Catholic, and they ain't much better on economics)?

    1. Tonio   12 years ago

      Yeah, they sound really good on paper, but the reality is that the denomination is lousy with liberals.

      1. AuH20   12 years ago

        Kind of what I'm encountering so far.

        1. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

          I've thoroughly enjoyed the few west coast Quaker meetings I've been to. East coast Quakerism seems to be very liberal and drifting slowly toward Universalism.

    2. John   12 years ago

      Universalists don't care if you believe in God or if you do what God that is. You just have to believe in being a liberal.

  35. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

    More compelling evidence for the theory that Slate's editorial staff hanged themselves in the woman's room sometime in 1999:

    Once in the workplace, there will still be challenges for Saudi women. Currently, up to 96 percent of women in the country work as teachers in government schools.

    That sounds like great news for Saudi Arabia! Not only is nearly their entire female population -- from newborns to old women -- employed, they are employed as teachers! It's definitely not that the Economics and Business blog writers at Slate mixed up women in the labor force with women in the country -- something that even a moron should have spotted -- but rather, Saudi Arabia is just that progressive and modern when it comes to the needs of the working woman.

    1. John   12 years ago

      Punctuation is such a brutal mistress. Funny how all of these journalists went to the best schools and think of themselves as the best and brightest. Yet the power to write a clear sentence, much less a paragraph eludes them.

      1. Killazontherun   12 years ago

        It's the second comma in a emphatic phrase that trips me up every time. I do edit very well on a cold read when coming to a page a day or so later, all the mistakes sneer back at me in bold print.

        1. John   12 years ago

          Since I never proof or edit my posts on here, you wouldn't know this, but I am the same way. I am quite good at editing. I really think people like the clowns that write for Slate have never learned how. They just write stream of consciousness like they are posting on here and think that is good writing.

          1. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

            They write like they text. It amazes me that they are employable, much less working in the media.

            1. John   12 years ago

              Me too. How the hell did Yglesias graduate with a philosophy degree? Maybe I just went to school in some ancient age. But when I took philosophy courses you had to write with incredible conciseness. Every single work and phrase had to be analyzed the Nth degree. Forget all of his silly ideas. His prose is horrible. I can't believe anyone who is that lazy and sloppy of a writer could have passed a single course much less graduated with a degree.

              The entire undergraduate program at Harvard must consist of "just write shit that your professor wants to hear".

              1. SugarFree   12 years ago

                Modern philosophy has its head so far up its ass, nonsense is what they are looking for. I got high as fuck before writing my final paper for Asian Philosophy class on karmic systems as forms of self-driven authoritarianism--did nothing the next day but run spell check--and got a B.

                1. John   12 years ago

                  Very true Sugar Free. I spent nearly all of my time reading Ancient and Medieval. And there, the source texts actually mean something. So you can't just write nonsense. You start reading shit like Heidegger or Sartre and the source text is so opaque that you can claim it means virtually anything as long as you use a few proper buzz words.

                  1. Heroic Mulatto   12 years ago

                    Sartre is rigorous compared to Zizek, or however you spell the assholes name.

    2. Gbob   12 years ago

      With that many teachers, you're going to need plenty of people to teach those teachers. They have found perfect employment.

  36. A Frayed Knot   12 years ago

    Maybe Spain's public prosecutor ought to look at prosecuting his own intelligence service as it seems that it, not the NSA, spied on their own citizenry. Of course that wouldn't generate more faux outrage and distract the citizenry from Spain's moribund economic situation, would it.

  37. pmains   12 years ago

    ThinkProgress still thinks Obamacare will save you money even though prices will go up.

    So, first, you were going to be able to keep your insurance. Then, there was anger that you can't actually keep your insurance. Then there were frantic attempts to bargain with Obamessiah and get the appropriate waivers. Then came depression when the faithful realized that they weren't going to be spared. Now, we are told to accept the loss of our insurance.

    Of course, this is just the beginning of a new cycle, kicking off with a fresh round of a denial. Really, guys. I know that you lost your insurance, but it's all strawberries and rainbows from here on out. Yesiree, I'm going to go out and buy a fancy new pair of shoes with my Obamacare savings.

    1. CatoTheElder   12 years ago

      I'm pretty sure that ObamaCare is going to reduce my self-employed insurance premiums. (I'm a geezer, not quite old enough for Medicare, so my premium will get subsidized by healthy, young, and working men who are forced to overpay.) However, from what I've read today, it's not at all clear that any competent doctors will be taking ObamaCare insurance customers.

    2. Krios   12 years ago

      Who cares about reality, if we say people will save money then they're going to save money!

      /Liberal fanatic #27

  38. Archduke von Pantsfan   12 years ago

    Washington Bureau-Cats

    1. PD Scott   12 years ago

      Put paper whiskers on their helmets.

      1. Generic Stranger   12 years ago

        Made from shredded government forms and affixed with red tape.

  39. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

    I thought it might be fun to look up what some progressives have said about ObamaCare before the exchanges were made public, so I'll start looking them up and posting them as I find them throughout the next month. Being that I am petty, who else would I start this series with but the matron of pain herself -- without further ado...

    Great Moments in Progressive Shilling for ObamaCare, Marcotte Edition:

    The healthcare exchanges, where uninsured people can apply for healthcare coverage and learn if they're eligible for government assistance, are one of the biggest parts of the Affordable Care Act and are opening up on October 1. Republicans are frantically casting around for ways to force Obamacare to fail[...] But anti-Obamacare activists are trying a different tactic: Trying to scare uninsured people, especially young people, out of signing up for insurance through the exchanges.

    Of course, since the exchanges are the single best way for uninsured people to get insurance, that basically means trying to convince the unwitting that they're better off with no insurance at all. (Needless to say, a hard sell.)

    1. John   12 years ago

      that basically means trying to convince the unwitting that they're better off with no insurance at all

      It is funny to watch them struggle and flail over this issue. Yes Amanda, some people are better off with no insurance at all. Most people who don't have insurance don't have it by choice.

      The sound you hear is Progs running square into that cold reality. They cannot conceive of the idea that the "uninsured" won't be happy and grateful to pay for subsidized insurance.

  40. Thane of Steelport   12 years ago

    Man steals truck holding 22,500 Sprint LG G2 smartphones in Gary, Indiana.

    Arrested by Kentucky State Police after crashing truck into telephone pole.

    1. R C Dean   12 years ago

      Bet he was texting.

      1. Brett L   12 years ago

        Lol. Winner.

        1. Thane of Steelport   12 years ago

          He was confused by iOS 7.

    2. GILMORE   12 years ago

      "Arrested by Kentucky State Police after crashing truck into telephone pole."

      The phones, they look out for their owns.

  41. R C Dean   12 years ago

    If I was Snyder, I'd make this offer after Goodell finally issued his ultimatum on the Redskin's name:

    "I'll agree to change it to whatever name polls the highest in an internet poll. Whatever's most popular with the fans. Got an objection to that?"

    Can you imagine the farkers, Anonymous, 4-channers, and the rest blitzing a website where the prize was naming an NFL team? Holy crap, that would be awesome. God knows what name would win.

    1. pmains   12 years ago

      From the people who brought you Mr. Splashy Pants ...

      1. Kid Xenocles   12 years ago

        Ah, the method that led to the aborted "Hitler did nothing wrong" flavor of Mountain Dew.

  42. AuH20   12 years ago

    Rome Wasn't Sacked in A Day might be the dumbest thing I have ever read

    Austerity ? the gutting of vital social services so that the wealthy can get tax cuts while profiting from privatization ? is a natural extension of neoliberalism, which is a natural evolution of capitalism. Mass incarceration, police brutality, and stop-and-frisk are policies that grow from a system that is white supremacist at its roots, one built on the backs of enslaved people and in the wake of genocide. A woman is sexually assaulted in the US every two seconds, and LGBTQ youth face homelessness in astronomical proportions, because the system we face is patriarchal in its core. We experience hierarchy everywhere from the school to the workplace to the prison to the family because authoritarianism is part of the fabric of this society, and it is taught to us everywhere we go. War abroad, the hoarding of natural resources by the Global North at the expense of the Global South, massive climate change that threatens the whole planet, and the commodification of everything from humans to air, are outgrowths of this system as well.

    1. AuH20   12 years ago

      The things we deal with in our day to day are outgrowths of these systemic realities. An economy with greater regulations, publically funded elections, decent healthcare, quality public education ? these are immensely important wins to fight for, necessary on the road to something better, but winning these things alone doesn't unravel those greater systems of oppression. And even though we zoom out to understand different forms of oppression more clearly, we can't deal with those things apart from the whole ? capitalism doesn't limit itself to the stock market, it is in the foundations of governments, it is burrowed deeply in our culture, it follows us into our bedrooms.

      ...

      We want a political and economic system that we all actually control together, one that is equitable and humane, one that allows for people to manage their own lives but act in solidarity with one another, one that is participatory and democratic to its core. We want a world where people have the right to their own identities, communities, and cultures, and control over the institutions needed to live them out. We want a world with institutions that take care of us, our partners, our youth, our elderly, and our families in ways that are nurturing, liberating, healthy, and actively consensual. We want a world in which community is not a hamper on individual freedom, but rather an expression of its fullest potential.

      1. GILMORE   12 years ago

        ". We want a world with institutions that take care of us, our partners, our youth, our elderly, and our families in ways that are nurturing, liberating, healthy, and actively consensual. We want a world in which community is not a hamper on individual freedom, but rather an expression of its fullest potential.""

        SUMMARY = Free shit, plus, other people make decisions about everything.

        1. Ted S.   12 years ago

          We want a world with institutions that take care of us, our partners, our youth, our elderly, and our families in ways that are nurturing, liberating, healthy, and actively consensual.

          What if I don't consent to taking care of you?

          1. Mad Scientist   12 years ago

            Oh, that won't be a problem. They'll have special camps for wreckers who refuse to be re-educated.

    2. AuH20   12 years ago

      It's not about reform or revolution, it's about winning things that meet our needs now while improving our position to struggle in the long-run, and it's about fighting in ways that grow and deepen the movement as we go. We need to choose struggles that allow us to fight back and push forward at the same time, to defend ourselves and win things we truly need while building power for the struggle beyond.

      An example of a strategic battle like this might be fighting against tuition increases at public universities, and for free higher education. Fighting for free universities gives us the opportunity to draw connections between injustices faced in our daily lives ? such as tuition increases, mass student debt, the policing of college campuses, the de-education of people of color, the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the already wealthy in the form of tax breaks and privatization ? to the deep-seated systems of oppression that cause them. But just as importantly, winning a struggle for free higher education grows the movement, because it means students don't have to work two jobs just to stay in school; it means they would have the time and energy to breathe, to organize, to fight back, to push further ? to join the movement.

      1. Coeus   12 years ago

        That post just gave me cancer.

      2. GILMORE   12 years ago

        Where do you find this crap? I mean, do you go *looking* for it? come on already.

        1. AuH20   12 years ago

          It's from like a year ago. I found it through a related links, on Feministing's Sunday Links (which are always an awesome retard soup). The article was "An End To Self Care" and it was about how "Self-care" (which is every feminists favorite subject, and no, I don't have any idea what the fuck it means either) is too narrow, and doesn't help change the evil oppressive societal systems that necessitates self care activities. The website looked truly retarded, so I poked around and found this.

          Yeah, okay, people like me are the reason Cthullu will one day destroy us. Because we just HAVE to poke madness with a stick.

          1. GILMORE   12 years ago

            ""... I found it through a related links, on Feministing's Sunday Links (which are always an awesome retard soup). ..

            That's what i'm talking about = you go out *looking* for the crazy shit. I kind of understand it on one level... and yet, no.

            eg. = I used to hang out on Christian Exodus listserv,

            http://christianexodus.org/

            ...and roused the rabble quite a lot. They're like NH free-staters... only, crazy bible fundies. I kept insisting we needed to settle in a coastal state. So we could have a navy. I proposed to be first admiral. People took my proposals Very Seriously. Good debate was had. I still like these people WAY more than your above example of the Radical-Progressive-Rhetoric-Generator... who has nothing at all sympathetic about him/it at all.

            1. GILMORE   12 years ago

              AT ALL. Did I mention "at all"? No, nothing, nothing at all.

              Its lou reeds ghost talking there.

      3. Rhywun   12 years ago

        Fighting for free universities gives us the opportunity to draw connections between injustices faced in our daily lives yada yada yada

        It's like they don't remember that intellectuals are among the first to go, whenever and wherever this shit is taken to its logical conclusion.

    3. Andrew S.   12 years ago

      Got halfway through that and then started to get a headache. Thinking it was my brain attempting to escape.

    4. Scruffy Nerfherder   12 years ago

      I think he hit just about every touchstone of OWS in there.

      Not even going to try to unravel it, as it is pointless.

    5. GILMORE   12 years ago

      "'Austerity ? the gutting attempt to return vital social services massive overgrown entitlement programs to fiscal sustainability..."

      Wait, I just realized the only thing in the sentence that made any sense was the word "austerity".

      I went through a few sentences and it was more of the same. It amounts to, "BWAAAAAAHHH!!! MONEY BAD CAPITALISTS AND SEXISM AND RACISM AND GAYISM AND ENVIRONMENTALS AND FUCKING *WHITE PEOPLE**!!"

      Its pretty much a smorgasbord of every fucking idiotic liberal theme whipped into a protein shake. That tastes like stale ass.

      side note = "LGBTQ"...? WTF? What happened to just #(*$@( "Gay"? Isnt it just getting a little fucking overdone at this point? WHY NO RESPECT FOR THOSE WHO ONLY HAVE SEX WITH MIDGETS? Shorty-Humpers(SH) unite!

      1. Generic Stranger   12 years ago

        LGBTQ is actually the short version. I'm pretty some of the more "progressive" activists have attached another half dozen or so letters to it.

        1. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

          A friend of mine managed to get my college LGBT group renamed GLOW (Gay Lesbian Or Whatever), some very uptight freshman came in and changed it back after we graduated.

          It really doesn't get longer than LGBTQ unless you're a particularly pretentious activist type or an academic specializing in gender studies. Nobody would be able to remember it to repeat it.

    6. Ted S.   12 years ago

      A woman is sexually assaulted in the US every two seconds

      That's 15.7 million sexual assaults every year. If there really were that many sexual assualts, then even the statistic about a quarter of all women being sexually assaulted would be low.

      1. GILMORE   12 years ago

        You're assuming its not just a few wimmins getting assaulted like multiple times every day. Which on Jezebel means, someone talked to them.

        1. Night Elf Mohawk   12 years ago

          Talk, hell. Teh male gaze is sexual assault.

      2. Invisible Finger   12 years ago

        That woman must be asking for it.

      3. Generic Stranger   12 years ago

        STEVE SMITH gets around.

  43. Enough About Palin   12 years ago

    The anonymous face of the Obamacare website is no more. The head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, meanwhile, apologized for the botch roll out of the website, promising it was "fixable." The White House admitted some people may not be able to keep their insurance plans; about 2 million people have been affected so far.

    Low Information Voters gave us a Low Information President.

  44. GILMORE   12 years ago

    "The anonymous face of the Obamacare website is no more. ""

    SHE'S DEAD? YOU KILLED HER!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7GJcKuVGm8

    1. Gbob   12 years ago

      The President did not know that she was killed and dumped in the White House trash bins until he read about it in the paper.

  45. The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc   12 years ago

    Sports journalist told to write some slop about baseball 'healing' Boston

    Ahead of Wednesday's potential World Series?clinching Game 6 matchup between the Red Sox and Cardinals, sources confirmed that Los Angeles Times sports editor Sam Poyet instructed journalist Ross Martinez to quickly throw together some slop about baseball helping the city of Boston heal from this year's tragic marathon bombings. "Just shit out like six or seven hundred words' worth of melodramatic sludge about how the whole city has been galvanized by their team and how baseball offers a way for Bostonians to slowly move on from tragedy," said Poyet, adding that Martinez should definitely churn out a couple paragraphs of muck contrasting the overwhelming terror pervading Boston during the aftermath of the bombings to the especially emotional and impassioned atmosphere at Fenway Park this season. "Don't forget to mention the 'Boston Strong' rallying cry, the club's tributes to victims during each game, and how this is all about much more than just baseball. And, I don't know, a little section about the players saying some heartwarming gunk about how much this means to the people of Boston.

    1. AuH20   12 years ago

      This. A thousand times this.

      If I have to hear about boob cancer or Boston Strong again at a sporting event this month, I'm going to choke a bitch.

      1. Restoras   12 years ago

        I absolutely hate pink adornments on the uniforms of baseball and football players. Utterly Stupid.

        1. JW   12 years ago

          Who the fuck isn't "aware" of breast cancer at this point?

          1. Steve G   12 years ago

            Thank you. I've been saying this continuously to friends for weeks. We retreated from "prevention" to "cure". Then that position got over run and we withdrew to "treatment", got our asses kicked some more and now we are in "awareness" territory.

          2. gaijin   12 years ago

            I agree. It's not about awareness of breast cancer, imo. It's about building awareness that professional sports 'cares'.

    2. John   12 years ago

      Someone needs to write an article recalling the disgraceful history of Boston's support of the IRA back in the 70s and 80s and explaining how what happened at the Marathon happened, at least in part thanks to Boston Strong types giving the IRA funding and support, hundreds of times in Belfast and London.

      1. Invisible Finger   12 years ago

        If I had art skills, I'd take the red sox "B" logo and use the font to spell "BULGER".

  46. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

    The holiday season is upon us, which means that feminists must tell us why yuletide perpetuates rape culture:

    I used to be part of the auto-feminist head-shaking and judging of those young ladies with their skimpy costumes for Halloween. As I did last year, I want to apologize for that and say that I have completely done a 180 on this and want to give my full blessing to anyone who wants to walk around half-naked for the holiday.

    I think we were all waiting for Marcotte's blessing on this issue. It's too bad I didn't read this column earlier -- I had a really sexy Zardoz costume I wanted to put through its paces, but I worried that Amanda might not approve.

    Here's a general rule of thumb that I think would help clarify things a lot for feminists who are dealing with a confusing mix of disapproving of the way that women are sexually objectified while also wanting women to feel free to express themselves while worrying that this expression is being misunderstood/commodified by sexist forces but also understanding that women have every right to handle that on their own terms: If anything that pops out of your mouth sounds like it could come from the Christian right, maybe rethink that.

    90 words. Q: how many sentences are in this sentence? FFS, can someone get that single mother copywriter from earlier to help the English Major?

    1. AuH20   12 years ago

      The argument against women wearing skimpy clothing is invalid... because of the kind of people who make the argument?

      Logical fallacy, ho!

    2. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

      Bonus:

      When Christian fundamentalists wax on about modesty and how it's women's job to control what men are thinking, I immediately see that shit for the sexist garbage that it is.

      That's a relief.

      Here's the thing that I can't get around: The urge to dress in risqu? clothes and get admired is one that I have zero beef with.

      Amanda Marcotte is the Ted Kennedy of the blogosphere: building sentences to nowhere...

      The breastfeeding mafia is irritating.

      Say this to a stranger on the bus sometime. You may be surprised by the reactions you get...

      Sometimes I get the impression that the ideal for men would be to be able to get women to have sex with you without ever having to go through the icky, emasculating process of turning them on. Taken to its extreme, you have rape culture.

      Yes, but how do Karl Rove and the Koch brothers figure into this?

      1. PD Scott   12 years ago

        The breastfeeding mafia

        "Whad I tell ya was gonna happen if we found dis formuluh in the store here again? I told ya ya was gonna learn a lesson, din't I? An you weren't gonna like that lesson, not one damn bit."

    3. SugarFree   12 years ago

      I'd love to dump everything she's ever written through a concordance program. I bet she uses less than about 5,000 words across all her work. That's about 7th grade level.

      1. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

        That is undoubtedly true.

        Random thought: have you ever thought of writing a book? The stuff you have on your blog and that you've posted here is highly entertaining, if terrifying.

        1. SugarFree   12 years ago

          I have a couple of bad novels kicking around--one written at 20, the other 27--that aren't salvageable and I've been working on my erotic memoirs for the last two years. Once I get that out of my system, I'm going to try to write something truly horrible and disturbing.

          1. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

            Cool. You've got an interested customer if you ever decide to publish something.

          2. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

            Once I get [my erotic memoirs] out of my system, I'm going to try to write something truly horrible and disturbing.

            Look, SF, I consider myself fairly jaded as someone who was raised in the shadow of the internet, but this statement may have truly horrified me in a way that having friends in charge of taking down inappropriate content at Myspace in its heyday did not.

            1. SugarFree   12 years ago

              And then maybe a children's book.

              1. gaijin   12 years ago

                There is ample evidence that horrifying children's books can sell

                Rush Limbaugh Children's Book at Number 1

              2. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

                I think it has already been written, SF.

                1. SugarFree   12 years ago

                  Mine is all armadillos.

                  1. jesse.in.mb   12 years ago

                    Mine is all armadillos.

                    My mind is blown.

          3. Ted S.   12 years ago

            and I've been working on my erotic memoirs for the last two years.

            There's some good fiction.

    4. Coeus   12 years ago

      What's interesting is that men seemingly don't want to be admired for their looks. Well, I think they do, but our culture tells straight men that being sexually desirable is emasculating and makes people think you're like a woman. Being accused of being "gay" is common. You're supposed to get women to want to have sex with you, but you can't get there with blunt advertising of your sexual attractiveness. Sometimes I get the impression that the ideal for men would be to be able to get women to have sex with you without ever having to go through the icky, emasculating process of turning them on. Taken to its extreme, you have rape culture.

      I thought PUA's exemplified rape culture amanda? And they're the polar opposite of that.

      Remember kids: EVERYTHING IS RAPE

      1. Auric Demonocles   12 years ago

        No, it tells straight men that dressing up with purses and Banana Republic shirts and crap is emasculating. Our culture tells straight men that being fit is both masculine and sexually desirable.

    5. GILMORE   12 years ago

      Everyone knows Santa is just a big creepy white patriarchal drunken rapist with a taste for cookies and eggnog. Plus, Jesus... is somehow bad too. God-ism on top of the rape culture.

    6. GILMORE   12 years ago

      If it were cogent, it would be too easy to identify just exactly what's so screamingly misconceived.

      Ergo, 'vague-ism'. Your 'logic' is manifest patriarchy

  47. AuH20   12 years ago

    Man, are the progs shooting themselves in the foot with the Obamacare defense. Instead of deflecting the blame on to the EVIL INSHURANCE COMPANIEZZZ! like we all thought they would, they are blaming the people complaining, telling them how crappy their previous plans were and how for the good of all they should get raped with a razor dildo for Obama.

    The American people will not take too kindly to that.

    1. The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc   12 years ago

      telling them how crappy their previous plans were and how for the good of all they should get raped with a razor dildo for Obama.

      Don't surgarcoat it, Goldwater, tell us how bad you think this law is.

    2. Cytotoxic   12 years ago

      Good point. They've deluded themselves so much they can't effectively lie to us.

    3. John   12 years ago

      It is going to be a bit difficult to get people to blame insurance companies for their crappy new policies when the progs are busy telling the world how great Obamacare is for giving people these great new policies.

  48. Thane of Steelport   12 years ago

    The hype is unbearable, but Project Ara looks pretty cool:

    Led by Motorola's Advanced Technology and Projects group, Project Ara is developing a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones. We want to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software: create a vibrant third-party developer ecosystem, lower the barriers to entry, increase the pace of innovation, and substantially compress development timelines.

    (look at the pictures, it will make a lot more sense)

    1. PapayaSF   12 years ago

      Cool, and it will appeal to geeks, but it'll never really compete with an iPhone. All design is compromise, and the more user-removable parts you have, the bigger and heavier the phone will have to be, and the less internal space you'll have for things like a battery.

  49. BiMonSciFiCon   12 years ago

    Rational adult responds to Jezebel: http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/.....ed-attack/

    There's a small part of my brain that thinks that disinterested observers can read her original post, the Jezebel response, and the Kitchens response and see Jezebel for what it is. I'm not hopeful.

    1. GILMORE   12 years ago

      "'Rational adult responds to Jezebel""

      ...all that was left was blood, spit, some pulled hair, and the smell of intellectual discord.

      It does have a smell, really. Its like old mayo.

      1. Swiss Servator, Bow to Bern!   12 years ago

        Artisan mayo?

  50. Coeus   12 years ago

    French 'curvy women' group files complaint against Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld

    A French association that fights for the rights of curvy women has made an official complaint against designer Karl Lagerfeld over his comments that no one wants to see plump models on catwalks.

    The association ? called "Pretty, curvy, sexy and fine with it" ? filed the complaint at the prosecutor's office in the western city of Saintes, accusing the haute couture star of "defamatory and discriminatory comments", its president Betty Aubriere said.

    1. GILMORE   12 years ago

      "A French association that fights for the rights of curvy women ..."

      ...

      L'T&A Soci?t?, See, it rhymes.

  51. Killazontherun   12 years ago

    Interesting stand Wenzel takes on the Virginia race here:

    The pro-Cuccinelli operatives are sending out a negative email about Sarvis, identifying the various ways Sarvis leaks from libertarian principle. Curiously, though, the email is being sent out by Russ Moulton, a defense contractor! Support of a candidate by a defense contractor should not be seen by a libertarian as anywhere near a positive endorsement.

    Bottom line: There are no strong libertarian candidates in this race, Sarvis appears to be a hardcore beltarian, Cuccinelli is simply a mainstream establishment Republican and McAuliffe is a typical establishment Democrat. There is nothing in this race that libertarians should be excited about. The only reason I have put it on the map, here at EPJ, is because Ron Paul, probably under pressure from Ron Paul Inc, has endorsed Cuccinelli. It would be nice to see Cuccinelli lose, which would be a signal to the opportunists at Ron Paul Inc that Ron Paul followers are not going to follow Ron when he makes establishment endorsements.

    The best thing for libertarians in Virginia to do in next week's vote is A. sit out this vote and every vote. B. Vote for Sarvis, he is not going to win, but votes going to him won't go to Cuccinelli and will signal that the Ron Paul movement is not buying into Ron Paul Inc.

    Virginia is just a short drive, literally up the road, for me, but of late it has been feeling like another planet.

    1. Killazontherun   12 years ago

      http://www.economicpolicyjourn.....rnors.html

    2. Cytotoxic   12 years ago

      The best thing for libertarians in Virginia to do in next week's vote is A. sit out this vote and every vote.

      If you haven't stopped reading at Ron Paul Inc, you should stop reading at this point. There is no surer sign of self-indulgent stoopid than people who say you should never vote.

      1. Killazontherun   12 years ago

        There is no surer sign of self-indulgent stoopid than people who say you should never vote.

        That's a general and categorical claim to hold against people who may have massively different agendas in their lives. I'm involved in my state LP, so I'm not really part of the 'don't vote', set, but I can see how their lives could be arranged in such a fashion as voting makes little sense to them.

        Say, your primary goal in life is to liberate yourself and your wealth from the confines of the political process. You have only a limited number of hours in the day to devote your free time to doing just that. To vote, to be a properly informed voter, you need to take several hours, likely dozens, a week in the months leading up to that vote to study the candidates, their records, and the campaign itself. We are political junkies we should know this to be the case. It takes a lot of devotion of time to be informed.

        That is time that could have been spent learning the banking laws of the Cayman Islands. Voting is no different than anything else in life, there are trade offs, and no one is going to put the same value on those trade offs as everyone else.

        1. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

          +rational non-voting

          When it comes right down to it, we who hang out on this website and get informed are freaks. The wisest among us may very well be those who don't ever pay attention to or get involved in the political process.

          1. Coeus   12 years ago

            I reluctantly agree.

          2. Cytotoxic   12 years ago

            Non-voting is only rational when there is literally no remotely decent option. Non-voting is basically the same as pacifism and every bit as stupid.

            1. Killazontherun   12 years ago

              You keep calling people smarter than you stupid. That's a bad habit that doesn't reflect well on you.

            2. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

              Voting takes time to do properly, and has little positive outcome. If you're already politically educated? Sure, what the hell -- why not; your prior political education is a sunk cost. If you're not, then it's only really worthwhile in local elections.

              If you want to vote, have at it but it is probably the least important part of any individual activist strategy.

              1. VG Zaytsev   12 years ago

                Voting takes time to do properly,

                No it doesn't.

                Just vote against all incumbents, unless you really love them, and your 80% there.

                and has little positive outcome.

                And even less opportunity cost.

                1. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

                  Voting against all incumbents gave us B Obama.

                  Anti-incumbent tendencies gave many countries "popular front" governments later exploited by Communists -- indeed, the small movement of Bolsheviks was motivated by anti-Tsarist ("anti-incumbent") persons and movements.

                  There is no reason to believe that someone challenging an incumbent is preferable to the incumbent.

        2. Cytotoxic   12 years ago

          The correct answer when faced with your hypothetical choice is 'both'. Political education does not take that much time. Using every lever and option available is a practical necessity and moral imperative. And yes, that sometimes means choosing the lesser evil ie voting Brown to stop Warren.

          1. Killazontherun   12 years ago

            The correct answer when faced with your hypothetical choice is 'both'. Political education does not take that much time. Using every lever and option available is a practical necessity and moral imperative. And yes, that sometimes means choosing the lesser evil ie voting Brown to stop Warren. is the one I gave.

            FTFY

  52. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

    This is a test to compare the popularity of SoCon topics with the popularity of other topics.

    5 More News Stories that Could Be Plots from the 'X-Files'

    There's a spiritual focus, but I wouldn't call it a SoCon article

    http://www.cracked.com/quick-f.....z2j9Jtl2XN

    1. Cytotoxic   12 years ago

      But hey, just move out of China, right? Well, that's exactly what they're doing -- the hornets, not the people. Just last year, a batch of these insect bullets were spotted in freaking Chicago.

      FUCK.

      1. Invisible Finger   12 years ago

        Illinois will just create another 300 killer hornet abatement districts with taxing powers.

        1. Swiss Servator, Bow to Bern!   12 years ago

          And guaranteeing the hornets survive.

    2. Doktor Kapitalism   12 years ago

      To be scientific, you should post articles from different topics about the same time in the first burst. Run multiple trials and graph the results.

      1. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

        To be scientific, you can kiss my big beautiful butt.

        1. Doktor Kapitalism   12 years ago

          That's biology, not statistics.

          1. PD Scott   12 years ago

            Also aesthetics.

  53. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

    "IRRESISTIBLY Cute Kitten Chasing String"

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fdCOkdwDVI

    1. DJF   12 years ago

      Cute, but I was hoping for a big ending where the kitten rips off the camera persons face.

      1. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

        You should check Paranormal Kittens, Parts I-XXV

  54. Coeus   12 years ago

    More free shit!!! The Marcotte demands it!!!

    As KJ Antonia wrote in Slate a few years back, cloth diapers are not, because many daycares refuse to deal with children who wear them and many laundromats refuse to let you wash dirty diapers in their machines, for understandable reasons. While it would be nice to have a "green" and inexpensive fix, at present the only realistic solution is to get low income mothers the disposable diapers they need. There are diaper banks around the country, but they are overwhelmed with demand. The government needs to step in and provide diapers to needy families in the same way that WIC and SNAP provide food. There have been small government grants in the past, but this requires more comprehensive national support. Government aid would be a simple, hygienic solution for a problem impacting the poorest among us, which means it is unlikely to stand a chance in a political climate where even defending basic food assistance has become an exhausting battle.

    1. Doktor Kapitalism   12 years ago

      Hmmm...what would the cost of providing "free" diapers be compared to providing "free" birth control? If we have to do one, which would be cheaper?

    2. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

      The tightness of her prose is matched only by the practicality of her ideas. (This is, btw, something that could only be written by someone with complete ignorance of poverty and childrearing work in this country.)

      1. R C Dean   12 years ago

        The tightness of her prose

        Misread that the first time through. Feeling queasy now.

        1. The Immaculate Trouser   12 years ago

          That's Sugarfree-worthy material, right there.

    3. Coeus   12 years ago

      Oops, didn't realize it had already been posted.

  55. Eduard van Haalen   12 years ago

    The Cassandra party (with video):

    "Rep. Tom Price, Republican of Georgia, giving *the Republican response* [emphasis added] to the president's weekly address, back in August 2009: "As someone who's taken care of patients, I'd like to take a moment to clear up a couple of the president's worst offenses. On the stump, the President regularly tells Americans, 'if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.' But if you read the bill, that just isn't so.""

    http://www.nationalreview.com/.....m-geraghty

    1. John   12 years ago

      And the media immediately called him a liar. But now they act like "well everyone knew there would be winners and losers in this". Fucking scum.

  56. widget   12 years ago

    Two Kenyan soldiers were jailed for looting the Westgate mall in Nairobi during a terrorist attack.

    Soldiers told of the horrific torture meted out by terrorists in the Nairobi mall massacre yesterday with claims hostages were dismembered, had their eyes gouged out and were left hanging from hooks in the ceiling.
    Men were said to have been castrated and had fingers removed with pliers before being blinded and hanged.
    Children were found dead in the food court fridges with knives still embedded in their bodies, it was claimed.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....moved.html

    Looting?

  57. Coeus   12 years ago

    Fark brigade is on a tear today.

    MrBallou [TotalFark]

    So, 50 to 75 percent of pre-Obamacare plans in the individual market were crap plans? And changing this is a bad thing?

    You see, Obamacare was never about REFORMING the health care system, as in getting rid of bad plans and so on. It was always about soshulisms and sticking it to the hard-working people of amerika. (That was sarcasm)

    Yes, he knew. Doing away with the bad parts of the old system was part of the point of doing the thing in the first place.

    Is this the latest Talking Pointtm? God, these idiots are tiresome.

    vygramul [TotalFark]

    It's like Obama told me I could keep my car, and then telling everyone I'm crying in anguish when they replace my '76 Toyota Corolla station wagon with a 2013 Subaru Outback.

    Lionel Mandrake [TotalFark]

    So those $20/month plans that cover nothing won't be available any more?

    Cry me a river.

    MrBallou [TotalFark]
    2013-10-29 11:48:01 AM

    Again: The only dishonesty from the government has been from GOP senators and representatives endlessly cackling lies about the evils of ObongoCur at the behest of secretive special interest groups.

    Yes, honest debate would be nice for a change.

    1. Coeus   12 years ago

      topcon
      2013-10-29 12:44:09 PM
      There's really no legitimate criticism to be found here. What I see is a bunch of racist fundie teabaggers questioning Obama like he's a slave and they're the slavemaster. It just doesn't work like that.

      So vote Republican.

  58. R C Dean   12 years ago

    It's like Obama told me I could keep my car, and then telling everyone I'm crying in anguish when they replace my '76 Toyota Corolla station wagon with a 2013 Subaru Outback.

    He left out the part where his '76 Toyota was paid for, and his new Subaru costs him $600/month.

    1. widget   12 years ago

      That's not to mention the cost of turning himself into a lesbian so he drive the damned Subaru without being looked at like a freak.

      I'm actually considering buying Outback myself. It seems like a practical choice and I'm just getting old enough not to care what anyone thinks of me.

  59. Coeus   12 years ago

    Jezebel commentariat in a nutshell:

    lannabalannaUParisofAmerica11L
    Thank you! I tried explaining this to one of my facebook "friends" today (who is black btw) and didn't see the issue with what JH did. Then she went on to say that she was going to go as Walter White and paint her face white....*facepalm*

    Some people just can't be helped. Yesterday 1:21pm

    Why, oh why won't she learn to be offended like I am on her behalf?

    1. Krios   12 years ago

      Because they're to stupid, haven't you been paying attention in the re-education center?

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