The Internet vs. Jonathan Chait, Labor Reporter Trying to Unionize POLITICO, Scott Walker Is Running (Not Walking, GET IT?): P.M. Links

You can laugh. It's funny.

• 

  Gage Skidmore

  Labor reporter Mike Elk is trying to unionize the staff of Politico. Elk, who joined the publication last year, has a history of labor activism and boasts of unionizing every place he has ever worked at.

• President Obama will allow some oil drilling in the Atlantic Ocean.
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will back legislation that prohibits housing and workplace discrimination against gays.
• Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took the first steps to run for president.
• Do you stand with Jonathan Chait? You will, after you read this.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Labor reporter Mike Elk is trying to unionize the staff of Politico.

Never hire a labor reporter.

[waffles]

Ha-ha, unions.

[Los Doyers]

I always took you for a Tory, dirty limey.

[Fist of Etiquette]

No. That’s Labour with the superfluous vowel.

[Los Doyers]

Whatever you say, Fist of Etiket

[RussianPrimeMinister]

Fist is Egyptian?

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will back legislation that prohibits housing and workplace discrimination against gays.

The Mormons hate property rights!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Hello.

“Labor reporter Mike Elk is trying to unionize the staff of Politico. Elk, who joined the publication last year, has a history of labor activism and boasts of unionizing every place he has ever worked at.”

Asshole.

[Pro Libertate]

Why don’t assholes unionize into one giant asshole union? It would give us one mailing address for our contempt.

[Andrew S.]

The AFL-CIO, AFSCME, American Federation of Teachers, the Fraternal Order of Police and the Teamsters will combine to form Union Voltron.

[Trouser-Pod]

Instead of lions, will it be pigs?

[UnCivilServant]

Rats.

[UnCivilServant]

Giant Inflatable Rats.

[Trouser-Pod]

How about a mixture of various vermin/despised animals? It could just form some sort of chimera…

[Injun, as in from India]

send him to a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee and watch him fail.

[Tonio]

I’d have more sympathy for Politico if he didn’t have a well-established track record of doing this.

[Bill Dalasio]

I’d have more sympathy for Politico if he didn’t have a well-established track record of doing this.

And if they didn’t treat every unionization attempt on every other company as a heroic struggle of the proletariat against their capitalist exploiters.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Who could have seen it coming?

[Injun, as in from India]

I wish he had joined Mother Jones or the New York Times.

The ensuing lulz would have been epic.

[Bam!]

The Internet makes lots of money. Give us some of that money!

[Los Doyers]

Is your aunt making $43593 a week from home?

[RussianPrimeMinister]

You would think that someone like that would have a hard time finding a job, wouldn’t you?

What kind of idiot hires this fool, and thinks it won’t happen to them?

[Fist of Etiquette]

President Obama will allow some oil drilling in the Atlantic Ocean.

Now that it’s not profitable!

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

They just cancelled a drilling project here. Lemme see if I can find the link.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

http://www.dailybreeze.com/bus…..ng-project

JUST WHAT THE SAUDIS WANT!!!

[jesse.in.mb]

I hope they don’t withdraw the Hermosa one. I’d hate for those people to feel like they won just because the economy shifted.

[Los Doyers]

Got something against the Hb locs, eh?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

To many cool bros in HB.

[Obese American]

Between them, the Manhattan Beach anti-refinery people, and the Redondo Beach folks against redeveloping the shithole that is Redondo Beach Pier, the South Bay is NIMBY heaven.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

WHERE IS MY POUTINE?

[Los Doyers]

ME WANT POUTINE TOO

/bangs fork and knife on table

[Obese American]

Blame the Los Angeles bureaucrats. I’ve been stuck at the permit process for months. I’m actually going to City Hall tomorrow to meet with some councilcritters and their staff to see if we can get things moving.

FREE MINDS, FREE POUTINE!

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Is that where you offer the bribe?

[Obese American]

bribe, campaign contribution, tomato/tomahto

[jesse.in.mb]

folks against redeveloping the shithole that is Redondo Beach Pier

They’re looking to put in a high-end mall in an area with two very large malls that are already barely keeping business and they’re trying to scare people who don’t like the mall idea into going along with it by saying that global warming is going to flood the existing pier complex anyway.

[Obese American]

So if they’re wrong about the mall working out, they’ll lose money. Let them. But the current pier is a disaster frozen in the 1960s.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Oh, so you like the pier, eh? It has its …. charms.

Like the owner of the arcade. He’s not allowed in his own business because he’s a convicted pedophile.

[jesse.in.mb]

Like the owner of the arcade. He’s not allowed in his own business because he’s a convicted pedophile.

See, that’s the kind of down-home texture the pier will be missing if they gentrify the shit out of it.

[Los Doyers]

Jesse, your beard alone gentrifies places.

[Tonio]

Jesse, I demand a pic of you and your beard.

[jesse.in.mb]

Here’s a recent one. About 10 days ago.

[RussianPrimeMinister]

NIMBY

Aren’t they the gay pedophiles?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

THE CITY SIGNED A CONTACT.

[RussianPrimeMinister]

Asked why the entire mayoral staff was found staring at the ground, the Mayor had this to say;

“I lost a contact.”

[Rufus J. Firefly]

For you sports fans. The sordid tale of sports lawsuits. It’s about hockey but it applies to any sport:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com…../comments/

[RussianPrimeMinister]

Stop bringing your canadian nonsense into our perfectly normal, in no way libertarian news!

[Andrew S.]

My prog friends are pissed off about the Mormon Church thing. Sample quote: “LDS is supporting the rights of LBGT but wants to reserve the right to discriminate against them for themselves. Typical.”

[Injun, as in from India]

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t*.

*if you’re not a progressive.

[Tonio]

Well, now they’ve pissed off libertarians, too. Maybe they’re trying to unseat the Jews in the most hated, non blowing stuff up category.

[John Titor]

They’ve gone mad with power ever since they got that Broadway musical.

[Tonio]

That really has gone a long way towards mainstreaming them.

[Los Doyers]

Next they’ll come for muh hooch and caffeine.

[RussianPrimeMinister]

Well, now they’ve pissed off libertarians, too.

All fifteen of us?

[John]

Labor reporter Mike Elk is trying to unionize the staff of Politico. Elk, who joined the publication last year, has a history of labor activism and boasts of unionizing every place he has ever worked at.

Nothing like schadenfreude in the afternoon. I hope he bankrupts the rag.

[Injun, as in from India]

Obama Gets a Warm Welcome, but Indians Pine for Bush

You know who else pined for bush?

[Ska]

Not the dudes from the google survey?

[John]

No wonder Dalmia is always bitching about India.

[Root Boy]

Didn’t I see her write something today jonzing on the suits and dresses during Obama’s visit? Seemed kind of a positive tone.

[expat]

Dead Norwegian Blue Parrots?

.. oh wait, that was the Fjords

[Pro Libertate]

You know, I forgot about that. Bush did make a big effort to make friends with India. That’s non-stupid, at least on the surface.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

At the same time that he formed a military alliance with Pakistan.

No easy feat there.

[John]

It was smart. So of course Obama has tried to undo it.

[Pro Libertate]

Personally, I think India is a better long-term economic ally than China. China’s got political trouble stamped on its forehead. Not to mention that India has been kinda-sorta liberal for a good while now, unlike the totalitarians we choose to do more business with.

[John]

I agree. India is less aggressive to its neighbors and more friendly to our values than China ever will be.

[JW]

I’ve been saying for a while that India will eat China’s lunch in teh long run. there seems to be a genuine ambition for becoming highly educated and skilled, whereas China just seems like it’s driven by cronyism.

India’s socialist past (and present) is nothing to be proud of and the poor have paid the price many times over for it, but the future looks brighter there than in China, if the Indian polity can just get the fuck out of the way.

[Pro Libertate]

Agreed. India has very serious endemic challenges to overcome, but at least they aren’t a friggin’ dictatorship, providing workers who aren’t remotely free.

[Root Boy]

Very true. IndiaChina and IndiaPackistan

[Root Boy]

Tried to get the greater than symbol in there, guess it gets picked up as html.

[Injun, as in from India]

India has a *long* way to go, but is generally on the right track. (as long as the post-1991 generation that did not know socialism avoids electing leftist sh1theads again).

India, in some ways, is like Israel in that it is a generally stable democracy surrounded by bad neighbors (Islamist utopias of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan – a closed monarchy, Bangladesh which has been through military dictatorships, Burma, and China). Sri Lanka is by far the stablest of India’s neighbors, minus the LTTE separatist movement which has been quashed.

[Los Doyers]

What are your thoughts on Goa? That’s number one on my India visit pipe dream.

[Injun, as in from India]

I’ve never been there, and frankly, I would rather avoid it myself. I’ve heard nasty stories of people doing bad stuff on drugs.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Why don’t you ask him what’s the best Kama Sutra position while you’re at it?

Sheesh, Los Doyers. Show some decorum.

/picks ass.

[Los Doyers]

I WAS GETTING TO THAT DAMMIT

[Puddin' Stick]

Forget Goa? go see Dal Lake and Pahalgam.

[Los Doyers]

Stop microaggressing my travel plans, yo

[Los Doyers]

Plus: naan.

[Pro Libertate]

Indeed! Especially garlic naan. Yum.

[Los Doyers]

Garlic grown in…….CALIFORNIA.

/runs from room

[Pro Libertate]

What? Is that another bland California substitute for real food? Like their shitty peaches?

I do make one exception to this–avocados.

[jesse.in.mb]

What? Is that another bland California substitute for real food? Like their shitty peaches?

Are you dissing Gilroy? I hope you’re not dissing Gilroy.

[Los Doyers]

He’s dissing Gilroy. GET HIM

[jesse.in.mb]

GET HIM

How many of those garlic trucks do you think we can drop on his house from a C-17?

[Los Doyers]

Enough to keep the gators away.

[Pro Libertate]

Just for that, I’m shipping five thousand live pythons to California.

[Los Doyers]

Our snakes eat yours, bro.

[Mad Scientist]

Way to SugarFree the link.

[Los Doyers]

I corrected myself before ANYONE noticed.

[Los Doyers]

God dammit.

I fail at life.

[Pro Libertate]

You also know nothing of snakes. A python can consume king snakes by the gross.

[Los Doyers]

Um, kingsnakes, like Dodgers fans (excluding me), attack in well coordinated packs. Assuming the python isn’t already shriveled snake jerky from our weather, there is no contest.

[jesse.in.mb]

Silly question, but how do pythons do in severe-drought-condition Mediterranean, desert, temperate rain-forest, steppe, and highland climates?

I would hate for them to be uncomfortable.

[Pro Libertate]

Ah, ha! You fell into my trap! They’re GMO pythons!

[jesse.in.mb]

Ah, ha! You fell into my trap! They’re GMO pythons!

You’d send genetically modified organisms to California? You realize the people will sense it and destroy them before they have a chance to take root, right?

[Pro Libertate]

Really. What chance do you think mere Californians have against GMO pythons, bred in the deadly battleground of fauna that is South Florida?

[jesse.in.mb]

You’ve clearly never met eastern Californians. They’re like Fremen, but a little bit bro-ier and a lot more hillbillyish.

[Pro Libertate]

Fremen in California? Ha! It’s not even a real desert. And tough people don’t need laws to protect them from substance levels one trillionth of the amount needed to affect a human being in any way.

Now, if you were talking Australia, it would be a different story.

[jesse.in.mb]

You’re not getting the distinction between the more populous and nicer West CA with its stupid rules and East CA which is like a white-trashier version of Nevada, which hates the stupid rules of the West but doesn’t have the legislative clout to stop them.

[Pro Libertate]

Who runs your state?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Trader Joes, bro.

[Pro Libertate]

I need to go by the one here. We’re getting another across the bay, too.

[Dances-with-Trolls]

and samosas and tandoori chicken and chapati and korma and I know where I’m going for dinner..

[Pro Libertate]

I had some korma just a couple of days ago. With some garlic naan. Fuck yeah.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Naan and Tandoori chicken.

Preferably with a side of hot Indian babe.

[Los Doyers]

They’re either really hot or really ugly.

[trshmnster the terrible]

There was a girl in undergrad who was the epitome of hot Indian girl. I would admire her beauty from across the lecture hall. Then, next semester she was in my lab class. The close proximity destroyed all notions of attraction, because she had a 10 foot BO aura. The girl was a 9.5 out of 10, but smelled like a high school locker room.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I hope you still hit that.

[Cytotoxic]

I had an indian colleague and no joke she smelled like curry. What goes in must come out.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

That’s no excuse for not hitting a 9.5.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Someone hasn’t heard of BBO- Beyond BO.

That shit stays with you! Don’t you remember, Seinfeld?

[Los Doyers]

You’re never allowed back here unless you get pics.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I’m having the same thing for dinner tonight that I had last night and this morning.

Corned beef with duck fat hash and poached eggs. When I have a winner, I stick with it until it’s all gone.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I’ve been saying for years now that the West – USA in particular – should deepen ties with India. It’s a democracy and I trust its economic trajectory more than insular China.

[Pro Libertate]

It makes so much sense that of course we don’t really do that.

[trshmnster the terrible]

But they’re brown and smell funny!

/both political parties

[Pro Libertate]

India would’ve been a very good trading partner instead of China, though I don’t know that we’d have gotten the cheap quasi-slave labor.

[Mad Scientist]

Crystal Springs Tree Farm?

[gaijin]

Gavin Rossdale?

[Beautiful Bean Footage]

You know who else pined for bush?

Every male teenager ever?

[Seamus]

Wow. Way to privilege heteronormativity.

[John Titor]

Not entirely sure now, but a couple African countries bloody loved Bush for his AIDS program, possibly more so than Obama.

[Tonio]

People who grew up with seventies pr0n?

[trshmnster the terrible]

Indycar in 2013?

[RussianPrimeMinister]

Hitler?

[Injun, as in from India]

Has anyone posted this yet?

My life as a climate lukewarmer – The polarisation of the climate debate has gone too far

[F. Stupidity, Jr.]

I was even kept off the shortlist for a part-time, unpaid public-sector appointment in a field unrelated to climate because of having this view, or so the headhunter thought.

Unpossible.

[John]

the shortlist for a part-time, unpaid public-sector appointment

There was a long list for that?

[UnCivilServant]

Internship?

[some guy]

My experience has been that when people claim the climate debate is too polarized or too political what they mean is that instead of listening to politicians on the issue we should be listening to real scientists like Michael Mann, Bill Nye and Al Gore.

[waffles]

That’s a good article. Thanks.

[wadair]

I love reading Matt Ridley. His book The Rational Optimist provides great arguments for technological improvement and against leftist attempts at equalization. Optimism just doesn’t sit well with lefties.

[Mad Scientist]

They are statists, and they want to force everyone else to Do Something ™. Saying that shit will work itself out leaves them with no means of imposing themselves on others.

[RussianPrimeMinister]

First he came to me and told me to give him money, and I laughed and did nothing.

Then he came back to me along with two huge men with guns and told me to give him money, and I laughed and they shot me and took my money.

Then I bled out and died and there was nobody to help me, because they’d done it to everybody else as well.

~Someome that interacted with government

[MJGreen]

Walker’s one of those guys I wouldn’t mind seeing as President, just for the sake of schadenfreude. I have no reason yet to think I’d like him as Pres, but I would enjoy seeing the progressive rage. The failed recall effort and his reelection both provided a lot of great material.

[John]

He is a competent governor. He would be a massive improvement over Obama. He would be a hell of a lot better than Hillary. And then there is the pleasure at watching Progs scream and cry over it.

[Andrew S.]

I have no doubt he’d be awful (but maybe not any more so than your typical Presidential candidate), but you’re right. The reaction would make it worth it.

[Injun, as in from India]

If he does at the federal level what he did in Wisconsin, he could potentially roll back a lot of “New Deal” bullsh**. That would be awesome.

[Mock-star]

I am not sold on Walker, but he is an (R) that signed onto a bill that increased, at least somewhat, police accountability. So I’ll give him kudos for that, at least.

http://www.jsonline.com/watchd…..42301.html

[gaijin]

Walker cannot be president! He doesn;t have a bachelors degree from a prestigious Ivy League school…

[UnCivilServant]

“Ivy League” education whould disqualify you from elected office, or judgeship.

[gaijin]

True! Seriously though, Walker has been in politics since he was 25. Another lifer, albeit with some real responsibility as a governor.

[wadair]

Neither Nixon nor Reagan had Yale or Harvard degrees. It might happen.

[gaijin]

Walker has no degree. I can only imagine the forces in academia that would align against him. 😉

[UnCivilServant]

Even if he had a degree, the forces of avademia would align against him.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

“A year ago, Jonathan Chait had an extended debate with The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates”

Don’t know much about Coates but why do I get the feeling she’s (?) adept at the derp?

[MJGreen]

Hehe. He. And from what I’ve seen, the best he’s done is point out very obvious things, and the rest is derp.

I believe he is the one who said we need to start “seriously discussing” reparations again. And reparations for all black people, not just those with slave roots; all dark-skinned Americans suffer from that history, and so all are owed reparations.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Ah. That guy!

Wow. And he’s considered a serious thinker in the liberal ranks?

God help us – or them.

[Tonio]

Yes, he’s considered a serious thinker…what, you disagree? RAAACIST!

[Pro Libertate]

I’m actually quite surprised that Obama hasn’t tried banging this drum, now that he’s pulling out the stops to inflame every possible kind of class and identity warfare.

[Tonio]

No, because everyone knows that’s the tipping point.

[Warty]

Just you wait.

[Pro Libertate]

Oh, it’s coming. Or something worse.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I hope it turns out exactly like the Dave Chapelle skit.

[Pro Libertate]

That worked out well.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

The fact that the topic is ‘out there’ is cause for concern.

[JW]

We’ll tax reparations to pay for them.

The perpetual revenue machine.

[Pro Libertate]

That’s one solution. Reparations get paid, but they’re taxed at 100%.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

“The Trans-Atlantic Transit Tax”

[Pro Libertate]

Liberation tax?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Room and board?

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Coates is the guy who caused a stir last year by seriously arguing that the government should pay black people reparations.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I have ancestors that died in the Civil War. Where’s my check?

[JW]

Same here. Died at Gettysburg.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Let’s pool our winnings and buy a truck full of cigarettes.

[JW]

We should make a movie of our antics to claim the money, with it culminating at the Cook County assessor’s office, paying off the Civil War Orphan’s Home and saving it from the repo.

[Pro Libertate]

Would this involve an auctioned cop car, with cop tires and cop engine?

[JW]

Mmmmmaybe. Why?

[Pro Libertate]

Because we’re on a mission from God. Tell the Penguin we’ll be back with the money.

[Mad Scientist]

Don’t you blaspheme in here! Don’t you blaspheme in here!

[Pro Libertate]

[Drives off at high speed through a mall, with some Sam & Dave tune playing in the background.]

[Los Doyers]

Mine were worthless micks that were getting drunk instead of checking their potatoes for blight.

[Pro Libertate]

I have ancestors that helped your ancestors die in the Civil War, heroically. I, too, demand a check. Also, what about reparations for Reconstruction?

[UnCivilServant]

What about those of us who have ancestors on both sides of that war?

[SugarFree]

They pay themselves… after the government’s cut, of course.

[Pro Libertate]

That’s simple, both get paid, but for different reasons.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!

I only stopped laughing because I busted a rib, Playa.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Does Obama have to both pay and receive reparations at the same time? He’s about half-white, half black.

But his ancestors weren’t American slaves. So deduct from his payment accordingly.

So on net, he’ll owe money.

[VG Zaytsev]

He’s about half-white, half black.

Worse, his white half is the direct descendant of slave OWNERS.

[rts]

So, climbing on the bandwagon of the local sports team when they are doing well is one thing, but Vancouverites take it to the next level: since all the local teams are so crap, they bandwagon for other near-by cities’ winning teams:

Canadian Sea Hawkers

Domain name: canadianseahawkers.ca
Domain status: registered
Creation date: 2013/06/17

Gah.

[Beautiful Bean Footage]

Yep. Sounds about right for the Seahawks “fan base”…

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Vancouver fans are annoying.

[MJGreen]

From that Charles C.W. Cooke post about Palin that was mentioned in the AM:

Consider, if you will, what happens to a person who suggests that Sarah Palin is anything other than saintly. Right off the bat, they are accused of disliking America or Alaska or conservatives or mothers or the working class ? or even women in general ? and then they are informed that their “hatred” is showing. Next, their motives are questioned and their supposedly secret “agenda” is exposed for the world to see, for no right-thinking person could dislike Palin on the merits, natch. “I hope you enjoy your elite cocktail parties,” the apologists will say, and then they will huffily tell you that they “hope signaling that you are ‘one of them’ was worth it.” And finally ? as is the case when one expresses disapproval of other cult figures, such as President Obama, Ron Paul, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Paul Krugman ? it is presumed that all animadversion must be motivated by envy or by snobbery or by secret admiration, and that it can therefore be safely ignored.

Hmm. He really would fit in well at Reason.

[John]

Who thinks Sarah Palin is saintly? This guy needs to stop arguing with the voices in his head.

The issue with Palin is not that she is above criticism. It is that she is subjected to such over the top criticism that criticizing her has become a way for stupid people to try and look smart. I guess Cooke is one of those people.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

At this point I seriously question if Palin is mentally retarded or the world’s greatest performance artist a la Kauffman.

And Cooke has been retweetin the hilarious grief he’s getting from the Palinites. Her appeal is baffling.

[John]

She is not retarded. She is reasonably intelligent and well spoken woman. And the reason she has so much appeal is that in the same way criticizing her is a way for stupid people to look smart, defending her is a way for non elites to tell elites to fuck off. There are few things in politics more iconoclastic and more of an overt go fuck yourself to the establishment than liking Sarah Palin. It is really that simple.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Holy fuck you are an idiot.

[John]

Speaking of baboons. The dumbest man in the known universe of course is obsessed with Palin.

[Mike M.]

Gay guys like Weigel here still have a serious Palin obsession. I’ve never quite understood what the deal with that is.

[JW]

John, I have no hatred of Palin, but she’s largely, like all politicians, an empty suit, unworthy of adulation. Or in this case, pants suit.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

The difference is, I would have sex with her.

Scratch that, no I wouldn’t, I’m too fertile and I don’t want a… you know…

[JW]

A Playlan?

Oh, no question, I’d bang her right out of the Oval Office.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

No, a Trig Manhattan.

[JW]

Manhattgoloid?

[trshmnster the terrible]

Cleveland steamer?

[John]

She is a politician. This is true. But she is not the worst politician or even in the bottom half.

[JW]

I really can’t listen to her because she has no real ideas and tries to hard to capture “folksiness.”

And judging pols on worstness is alike trying to judge the Miss Jezebel contest.

[John]

That is just it JW. The same retards who will tell you Nancy Pelosi and Obama are serious people, will claim Palin is stupid. It is just pathetic.

[JW]

Well, that’s because they’re partisan mongoloids.

All of the pols are terrible and should be fired into the Sun.

[The Laconic]

The same retards who will tell you Nancy Pelosi and Obama are serious people, will claim Palin is stupid.

Which implies exactly nothing about whether Palin is in fact stupid, or about people who claim Palin is stupid.

[Juice]

She’s well in the bottom half. Maybe even bottom 1%.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

I personally think Barbara Boxer is a bigger idiot than Palin and sure, she gets more shit than she deserves because she’s attractive and Team Red, but she’s also a spectacularly cringeworthy speaker devoid of all substance.

She’s just tiresome and should go away.

[John]

I just refuse to let baboons like Shreek win. I hope she stays forever and continues to torture these clowns.

[Steve G]

Oh she’s smart, but to me she has appeal because she smartly spews populist drivel to the team red masses and they eat it up like caribou jerky

[John]

Give three examples of said populist drivel? People say things like that but they never have any examples.

[Cytotoxic]

Um. Seriously? EVERYTHING SHE FUCKING SAYS.

Stand with our troops!

Don’t retreat, reload!

etc

I guess Cooke was right Palin’s fans really are stupid as they come.

[John]

Half the country says stand with the troops. And don’t retreat reload is just a catch phrase. What does that even mean?

You have to do better than that? But don’t worry, you have signaled to the other stupid people you are smart like they are.

[Cytotoxic]

What does that even mean?

Nothing, which is why Palin said it. It doesn’t matter how many said, it’s still a meaningless catch phrase.

It’s hilarious how worked up you’ve gotten. Conservatives really are the mostly easily led reactionary dumbasses on the planet.

[Steve G]

Give three examples of said populist drivel

Why? So you can argue it’s not?

Half the country says…

Um, yeah, that makes it populist drivel smart guy.

[CatoTheElder]

Glenn Beck: Who is your favorite founding father?
Sarah Palin: You know, well, all of them because they came collectively together with?so much diversity in terms of belief but collectively they came together to form this union.

If an American can’t answer this with one or two names, he just does not know American history. I’d be more impressed if she had said Hamilton than give this sadly ignorant response.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAPWD-PR_FA

She either is not very bright, or she simply cannot handle an interview that includes a question that doesn’t have “common sense solutions” as an appropriate response.

[VG Zaytsev]

I bet you that not one American in 1,000 could give an intelligent answer to that questions.

And probably not one politician in 10,000.

[What's that smell?]

Remember that vapid MSNBC woman who, when criticizing Palin for that statement, said “she could have mentioned someone, come up with some name…like Lincoln, or someone”
I believe it was Scarborough’s (sp)partner.
Anyway it was ignored like all of “uncle Joe’s” ridiculous statements

Dem’s cannot admit flaws in their superiors.

[Steve G]

FFS, she’s the self-appointed ‘kingmaker’/spokeswoman of the group colloquially known as the ‘stupid party’. Is it that much of a stretch to consider how she has been so successful at it?
HINT: it hasn’t been by pandering to the intellectual Goldwater/Krauthammer types…

[Cytotoxic]

Palin is not intelligent.

[John]

She just called death panels and a lot of other things. You just say that because you are a stupid person who thinks saying that is a signal that you are smart. And it is, to other stupid people.

[Cytotoxic]

You just say that because you are a stupid person who thinks saying that is a signal that you are smart.

No I’m saying it because she’s fucking dumb and it’s hilarious how you and your fellow yokels get so worked up over MAMMA BEAR. She didn’t call ‘death panels’ she made them up. At the time it was completely ridiculous. She was a pinko governor to boot.

[CatoTheElder]

Palin is the Dan Quayle of the early 21st century.

They do not project great intelligence on the television screen, but neither Palin or Quayle is so dumb as to be concerned that Guam might tip over if the military built there. Neither was dumb enough to support ObamaCare. Palin did not believe that a silly film caused the Benghazi attack, nor did she believe that random hard drive crashes caused the IRS to lose Lerner’s e-mail. For AAA grade stupidity, you have to look left. But there’s plenty of investment grade stupidity among the Republicans, particularly in the area of foreign policy.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

How can she not see she’s not good – low blows from progs notwithstanding – I know, PHRASING!) for the Republican brand at this point?

[John]

I don’t know. I think it is more that people don’t give a fuck what the various baboons think of her or the GOP brand.

[The Laconic]

Who thinks Sarah Palin is saintly? This guy needs to stop arguing with the voices in his head.

The issue with Palin is not that she is above criticism. It is that she is subjected to such over the top criticism that criticizing her has become a way for stupid people to try and look smart. I guess Cooke is one of those people.

I think this is one of those times where you’ve jumped in swinging without knowing what you’re talking about.

[John]

I know who Cooke is. And it was meant as an insult to Cooke because he should know better.

I think this is one time the point of the post went completely over your head. Sorry I didn’t make it simple enough for you.

[Bill Dalasio]

Cooke’s defensiveness aside, I’d say it is fair to say that most of Palin’s detractors take their position as a cultural pose. To be fair, particularly post-2008, Ms. Palin invited that pose by making a cultural pose a prominent part of her public personae.

The reality is that she seemed to be a pretty competent Governor, renegotiating the oil lease dividends on significantly more favorable terms, negotiating a transnational pipeline deal and going a long way to break one of the country’s major political machines. Moreover, she showed the good sense to defy much of her base in vetoing discriminatory legislation because it wasn’t constitutional.

Had she remained on the national stage as that person, I’d be a pretty big fan. However, she was cast as the redneck “know-nothing”. A lot of this was undoubtedly unfair, based on idiocies like accent or a strange religion or the fact that she doesn’t fit the cosmopolitan mold. As a result, the only real national audience for her was essentially the demographic she was painted as.

[Pro Libertate]

I remember hearing her speak as governor, long before the VP nomination, and she sounded okay. Maybe that was just a good moment. or maybe she traded any sense she had for populism. Yeah, the right does that, too.

[VG Zaytsev]

She was intentionally sabotauged by uber douchebags Nicole Wallace and Steve Schmidt.

Two of the most execrable apparatchik hacks that put the stupid in stupid party.

But yeah Palin’s totally a dummy.

[Bill Dalasio]

Do you stand with Jonathan Chait? You will, after you read this.

Robby, I’d stand with Hitler, Mao Zedong, and the Devil, himself, if the alternative were Gawker and Alex Pareene.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Do you stand with Jonathan Chait? You will, after you read this.

I wondered how any article was going to pull that off. And that one didn’t.

[F. Stupidity, Jr.]

Mr. Soave, any chance you could summarize? I am loathe to click on anything Gawker-related.

[some guy]

Better to have Warty and John summarize the comments section.

[Los Doyers]

Rape dungeons and Mexican weed butt sex

[Ska]

Promising start; maybe I will read this so-called Gawker publication….

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I stopped reading the Gawker article on Chait at: “He accurately notes that when conservatives bemoan “political correctness” they are generally upset that they have been asked to be respectful of people of different backgrounds.”

You’ll have to summarize the point to me because it was a hard read.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Other than the idiot author actually defending political correctness of course.

[Juice]

If he is to criticize it, he has to defend it in the same breath. Otherwise he’ll be jobless.

[Aloysious]

Scientists search the wine-dark sea for the remains of a ship that sank 2,000 years ago?carrying what is believed to be the world’s first computer

New article on the most recent dive to explore the Antikytherawreck includes:

A small cargo ship wouldn’t have used an anchor this big. Instead, the new evidence points to an idea some members of the team had pondered but hadn’t dared to believe: There aren’t two wrecks. Both sites appear to belong to one enormous ship that broke in half when it smashed against the cliffs. Scholars had guessed that the Antikythera ship might have been a fairly hefty 100 feet long, with a cargo of perhaps 300 tons. If both wreck sites are part of the same vessel, it could have been more than 150 feet.

…snip

If the ship is as large as the hull planks and anchors suggest, Foley speculates, it might be a grain carrier, either repurposed to carry a luxury cargo or transporting treasures along with what was most likely primarily wheat. These grain carriers were the biggest seagoing vessels in antiquity. Not one has been found, but ancient writers described how these oversized freighters traveled from Alexandria to Rome.

…snip

Finding one of these giants “has been one of the holy grails for archaeologists for generations,” Foley says.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Imagine all the malware that would have infected it by this time! I’d handle with care…

[Warty]

It’s not so much that I stand with Jonathan Chait as that I recognize that Gawker is even more vile than him. I mean, really, the deepthroating they give Ta-Neesi Coates is vigorous enough to make Riley Reid gag.

[John]

Gawker is the most vile publication on the internet. Stormfront is reasoned and has standards compared to Gawker.

[Warty]

The Gawker sites are at least as hateful as Stormfront.

[JW]

Does Gawker even *have* an ethos?

[John]

No They are worse than Illinois Nazis.

[Irish]

Say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, dude, at least it’s an ethos.

[Bobarian (hyphenated-american)]

Shut the fuck up, Donny!

[Palin's Buttplug]

You would defend the conservatives.

[John]

You are the racist who hates capitalism. You and the Stormfront guys are pretty close.

[F. Stupidity, Jr.]

Calling Stormfront better than Gawker is hardly a defense of Stormfront.

[JW]

Ugh. Ta-Nessi to mouth porn?

[Irish]

Especially given that Ta Nahesi Coates is a pretentious idiot.

I remember an article where Coates literally ended the article by being like ‘Then I went back to my hotel room and read a book by Albert Camus.’

This served no purpose in the broader article other than to allow Coates to preen and assure us that, indeed, he is well versed in the French existentialists.

[Irish]

Jonathan Chait went from being a leftist douche to an American hero in a single article.

That Gawker article is just amazing:

“In reality, the single most notable example in the last 15 years of an academic being punished for his speech is probably former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, who was fired not for offending feminists but for claiming that some victims of the September 11 attacks were complicit in the crimes of the American state that provoked the attacks. Just a few years ago, liberal Democratic members of Congress and other officials publicly demanded that Brooklyn College cancel a forum featuring academics who support a financial boycott of Israel. Lawmakers threatened to withhold funding from the school if the event took place. Just this month, Duke University announced that it would not allow a weekly Muslim call to prayer to happen at the campus chapel, following criticism and threats from Christians and evangelical leaders. This is what speech policing in America actually looks like: Like regular policing, it’s wielded primarily by people in power against marginalized groups and anti-mainstream opinions.”

If they do it, we can’t possibly be doing it! Being an asshole is apparently a zero sum game!

#chaitnothate

[John]

You would think the Pros would figure out that at some point the Hive is going to come for them. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you have done for the cause, at some point you will be declared an enemy.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

All those protesters against the cis-sexist ‘Vagina Monologues’ and a variety of commencement speakers were just speaking truth to power, man!

[John Titor]

Didn’t Ward Churchill also blatantly fabricate research?

[Irish]

Yeah, I’d also like to point out that someone saying ‘those people were complicit in their own murders’ and calling the dead ‘little Eichmanns’ is vastly different than someone getting run off campus for doubting the veracity of rape culture.

[John]

Yes. And also lied about being an Indian. Apparently to Progs it is evil to name a sports team after an Indian tribe but totally okay for a white person to lie and pretend to be an Indian for fun and profit.

[Bill Dalasio]

See also Warren, Elizabeth.

Hell, it’s almost like it’s a qualification.

[Irish]

Gawker comments are as brilliant as usual:

“I suppose there’s an argument that “Political Correctness” has been terrible for the talentless corporate sludge of white maleness, given their previous elevated slots in society are now being given to far more talented non-white and non-male candidates that previously where shut out of the roles their ability warranted.”

[Pro Libertate]

What have the white males ever done for us?

[John Titor]

I really love how some people who are constantly talking about ‘tolerance’ and ‘acceptable’ immediately devolve into hate about ‘talentless corporate sludge of white maleness’ every chance they get. Hey Gawker commentator, replace ‘white maleness’ with ‘Jews’ and realize what a scumbag you are.

[Pro Libertate]

They so want to put people in camps.

[John]

They just want to reeducate them Pro.

[Pro Libertate]

Indeed. In fact, I suddenly understand what Obama means by free community college.

[Bobarian (hyphenated-american)]

Arbeit Macht Frei Community College?

[Pro Libertate]

Look, it’s going to be free. What’s your complaint?

[datcv]

Apparently Harvard President Larry Summers being forced to resign over comments he made about women in STEM fields doesn’t count. Gawker seems to have forgotten that, conveniently.

[JW]

Do you stand with Jonathan Chait? You will, after you read this.

I only made it about a 1/3 of the way through that thought desert before I stopped utterly caring.

I hope they all eat one another in a glorious orgy of violent and bloody identity politics.

[Palin's Buttplug]

President Obama will allow some oil drilling in the Atlantic Ocean.

BUT OBAMA WON’T LET US DRILL HERE!

[Bobarian (hyphenated-american)]

Now that it’s no longer economically sensible to start new wells here in the short term, your messiah decides to actually slightly open some drilling prospects.

You are a mendacious twat!

[HeteroPatriarch]

The reason it’s news is because he is changing from the prior stand of not allowing drilling to allowing some drilling. Your comment makes no sense.

[GILMORE]

Bo Bergdahl to be Charged With Desertion, Says NBC News

No one really expected to give a shit anymore.

The worst thing to come out of that whole media-incident was how the NYT went to absurd lengths to demonize and discredit Bergdahl’s fellow-platoon mates, insinuating that they opposed the very *idea* of “leave no man behind” by daring to suggest Bo was a slimy coward.

it managed to pull this off by referring to his fellow soldiers as “critics” while never identifying them directly anywhere in their coverage. Schmitt simply quotes the people ‘dismissing’ them, and never quotes said ‘critics’.

[Pro Libertate]

Holy shit, no kidding? I figured there was no way the administration would allow that. Maybe Obama will pardon him or something.

[John]

Obama traded some of the most dangerous people alive so he could get a photo op and a good news cycle for obtaining the release of a dissenter.

I would say he was on the other side if I didn’t know just how stupid he is. Obama is without doubt the dumbest human being ever to enter American politics at the national level.

[Mike M.]

Speaking of that, I’ve come to the conclusion that the republicans need to do the right thing and start putting these Islamonazi terrorists on trial in civilian courts.

If they don’t, this shithead in the White House is going to release every single one of these vicious, throat-cutting barbarians before he leaves office.

[GILMORE]

Reuters: “Bo Noes!? NBC Wrong: Army Still Making Up Its Mind on Deal

” NBC News said earlier on Tuesday that Bergdahl would be charged with desertion, citing senior defense officials.

Major General Ronald Lewis, the Army’s head of public affairs, said that report, and another from Fox News, were “patently false.””

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

As I understand it, the argument against Chait is that he’s just a whiny privileged white guy that can’t stand women and minorities standing up for themselves.

Now to be fair, Chait is a douchebag and probably not the person that can credibly make these charges, but they really can’t argue with him so they’re just going to the tried and true tactic of ad hominen.

Moral narcissists hate it when someone criticizes their tactics, because that’s tantamount to questioning the righteousness of their cause, their whole raison d’etre. It’s simple cognitive dissonance, is all.

[JW]

“Gawker’s greatest crime was making me care about people I loath.”

[Pro Libertate]

That’s not Gawker’s greatest crime, but it is a money quote, nonetheless.

[The Late P Brooks]

Elk, who joined the publication last year, has a history of labor activism and boasts of unionizing every place he has ever worked at.

A trail of ruin in his wake. Good for him.

[Sidd Finch v2.01]

Instead quite a lot of people?including, again, Coates?seemed to think that Chait’s New Republic had been a hotbed of the most poisonous form of American “liberalism,” a place where a cadre of white people with degrees from the best schools debated amongst themselves whether or not black Americans were worthy of equal treatment under the law, and even whether black Americans were genetically equal to whites.

The horror! The Horror!

BTW, never ever under any circumstances do a google image search of Alex Pareene.

[jesse.in.mb]

Thanks, dude, now I’ve GIS’d Alex Pereene and got an eye full of insufferable hipster.

My name is jesse.in.mb and I have Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD).

[Mad Scientist]

Hi, Jesse.in.mb.

[Sidd Finch v2.01]

I hope you at least got a chuckle out of the random Weigel picture.

[GILMORE]

noted below

[jesse.in.mb]

I must’ve missed it. I did see one of him compared to Rachel Maddow though

[Los Doyers]

Oh pish, he’s not THAT hipster. I’ve seen much grimier in Silver Lake.

[SugarFree]

Ew. I just had too. Unfortunately, he looks a bit like one of my student worker, but my guy doesn’t have the stupid glasses and the mouth that looks like it is a split second away from dribbling piss, of course.

[GILMORE]

“a google image search of Alex Pareene”

Yielded…. this?

Coincidence??

[GILMORE]

DOH!
The former was in fact a picture of David Weigel

why? I have no idea. It came up when i looked for pareene. who looks like he sounds.

[John]

Like a kid touching a hot stove, I did it. That guy is retarded. There is no way that smug little bastard isn’t somewhere on the Aspy scale. I am sorry but that is not normal.

[JW]

He’s this year’s Sad Beard.

[JW]

BTW, never ever under any circumstances do a google image search of Alex Pareene.

Thanks a lot. I did and reflexively punched my monitor and broke it.

[jesse.in.mb]

Hi, JW. How’s your ODD coming along?

[JW]

I DON’T HAVE TO ANSWER THAT. YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME.

[John Titor]

Also, the fuck does ‘genetically equal’ mean? Genes aren’t exactly fair and egalitarian. Ask someone with a mutated BRCA gene (increased risk of cancer) whether they’re ‘genetically equal’ to everyone else.

This really is a ‘look I’m using SCIENCE words so I’m right’ comment.

[Sidd Finch v2.01]

He’s referring to this:

“In 1994, Sullivan published excerpts on race and intelligence from Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray’s controversial The Bell Curve, which argued that some of the measured difference in IQ scores between racially defined groups was the result of genetic inheritance. Almost the entire editorial staff of the magazine threatened to resign if material that they considered racist was published.[24] To appease them, Sullivan included lengthy rebuttals from 19 writers and contributors. Sullivan has continued to speak approvingly of the research and arguments presented in The Bell Curve: “the book… still holds up as one of the most insightful and careful of the last decade. The fact of human inequality and the subtle and complex differences between various manifestations of being human?gay, straight, male, female, black, Asian?is a subject worth exploring, period.”[26] According to Sullivan, this incident was a turning point in his relationship with the magazine; his relationship soured with much of the staff and management, which Sullivan concedes was already bad because he “was a lousy manager of people.”[24] He left the magazine in 1996.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A…..van#Career

[John Titor]

Admittedly, I’m not familiar with that particular controversy or The Bell Curve so I won’t comment on them, I just found the very concept of ‘genetically equal’ to be a ridiculously vague concept.

[Sidd Finch v2.01]

It’s more ‘language meant to evoke white supremacy’ than a ‘concept’.

[GILMORE]

“where a cadre of white people with degrees from the best schools debated amongst themselves whether or not black Americans were worthy of equal treatment under the law, “

I believe this is Alex Pareenes *very honest and balanced characterization* of the New Republic failing to give full-throated support for Slavery Reparations, and instead only providing modest support for the idea.

Which is like, totally the same as saying black people are subhuman and stuff.

[Old Man With Candy]

BTW, never ever under any circumstances do a google image search of Alex Pareene.

Fuck you, you knew we couldn’t resist.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

You can tell a cause is just and righteous when its supporters skip boring stuff like defending their case with rational argument, and go straight to blackmail.

In Alabama, a gay Democrat threatens to expose adultery by politicians who dare oppose state-recognized SSM.

This is fairly par for the course for Democrats and progs, of course. Vote the way we want, and we cover up your peccadilloes – adultery, sexual harassment, etc. Otherwise, we expose you.

I doubt this woman is the only political operative in country who is attempting such blackmail – she’s just the most public (and she seems to be unclear on the concept of blackmail if she’s making her threats publicly instead of just secretly sending a couple of private detectives with envelopes full of pictures).

This story puts a new complexion on all those “principled” Republicans who have suddenly decided to support government-recognized SSM, or at least not to oppose it too much. Whenever such a “courageous” Republican makes such an announcement, it would be worthwhile to ask about his relationship with his 17-year old intern, or his sheep.

http://www.al.com/news/birming….._legi.html

[HeteroPatriarch]

So any Republican who supports equal treatment under the law must be getting blackmailed and into bestiality. Got it.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

No, I’m saying I bet *some* of them are blackmailed.

[jesse.in.mb]

You take no issue with people who are defending the sanctity of marriage and fucking some strange while their wives raise the kids, Eddie? You don’t find that at all morally repugnant?

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Of course I do. But using that for blackmail is a bad thing, just like it would be bad for me to go over to one of those legislators and say, “hi there, how’s your mistress doing, and oh, by the way, I need $10,000, can you help me out?”

[The Late P Brooks]

Anybody who clicks on anything Gawker-related deserves nothing but my scorn and derision.

[John Titor]

I mean, come on Reason, at least link to Chait’s actual article rather than the whiny Gawker one. I don’t want to give them my clicks.

[Cytotoxic]

ALLAHU AKHBAR: ISIS expelled from Kobane with 1200 deaths. Kurds to liberate rest of Kobane canton.

http://news.yahoo.com/kurds-ex…..04273.html

[Notorious G.K.C.]

So now we call it Kurd Kobane?

[GILMORE]

Oh, thats bad
not as bad as “change his name to Toby” bad, but bad

[GILMORE]

HACK!

[UnCivilServant]

Boo.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

Today’s winner! Tell us what he’s won, Jim!

[John]

I hope they took no prisoners and put everyone associated with ISIS to the sword.

[Cytotoxic]

I hope that someday the Kurds that fought to take back Kobane leave a flaming bag of dog shit on the doorstep of everyone who opposed the current Iraq op on the basis that ‘it can’t be won’ or the various other stupid reasons.

[John]

So you want them to put it on the White House lawn? I am down with that.

[Cytotoxic]

Uh pretty sure Obama launched the current bombing campaign. I was more talking about the various stupid articles Reason wrote when Rand Paul went all apostate to the peacenazis.

[HeteroPatriarch]

ISIS is still extant.

[Cytotoxic]

I know. Doesn’t make the peacenazis any less wrong. ISIS is losing ground in Iraq and Syrian Kurdistan.

[Stormy Dragon]

Isn’t this like the third or fourth time Kobane has been liberated since October?

[Cytotoxic]

No.

[Stormy Dragon]

Yes.

See, for example, from 10/16/14:

Islamic State ‘retreating’ in key Syria town of Kobane

[Pro Libertate]

Kobane. Wasn’t that a Clapton song?

[HeteroPatriarch]

Shhh, you’re interrupting Cyto’s vacation from reality.

[Cytotoxic]

No he’s not. SD and apparently you just can’t read. At the time, ISIS was retreating from parts of Kobane, but not all of it. Now it has retreated/been expelled from all of it. Why do I have to spoon feed this to you people?

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Right-wing religious fanatics endanger public health – oh, wait, it’s just a bunch of concerned parents worried about autism:

“Asked if the anti-vaccination movement contributed to the latest [measles] outbreak in California, a spokesman for the state health department Carlos Villatoro, said in an email: “We think that unvaccinated individuals have been the principal factor.””

http://www.reuters.com/article…..Q120150124

[Cytotoxic]

Oh Eddie, you’re ability to find support in text where there is none reminds me of folks that swear they can see Jesus or Mary in their toast.

[Old Man With Candy]

From WSJ:

A White House official said late Tuesday: “Given it has become such a distraction, we’re not going to ask Congress to pass the 529 provision.”

Right. A distraction. Uh huh, that’s it.

[HeteroPatriarch]

So it worked. But what scandal was he trying to distract from last week?