America’s last half-assed attempt at a serious newspaper, the New York Times, is rapidly losing the last of its serious op-ed writers. Bob Herbert is the latest to say goodbye, and his final column is devastating. It starts like this: “So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life here at home.” Haha, and then it gets depressing. But it’s good to see somebody in the NYT taking on the actual monsters in our nation — our horrific income inequality, the Obama Administration’s perfidy in letting G.E. chief executive Jeffrey Immelt run the White House’s “Council on Jobs and Competitiveness” even as G.E. refuses to pay a nickel in corporate tax, statehouse wars against public-service employees, congressional wars against women and Muslims and the poor, etc.
The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely ….
There is plenty of economic activity in the U.S., and plenty of wealth. But like greedy children, the folks at the top are seizing virtually all the marbles. Income and wealth inequality in the U.S. have reached stages that would make the third world blush. As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth in the years 2000 to 2007, the most recent extended period of economic expansion.
Wow, why is everybody going all communist all the sudden? Oh right, because it’s time for Total Revolution. Anyway, good luck, Bob! Good luck, America! [NYT]
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Thanks for all the fine work Bob, I'm looking forward to your new book.
Bob Herbert and Frank Rich leave, but Russ Douthat stays? And NYT wants to start charging $20 a month for what's left?
Say, you know who else saw to it that liberal columnists resigned from their papers… ?
Leslie Knope?
not the Queen of the Gays!!!
Katherine Graham?
Randolph Hearst?
No! Wait! I mean "Cleopatra." That's my standard answer and I'm sticking with it.
(Take that, Radiotherapy.)
Neville Chamberlain?
Charles Foster Kane?
Lois Lane and Peter Parker?
Perry White, obvs.
and J. Jonah Jameson.
"PARKER! Get me those pictures of Spiderman (cigar chomp) or go find yourself another half-assed photojournalist job for a greater metropolitan newspaper!"
Sorry, mixing my comic metaphors.
"Don't call me 'Chief'!"
I'm sorry, Mr. White, I must gotten carried away.
Clark, you can continue eating my pussy anytime
Sorry, Lois, I'll get right on it
That's what she said.
Rupert Murdoch?
Christine O'Donnell?
All of them, Katie?
Any of them. All of them. Stop with the gotcha questions.
Xinhua? Oh wait, they're the commies.
Mom?
Carrot Top?
Rusty Camper?
It was pretty obvious in the summer of 2008 that there's no way to bridge the gap any more. And we have to have a war to settle this shit.
So when is the war? Leading up to the midterms of the next Republican president.
That's Jim DeMint / Steve King in 2016 if you are keeping score in the future.
Probably boil over leading up to DeMint's midterms. That would be the summer of 2018. That's when the war will start. Called it.
I hope it doesn't get this far. But if it does, Troubledog, I'll have your back.
My fake id sent your fake id a message. Check the mailbox where you keep your fake id.
bother. my fake id received no such communication from your fake id. it is truly natl.redacted.cmdr@gmail.com
Oh the war has been on for years, hopefully we'll realize it before it is called on account of darkness.
Glad he got out before the Paywall of Death went up.
Every single thing he says in that piece is absolutely true. David Brooks and the Mustache of Understanding can take this column and shove it up their asses for all the cheerleading they've done for this awful fucking system. If you see either of these ghouls, feel free to cockpunch them. You have the Lord's blessing.
I do occasionally see David Brooks but haven't had the nerve to ask him who was fondling his thigh during that dinner or tell him what a POS he is. I only see him at religious events to which we have somehow both been invited so I wouldn't want to make the day bad for the bar/bat mitzvah kid.
Fuck em. Fuck em all!
Time to chose sides is a commin.
Shonda for the Wonketteer.
I started at the bottom of the 9876468797 number of comments on this thread and just got the Mustache of Understanding. You mean that dick. The cheerleader for the totally bogus Iraq war who got enlightenment when he hit a ball made by children in a Chinese sweatshop during a game of golf with a Mexican on a course in India.
That dick, right?
America doesn't have a conservative and a liberal party, it has a conservative party and a reactionary party.
Even the moderate-pragmatist president who was elected with a mandate from working people can't propose a moderate restructuring of how private-sector health insurance is bought and sold without our corporate overlords freaking out and declaring him a cross between Huey Long and Marcus Garvey.
See you in Canada, boys.
Hey! Come back here, you chicken. You're gonna miss all the fun.
I think I missed out on the fun by about 20 years.
Ah, that little post-pill pre-aids window of fun?
That was sweet. 1960-something to ~1982. Mmmmm….
Everybody sing!
O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
See you on the other side.
Does Canada still have Marks and Spencer stores? I will consider the option if it does.
I believe so, but you can always hop over to the UK for Marks and Sparks. Best underwear ever
Off topic LL but what is a chav?
I was just in London but I only bought socks and tights(nice thick warm ones) at M&S. I also had a very nice egg sandwich and pot of tea at their cafeteria- sort of different from the rest of Kensington High street- although the food was all advertised as fairtrade and organic.
you wear undies? I figured you for a 'commando' kinda gal
Tim Horton or GTFO, hoser!
Canada? Wait until Gord the Impaler returns to the throne and poutine rains from the sky! Ahahaha!
Many Shuvs and Zuuls will know what it's like to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you.
Nice knowing ya SteveO.
well except for the gawd part it sounds pretty good…at least no mention of "bombs bursting in air" and all that militaristic bullshit…funny how Canucks do just fine by actually doing business with other folks rather than killing them!
A bit too cold up in Canada for my taste and the wife would never go for it. I’m looking at Australia. Maybe somewhere around Melbourne but Sydney could work. Added benefit of living in the southern hemisphere is that the nuclear fallout from the Second Civil War would take longer to arrive.
Haha, I tried that some time ago. It turns out they're not so proud of their criminal heritage when a modern-day criminal tries to immigrate, legally.
When I was there, Melbourne reminded me a lot of Seattle, only warmer and without the huge mountains looming all around. Sydney reminded me of LA, only cooler and not so polluted, and the traffic is *worse*. Overall, both pretty nice and cosmopolitan, and are both in The Economist ranking of top ten world's most livable cities.
And if you think Canada is too cold, I'd recommend you take a look at Victoria, BC, (just across the water from my town) apart from the fact that you can't afford it.
If all us riffraff migrate to Canada, then it'll be just as fucked as here. Wouldn't that be ironic, eh?
It'd be like riffraff on your wedding day.
A reference to both not-Irony and a native Canadian in one comment! Nice!
I have already started to seriously look into the legality of the move to Canada. Seems old guys such as myself may not be as desirable as the youngs. If I could find a simple way in, I would go now. I have had all the crazy I can stand.
Student visa ftw. Immigration Canada encourages this, and I'm as old as dirt!
Last time i checked, North Canuckistan wants certain skilled workers.
Non-wealthy retirees? Not so much.
The skills I bring are almost all US related. I don't know if there is a market for CPA/Attorney there, I am sure they have lots of those. However, Bullshitter extrordinaire, well I am the guy.
My husband was literally on Quebec's website today (he likes to speak French) to see how difficult it would be to move there.
Best thing is for an old to buy or start a business in Canada. Go from there.
Or if that's out of reach, get a nursing certificate at your local 2-year community college. Canuckistan is always looking for entry-level nurses for their commie universal health insurance scheme. Downside? The pay and workload and shit you have to put up with is roughly equivalent to new schoolteachers here in the USA.
(Also, the 'shit you have to put up with' in many cases, is actual shit.)
as much as a mass migration out of the US appeals to the wife and i we are both frightened at the idea of a tea bagger nation with access to "nukular" weapons. especially the dominionist branch. i for one will only feel safe off planet. moon base anyone?
I've been slowly working on a plan to get EU residency since 2004. I put it on hold after the 2006 mid-term wasn't stolen and felt a bit more confident about staying after 2008, but earlier this year it was "game on" again.
There are many EU countries that have a law of return for children or grandchildren of citizens. So if you happen to have a German grandma or Irish grandpa or something, you have a much easier time swingin' it than those of us who missed it by one or more generations.
Norway is not so generous, unfortunately. Netherlands is worse.
I was almost on the boat to Norway after the second Bush election (which was really the first). What hoops do they make you jump through there? Does it help if you have Norski grand kin?
'Fraid not. The embassy here told me I had to have one parent who wasa citizen.Zhu Bajie
No snark, srsly, but these threads about moving to Canada or out of the US really bother me – not because you're all a bunch of quitters even if you talk about it half-jokingly (okay, that last was kind of snark), but because everyone who's saying that is someone I admire for their wit and intelligence on these threads. You are the people, more than anyone, who need to stick it out — you're going to leave the rest of us with these morons?!
Bleh. I'm blathering too early on a Sunday morn without coffee or irony, and I'm visiting with Aunt Flo.
*snark resumed*
Dear Tsu ~
You know who else fled Nazi Germany?
Einstein, that's who!
I'm no Einstein, but i do see the moral dilemma.
Your comment is a prime candidate for Hallmark's new "Please don't flee America, we'll miss you!" line of cards and small gifts.
made in China of course
No one need go forever, these days. Go for a few years, calm down, get some new ideas, then fund a revolution in the Old Country. It wouldn't be the first time.
Lenin went to Switzerland after all.
Quite true. I was thinking of Sun Yatsen, in the US raising funds,when the Chinese Revolution broke out (just 100 years ago!). Also ofde Valera, saved from a British firing squad because he was a UScitizen.
I'm right behind ya BMW, have done several 'fact-finding' trips to Toronto the last two years and it looks GREAT (except for the snow of course!) Thankfully they NEED more health care professionals for their socialist system!
Stay out of Toronto…for now. Two words: Rob Ford.
The election of Rob Ford to the mayoral office of that nation's largest city, is comparable to if New Yorkers elected a slightly-more-sane, male version of Michele Bachmann to be NYC's chief administrator.
Yeah, they got these bastards up there now, too.
but it's so clean and all, with great public transportation and very diverse population…I was there for Nuit Blanche the last two years and had a great time!
"The current maldistribution of wealth is also scandalous. In 2009, the richest 5 percent claimed 63.5 percent of the nation’s wealth. The overwhelming majority, the bottom 80 percent, collectively held just 12.8 percent."
there are 100 of you. 5 of you own everything. another 10 of you are ok, pretty damn good, considering. the other 80 of you scratch and kick to get enough to live by.
this is what the corporatists want: to turn us against each other.
my message to Mr. Herbert: Thank you. You have written a great many sincere, true articles that were read by a quiet few.
As Boss Tweed said in "Gangs of New York: "You can always hire half of the poor to kill the other half."
I like this one, "the appearance of the law must always be upheld, especially while breaking it."
Sounds like what's happening Wisconsin, right now, with the GOP Gov & the Fitzgerald
CaposBrothers deciding they ARE the Law & can put the union-busting into effect, even as the stay holds & the Sec'y of State is remanded from publishing it. Scooter Fitz said, though, "The law was published by the Legislative Review Board, in its daily pressings, so it's published. That's good enough for me".The LRB doesn't even agree with this interpretation, mind you.
And as another poster said (possibly you?) "the chickens keep on voting for Colonel Sanders"
I think that was Joshua Norton
In 1995 I worked 9- 10 months a year. Fast forward to today, my first day off since jan 12th. At this rate I will exceed 14 months of work this year. Oh, and 1995? That was the most taxable income I have ever had, not to mention the tips.
damn that sucks, thanks for making me even MORE depressed…guess I'm one of the fortunate, actually make 10K more than I did in 2000, about a 1% increase per year…hell I'm RICH! (if'n you call $60k a year rich?)
It's hardly class warfare if you can get the workers to shoot themselves in the head.
And all it takes is some slogans to get them to do it.
My hopey-changey-balloon deflated further when he announced he was leaving. Now we have to rely on Kruggie, Blow, and Collins. Could be worse, but it's not likely to get better.
I wonder what's the big deal with a civil war every hundred and fifty years? They've been doing it in England forever, and look how it turned out for them. The English. And now: Englishmen as Batman, Spiderman, and Superman.
/spits on ground
I'm not gonna put up with this English takeover. They are ramming these guys down our throats.It's unbearable. Smug bastards. This is bullshit.
Hey! I resemble that.
The problem with another civil war is: who's going to give us a no-fly zone? NATO, Canada?
In the Arab world, the rulers lose with revolutions, but here the Kochs and the GEs have the Army, the NRA and the local militias.
But we can get help from Chávez, Adelita y el Comandante Marcos…Ay mamacita!
One of my kids is competing for parts with LimeyLizzie's fellow-chappies. I'm beginning to think he should falsify his nationality and accent when he goes in for auditions.
I'm with you mate!
Well, France has had 19 violent changes of government since 1789, and they still enjoy their 200 varieties of cheese, etc.
It's a pisser to be sure. The wonderment is the drones who support the current situation by echoing the talking points that insure they remain drones.
Amazing.
They are the products of a pervasive and successful propaganda campaign.
Nice. Mom 'n Pop businesses in this country are paying more taxes than GE…
Everybody is paying more taxes than GE. GE is paying NEGATIVE taxes.
And I'm "earning" negative interest on my savings to pay for it.
And where is that famous Teabagger outrage?
Oh righ.t It's all directed at the monkey in the white house.
In times like these, & I think about the doughty Irish-American teatard (he's named Tim, & I assume all people named Tim are Irish) owner of the sports-bar near my house which I am now boycotting, I have to recall, all the rhetorical bullshit levelled at Obama is not much worse than what Bill & Hillary got after claiming the White House on the backs of Perotistas ("don't blame me — I voted for Bush", the bumper-stickers of the Majority proclaimed). So, yes, is there a racist element to the hatred? Indeed. But Barack could be white as
his motherthe driven snow, & he'd still be getting a lot of this.Remember, too, Clinton's Waterloo [sic] was also health-care reform. But, too, at least this new Dem in the White House got something like HCR passed. (Even if it leaves something to be desired, Obamacare [sic, again] got further than Hillarycare [(see previous)].
As one of those people, I am regularly galled when conservatives parrot the thoroughly debunked talking point about how large corporations pay too much in their apparently imaginary taxes.
Yes, but GE brings good things to life!
What have Mom and/or Pop done for us lately?
No, they are now "imagination at work." Apparently even GE realized that what they brought to life was not necessarily good.
Hey the Koch's had a Mom 'n Pop. Who do you think left them all that money?
One of the good things that Hopey has done that no one but the Xian Science Monitor and Michele Batshit has mentioned is that he's hired a raft of new auditors for the IRS. Except the Monitor also pointed out that the IRS was now focusing on the returns of the wealthy, rather than anyone getting the Earned Income Tax Credit, like Bush's half dozen auditors did. Batshit, of course, considers this a bad thing.
The people who were marched to the camps didn't form cheerleading squads for the Nazis who were doing it to them, unlike today's moranz.
The idiots are pissed at the Bank Bailouts, so they're going to make the public employees pay, goddamit! It's like me finding more cat puke on the rug then kicking the dog. (Except, I would never do the latter. But you get what I mean.)
Give these idiots free scooters and a bag of pork rinds and they will follow you anywhere.
sweet jeebus I love you!
Bob Herbert didn't migrate to Canada, did he?
No, they don't allow black people there or something.
Ferguson Jenkins & Grant Fuhr & Jarome Iginla would like a word.
or PK Subban…. the exceptions that prove the rule… or somethin. Actually, this old, white ex-hockey player would move to Canada in a heartbeat if his wife would agree.
Why the fuck doesn't anyone bring up the fact that the Republicans only won 2010 because of Citizens United? The Supreme Court unleashed spending without accountability and conservative interests outspent liberal ones two-to-one and yet whenever the fuckin' rebelled-against-at-every turn GOP says that 2010 was a repudiation of liberal governance (wtf also, but that's a digression too far at this point) liberals never but inexplicably fuckin' never bring this up. Why the fuck not? Pass the damn DISCLOSE Act. Remember that?
God fucking damn. I've been saying this since it passed. What a horrendous corruption of the initial formation of this country.
Scalia stated that Stevens dissent was "in splendid isolation from the text of the First Amendment. It never shows why "the freedom of speech" that was the right of Englishmen did not include the freedom to speak in association with other individuals, including association in the corporate form." He further considered the dissent’s exploration of the Framers’ views about the "role of corporations in society" to be misleading, and even if valid, irrelevant to the text. Scalia principally argued that the first amendment was written in "terms of speech, not speakers" and that "Its text offers no foothold for excluding any category of speaker".
Well, for one I detest Scalia as a lickspittle of corporate interests, but secondly I believe that the document to which the first amendment refers starts "We the people". So the first amendment refers to the people, and specifically mentions the press as being included. Why do that unless as a clarification?
Fuck me sideways. Corporations as people.
Corporations only need to speak on behalf of the wealth they wish to enjoy. But they won't describe what it's like for a pocket of their employees to contract a cancer, or for some of its children to require long-term care for ASD. They won't talk about clean air (if they're polluting it) or fire prevention (if safety is a concern).
Just the dollars. Always the dollars. And wrapping it in a shell of freedom and liberty.
One dollar, one vote.
–GOP, Inc.
Someone said if you can't have a colonoscopy you are not a person entitled to free speech. I concur with that view.
…We, the shareholders…
Wooks, I yield to no man in my hatred for Citizens United, but the Republicans won in 2010 because (1) the average American voter has the attention span of a weasel on meth, and (2) far too many of our allegedly liberal brethren couldn't be bothered to vote because their knickers were bunched up.
I mean, fuck, I'm not in permanent orgasm over Obama (cf, Wonkette), but I still voted for every Democrat I could find, because there is still a difference between the parties (actually, it's often a bigger difference down-ticket). Fat lotta good it did me, but I'll do it next election too.
May the Four Horses'-Asses of the SCROTUS rot in hell. But really, it's not them, it's (the collective) us. That motherfucking law clerk who turned corporations into super-people pulled the kill switch on the American Experiment., and by now, way too many of us just accept that limited-liability entities are a natural and inevitable feature of capitalism.
Ach, I am, of course, drunk. I'll be more positive tomorrow. And the DISCLOSE Act would be a good idea. But, you know what? I bet 60% of our compatriots won't give a shit what it may disclose.
limited-liability entities are a natural and inevitable feature of capitalism.
I'd have to say that I actually agree with limited liability entities, since I own one. They have to work in that way in order to foster entrepreneurialism, which I doubt many people here disagree with? I'd not have started my company if I could personally be raped of every damn thing I own by bigger fish should I fuck up.
However, the idea that corporations have the same rights as citizens is ludicrous and will, in my opinion, eventually destroy any semblance of a free society.
I am fully aware of the advantages of limited-liability entities with respect to capital formation (or, if you prefer, "entrepreneurialism"). For a significant fraction of my 63 years, I defended the concept as critically important (even inevitable) to a robust industrial economy.
In later years, however, I have come to question whether limited-liability entities are always a good thing, and not just because of their evolution to legal-personhood. Rather, it's because management, even in fairly small corporations, are not required to have any skin in the game. They are free to adopt policies that maximize their own personal compensation, with no regard for the long term well-being of the enterprise. And if they happen to fly it into the ground, oh well.
I've tried to think about how to provide for limited liability without limiting accountability. When I'm sober, I'll present my thoughts.
Cheers.
Rather, it's because management, even in fairly small corporations, are not required to have any skin in the game. They are free to adopt policies that maximize their own personal compensation, with no regard for the long term well-being of the enterprise. And if they happen to fly it into the ground, oh well.
I've tried to think about how to provide for limited liability without limiting accountability. When I'm sober, I'll present my thoughts.
I'd love to see that. You can only take my word for not being a cunt. I could be the biggest cunt you'd ever met.
Some other way is going to be best. Sometimes when I'm a little under the cocktails in a bar I'll (even as a business owner) claim that capitalism isn't the best way. It must be tempered with socialism. *Must* be tempered with socialism. Otherwise society can't function – and I don't give a shit what these "Joe the Plumbers" think. Fuck's sake, I do what they dream of doing.
A proper society needs to balance pure profit motive with benefit for citizens otherwise it becomes feudal. Fuck you, libertarians.
(yes, I've had a couple too, but I feel strongly about stuff like this)
Well put.
the average American voter has the attention span of a weasel on meth
Shave, I think you are too generous.
Probably had to get online and play whatever the game of the day is.
By half.
You type well when drunk.
I am with you, though… I don't blame people for being disappointed exactly, I don't put it to pettiness. You want people to go out and vote for you, you've got to deliver the goods.
BUT –
I agree is that the DISCLOSE Act is not enough. I mean, it is sort of like the heath care law, where we are basically supposed to be excited that the insurance companies can no longer act like inhuman monsters. In DISCLOSE it basically prevents really the most basic obvious glaring corruption. I mean this is nice, yes, but… I'd be interested in doing a little better than just trying to enforce the most basic rules which should be expected in a decent human society.
You're right. We won't give a fuck. We can't focus. Not because we're stupid, but we've got to much to worry about in our daily lives to pay attention to every nuance of who gave what to who (and then work out what to do about it). And telling us that the corporations are completely fucking us over isn't going to solve the problem of the corporations fucking us over. We need legislation to prevent the corporations from fucking us over.
I'm no longer satisfied with this "Look, Charles Koch can still shit in your lunch box, but we passed a law preventing David Koch from eating your kids" legislation shit. Yeah, thanks guys… I guess. When I voted for you to represent my interests, I was hoping for a little something more than that.
And telling us that the corporations are completely fucking us over isn't going to solve the problem of the corporations fucking us over. We need legislation to prevent the corporations from fucking us over.
I'd upfist you a thousand times if that were possible.
amen and AMEN brother…fuck these corporate whores with the biggest dildo that adolescent Chinese slaves can produce behind their barbed-wire 'factories'…and I'm perpetually drunk, also…too
well, we do bring it up b ut no one listens to me and my small group of angry Dems here in Maryland
Are they like all the people I know who say, "It doesn't matter what party you vote for, they're both the same," even when you provide them with a written list a mile long proving that they're not the same?
NOOOO- we are the ones who say (and work towards) DEFEAT every Republican. we are angry that other people don't vote and don't care-people in our group worked in other states during the Obama election because Maryland was a sure thing. We worked during the mid terms too- but we are a small group. At least we kept Montgomery County Maryland Democratic.
If they don't listen to you in Maryland, can you imagine how much they listen to me in Oklahoma? It's not that people stuck their heads up their asses, or anything–in this part of the country, they're born that way and the idiots never manage to pull them out.
Exactly.
The whole world knew – including the pre-2009 populist right – that a huge part of the problem with American politics was the amount of corporate money flowing into it.
What did America do to solve this problem? Unlimted corporate money.
Bad bad bad bad bad.
Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others, blah, blah, blah, but, BUT, 30 years of only-occasionally-braked Reaganism-Friedmanism-Lafferism have nearly – well, maybe fully – ruined this country.
Keep in mind that the Democrats – DLC-types – rolled right to recover power. They adopted a good-sized slice of the faux-libertarian tripe spewed by the Right. That didn't help, no.
And here we finally lie, after 30 years of wriggling in our own excrement.
Yeah, we've moved well away form this being a democracy.
Or perhaps, as Hillary Clinton calls it, this is just a "well managed" democracy.
And Democrats refuse to even stand up for the shit they voted for. Why vote for a lameass Republican Democrat when you can vote for a real Republican?
Because the only ones saying it are the ones not being sponsored by mega-corporations, i.e. Amy Goodman, Thom Hartmann, etc., who are relegated to things like channel 9415 on Dish Network instead of channel 200 on CNN.
Look, just require that corporations hold a vote of the shareholders each and every time they spend any money on political speech. I do that, as a person, when I make up my mind to speak. (OK, except when I'm drunk. Then it's like Charlie Sheen is CEO).
To be snark free for a bit, and quite drunk to boot: We're fucked. Herbert has seen where the road we are on leads. Inequality and desperation is going to rip this country apart, in time.
Yeah, but look at it this way. Without Herbert, the decision of whether or not to venture behind the Times' new pay wall becomes a lot easier.
Was this a problematic decision before?
Well, yes, if you wanted to read Herbert, Krugman and the always amusing Gail Colling each twice a week for a total of 24 articles, the non-paying limit being 20.
What about Krugman?
Sounds like he's leaving to spend more time with his shotgun.
Anyhoo, after having just watched "Inside Job" I should have known better than to check Wonkette for late night inspiration from Mr. Layne.
We're fucked.
Late night inspiration from wonkette never worked for me either, although I have moderate success with labialounge.tumblr.com
America's playing musical deck chairs, and Herbert was among a dwindling few who knew the tune.
Bon voyage, Bob, and bon chance…
What's that I hear? The dulcet strains of "Nearer My God to Thee"? Yeah, that's it.
I love Bob Herbert but today, I hope everything he says in his column is wrong. It's OK when I have the same thoughts because I can just say to myself "Oh, you're making too big a deal out of this. Don't be such a drama queen. Everything's going to be fine. Obama's going to fix it all and your kids are going to have a great life."
But when I see those doubts on paper, it's much harder to escape the realization that we are totally fucked.
So thank you Bob Herbert and good-bye. I hope your last column is 100-percent wrong.
I still have the belief that the American people – who are, frankly, quite amazing – will get the fuck over all this soon and new-feudalism won't be the end result.
You know…if Wisconsin is any indication and the tens of thousands who came out to protest an obvious injustice, you may actually be right. Let's just hope "the voice of the people" is greater than that of corporations and the Scalias of the world.
Ok, what scares me?
It doesn't matter that thousands upon thousands of people came out and protested in Wisconsin. That doesn't matter.
What matters is getting greasy, evil fucks elected, and that takes money. Where does the money come from in a society where almost all the money resides in the top 1%? I'm a math expert, so I reckon I know the answer.
The difference I want to see is people waking up and saying "hey, this guy ran a slick campaign but actually, really, he's trying to fuck everyone, including me, on the premise that the super-rich are job creators"
Is that an impossible dream? Fuck's sake. I think it might be. When people don't understand the difference between personal tax (that top 2% thing) and corporate tax then there's something very wrong with basic understanding of how a capitalist system is supposed to work.
This drives me mad because I know how it works. I live it. However, I have that rare thing called a "social conscience" so that I'll pay more fucking tax to live in a society which doesn't suck monkey balls.
When you're super-rich you can live in a society which really does suck monkey balls because you're in a guarded compound and poors can't get near you.
Neo-feudalism, Tea Party and Libertarianism is thy name.
People don't understand taxation or the responsibilities involved in living in a democratic community because they're undereducated. Each and every day the Republicans make a concerted effort to see that their numbers increase — and the stupidity of those already undereducated skyrockets. They're closing schools and libraries, crushing PBS and NPR, encouraging people to eat poorly and too much, and dumbing down entertainment for a reason.
Few people in this country under the age of 50 ever studied either economics or civics in public high schools. Ask anyone under the age of 30 to explain the concept of cause and effect to you; the vast majority cannot. But most people can tell you who won the Super Bowl, what Charlie Sheen's favorite word is, where the cheapest beer is sold, and they can coherently debate the merits of various sleep aids. The only thing most of these people would revolt over is an increase in their cable bills.
You get sharper with each post. We do have to get to work in the elections game. That's the only way we reverse this.
To reiterate what I commented above: the Law is going into effect. Because the Fitzgerald Gang is the Law. Learned that from Dear Old Dad, Headcracker with the Chicago PD during the '68 convention.
Seriously, too, I wonder why Fitz pere left the Big Shoulders to become sheriff in Podunk, Sconsin. My money is & always will be on an Internal Affairs investigation (that was closed assuming he left the force).
I hope the column is wrong, too. But it's just the same stuff I've been ranting about for years, so that means I'd have to be 100% wrong. Which is fine by me, but I'm not, and your not, and he's not wrong. So moar antidepressants, please, while I can afford them. Or alcohol. Oh, I know where there's some alcohol. Gotta run! Bye!
It happened before and (almost) happened again. It took the Great Depression to realign and reeducate our country. All we have to do is let the Republicans have their way. They will drive the economy into a ditch, start a world war, and then we can have it back.
Or, there are drugs and booze.
You know, these things *do* come in threes. Dr. Krugman's next.
Fuck the NYT.
Sorry, but I changed the paper's name yesterday. It's now the New York Times-Nepotist.
So, this means they're going to bring back Judith Miller?
I Am the Very Model of a Democratic President
With apologies to Gilbert & Sullivan, authors of I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General
I’m having major problems working out my foreign policy:
My allies are unable to respect my clever repartee;
My country seems upset I bow to every potentate I see;
My enemies seem not content with my constant apology.
I dither and I hesitate for everything’s a quandary,
Until I get pushed in a corner by my dear friend Hillary,
Who teamed up with a rabid Bonaparte with surname Sarkozy,
And forced me to engage in war with Muammar al-Gaddafi.
By knowing absolutely nothing in relation to defense,
I gather coalitions of unwilling states when wars commence;
In matters that determine where our military men are sent,
I am the very model of a Democratic president.
thebardofmurdock.blogspot.com
Upon reading the rest of your wingnut poetry, you may politely go fuck yourself.
How about "with apologies" to Wonkette instead?
It's Murdoch, you stupid cunt. That's who you perform for. Remember?
Good Morning Viet Nam! Costa Rica every one?
Why else do I watch House Hunters International??
Pick me up a six-pack of teenaged hookers while you're down there. The ones in my freezer are no fun.
Isn't that where Rush plays with his pool boys?
Stay on the Caribe side. The Pacific coast is full of American and Canadian Freedumbs …
Americans have never learned the art of the General Strike. They never will, either.
Practice makes perfect eh? March 3 general strike in the US, May 1 globally.
Another art we've never learned is when to pull out. Which is why there are children everywhere who look just like us.
That's because the countries that have learned the art of General Strike are no larger than, say, the NFC North. So a General Strike means more there. The very thought of a General Strike across 50 American states is absurd, for so many cultural, historical and economic reasons.
It is sad day when a civil war sounds like an improvement over the current state of this country.
God, I sound like a Teabagger.
I'll let you know how the teabaggers sound after Thursday's protest.
Bob Herbert’s Last NYT Column: America Has ‘Lost Its Way Entirely’
Also: Bob Herbert’s Last NYT Column: The NYT Has ‘Lost Its Way Entirely’
Jesus will arrive soon to save the day! He will ride a chariot of gold, swoop down to pick up Palin and Bachmann, slay the evil-doers, and all will live happily ever after in that big Walmart in the sky, earning ten dollars an hour, with all the manna you can eat (Nacho Cheese flavored)!
Sounds like a minimum wage. Jeebus won't like that.
I thought he rode dinosaurs?
The smartest president ever:
http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac...
Good job there, blaming Obama for something that is the fault of the evil murdering fuckheads of the NRA.
Thanks, Soros. You just saved me from clicking that. I haven't quite developed an aversion response to VaqueroSexual yet.
I accidentally upfisted her yesterday cuz I thought it was sheriff roscoe. fool me once, can't get fooled again, etc.
I don't see any stupid there. He's either lying, in which case he's smart, or he wasn't informed on this project, which means he wasn't informed. At least he didn't say he didn't know what his foreign policy was.
So now Krugman is the only decent writer left on the Times' opinion page; and I'm worried he'll be gone soon too, and it will end up just as bad as the Washington Post's.
oooh maybe they will have a pundit contest! Sharpening up my bow-tie now…
That would be sweet. Go for it Crank – for the good of Wonkette and our overall sanity.
Dr. Crank Tango serves as the managing director of the Donna Summers Institute of Curd Studies. Widely recognized for both his rapier wit and his rapier bow-tie, Dr. Tango joins our editorial staff with his debut essay, "Dance Lessons: What I Learned From Wisconsin." His most recent book is "Cheese, Disco, Life"
I think my first article will be something about why these kids today wear their pants so low and how it is contributing to unrest in the middle east, and cogito ergo sum, high gas prices and a loss of freedums.
edit: also rapier than ben rothliswhatever, also.
It's about gal-durn time someone connected the dorts betwixt low hanging pants and the cost adjusted price-earnings ratio for extractive industrial products in South Asian markets over the medium term!!11!!1
Crank, save yourself some typing and just submit Bob Herbert's column. The other people at the Times probably didn't read it.
Fuck, even our rainbows are gonna be in black-n-white
/ snark off
As BarackMyWorld said, "Murica has a conservative party and a reactionary party. Over the last 10 years they have allowed income inequality to reach the most obscene levels ever seen in this country while at the same time both parties have allowed the gun nutz to totally pervert the 2nd Amendment.
Any police officer or member of the National Guard with any sense should be clearly aware that they soon may have to do like the loyalist forces are doing in Yemen, Syria, Jordan, and Libya and be involved in the wholesale slaughter of their too well-armed and too angry to care fellow citizens.
/ snark on
The NYT IT dept, like the WSJ's IT dept., is too stupid to keep the vault intact. The Grey Lady's Great Wall will be a sieve.
Re: sieve. Does it matter if it's a sieve or the Imperial Palace if you don't care what's on the inside?
Hey, I got an idea: reinstate the draft… only for people who own guns.
That's Gun Control, commieperson.
Nahh, it's just a REALLY well-regulated militia.
There is already a bookmarklet out that gets you past the pay wall.
How is it possible to spend $40-50 MILLION on some internet code.
Hey, NYT, I'd have done it myself for half that.
Haven't tried it, but might as well give it a go tomorrow:
http://www.rightnowintech.com/2011/03/get-around-...
If people think it's not worth paying for they don't have to read it.
But for all its imperfections the Times is the only real newspaper we have left, and the Teabaggers and Koch Bros. of the world are probably rooting hardest for it to go under.
Maybe a website or blog could have done the story about GE's taxes – but none of them did. Rich and Herbert are big shoes to fill and that's kind of the point – it's hard to think of many writers anywhere else about whom that can be said.
Maybe he can get his own tab over at the Washington Post. "Colored"?
I think Eugene Robinson is their token colored person. Can't have too many at one paper or the white folks will think they're working at Ebony or Jet.
I need my soma.
What Bob Herbert doesn't understand, and why the NYT is right to let him go so there'll be more room for the Douchehats of the world, is that Jeebus loves us because we're fat, loud, self-righteous, kiss-up and kick-down spoiled children with persecution complexes, who love to fight wars with people as long as we've got them hopelessly outgunned in the not-at-all childish belief that someday we will have killed all the terrorists and other losers who fail to appreciate our moral superiority, living the good life in our gated community having made millions from our wildly successful business while paying no taxes to run the schools, hospitals etc that they let undesirables and Negroes into. So let Bob Herbert go somewhere like Canada where he can carp that America isn't the bestest ever, and good riddance.
Depressingly well-said.
Grey Lady is, you know, grey.
It isn't the hair so much as the Alzheimer's and Osteoporosis, well, that and the broken hearing aids.
For the first time since my own, personal nightmare began, I am now officially glad I have Stage-IV terminal cancer. I'd rather die this horrible death than be forced to witness Emperor Koch dissolve the Senate and use his Death Star to obliterate Madison. I hope all these teabagging Kochsucking motherfuckers get exactly what they've been begging their masters for. They had better just pray the deal doesn't get altered any further.
THE REVOLUTION WILL BE AVAILABLE ON PAY-PER-VIEW, apparently.
Here's hoping you have the strength to bear your ordeal, and that the pain isn't too great. But the way things are heading, and not just in WI, I see exactly what you mean.
AK, I'm saddened by your situation, and can only say that we on this board are with you through this electronic miracle of the Internet, and wish that we could do more. I know that, as I reach an age where the actuarial tables begin to be turned on me, I understand too that I won't see how this mess comes out. The grandkids (8) have to deal with the crap we've left them and that is weighing heavily on my mind. My thoughts are with you.
Damn. Things will get better. AKbum, you get better.
AKbum, the Gorillionaire also has one of them there untreatable terminal illnesses (idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis) and I have had similar thoughts about the future. I do still on occassion look at the Wonkette and laugh my ass off and think that there will be a few smart and smart-assed folks who will actually find better lives ahead though.
/snark off/ Thanks, all. Seriously and very much /snark on/
I'll remember that when these fuckers cut my medicaid and food stamps and I end up literally starving to death. USA! USA! USA!
maybe we can start a hobo bean co-op?
I should think we could use our collective buying power to get good rates on hobo beans, gin, weed and buttsecks…
Don't forget the trucknutz. Don't we still need them?
You, also, are in my thoughts. Take care of yourself. Have as much fun as you can.
When Chucky Koch dies, I hope Ken Layne isn't the only one to write an honest obituary. (See also: Ken Layne on Jesse Helms, from AOL (I think) Politics.)
But, I know he &/or Steuf will be the only ones speaking truth. At least David Broder won't be one of the many on the other side extolling the Petrolarchy. ("Some say Charles Koch was a maleficent agent of wealth-aggregation among the most miniscule few, while others lament his legacy of giving* will not continue…)
*Giving to causes that could well perpetuate his diseased body. (&, anyway, by the social Darwinist theories that the otherwise Darwin-hating Right espouses, shouldn't Chucky be allowed to die from prostate cancer? Survival of the fittest, & all: genes trump cash.)
AK, I'm keeping you in my thoughts.
Republicans must think Oliver Twist is a comedy, they laugh and laugh at the conditions the disgusting riff-raff endure until the ruffians pick their pockets. And when the boy asks the Master – "Please sir, may I have some more?" they turn up their lips and wish to kick a puppy at such pathetic, undignified need.
Bootstraps fellows, charity is only given by the Christians and philanthropy applied by the corporations.
[No snark] CNN had a report this week about a restaurant owner in Anaheim who makes free dinners for 300 children six nights a week. His mother, Caterina, visited from Italy and was appalled at the huge number of children in wealthy Orange County who are being raised in motels. She found out that hundreds of them have no dinner at home and only get decent food in school. She encouraged her son Bruno, who owns a restaurant called (absurdly) The White House, to feed the kids. He now cooks nightly for about 300 who are collected from the motels by the Boys and Girls Clubs. "Fresh food," he said proudly, "not left-overs." He said he finds it tragic that so many kids in his community "should have to live in motels with drug dealers and prostitutes" and is doing what he can to feed them. He calls his effort The Caterina Club. It was an amazing story and very moving — such poverty right in the middle of one of the wealthiest counties in the U.S. We know it exists, but seldom do we see it up close — skinny kids jumping up and down with joy over a healthy meal within a stone's throw of Disneyland. It makes me so angry that he should have to do this — why do we have a government? Oh, yeah, I forgot — to make sure the rich have enough money to over-eat at The White House, then go to a spa to work it off.
Also government bombs brown people for us. Which, you know, we could never do for ourselves because they are so far away. Amen.
On a brighter note, ammunition manufacture, bunker building, and meals-ready-to-eat preparation are expected to be growth industries. I am wondering what the oligarchy battle flag is going to look like and whether it will be as revered 150 years later as the Stars and Bars are in the South.
Here's your United Oligary [sic] of 'Merica fucking flag:
A General Strike has been called for the US on March 31. The idea is, don;t go to work and don;t buy anything corporate…gas, big stores, nothing. A General Strike has been called globally for May 1. Same deal. The only way for the majority to reign in the rabid minority at this point is to say NO in no uncertain terms. I hope you will join in! There is a FaceBook page about the US strike at
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=14773955861...
Good riddance to this guy. I only wish I was a stockholder in whatever demonic force owns the Times so I could benefit from impending windfall that begins Monday morning. Billions of people will pay for the privilege of pulling their hair out over the crap that today passes for "all the news that's fit to print".
At least my people are marchng in the streets today. I just watched "Made in Dagenham" on the plane coming back from LA last night and suggest you all do the same, apart from the fact that there are some scenes of my home town, Eastbourne, that made me homesick, it is a wonderful story of how a few women went on strike and crippled Ford Motors. It can be done, people.
You must've been flying private. No US American common-carrier airline would show that kind of seditious incitement to disrespect for the deserving wealthy.
First class in American-they give you one of those little persona movie players I used mileage not wealth
Of course. Just wanted to brand you and elitist, in the spirit of the post.
Sorry, the combo of jet-lag and proud union membership made me snippy!
It's being done in Wisconsin, at least.
Downloading now.
Enlightenment speaks for itself.
See you on the other side.
SnowBilly Grifter = New symbol of American Upward Mobility
YUPPIGs
Young, upwardly-mobile grifters.
No class Warfare…
AND the symbol of New American Logic: a governor who quit her job being paid to extoll the virtues of her contributions to government, a teenage mother being paid to extoll the virtues of celibacy, and both of them "writing" books they barely have the intelligence to read.
Through the Looking Glass, amirite?
A General Strike has been called for the US on March 31. The idea is, don;t go to work and don;t buy anything corporate…gas, big stores, nothing. A General Strike has been called globally for May 1. Same deal. The only way for the majority to reign in the rabid minority at this point is to say NO in no uncertain terms. I hope you will join in!
Those who seldom venture to the NYT business pages might find it a good use of 1/20th of your allotment to read Joe Nocera's screed today about a guy who went to jail because his mortgage broker lied on an application to Angelo Mozillo, who of course is still at liberty and obscenely wealthy.
The [jailbird's] film, “Running the Sahara,” was released in the fall of 2008. Eventually, it caught the attention of Robert W. Nordlander, a special agent for the Internal Revenue Service. As Mr. Nordlander later told the grand jury, “Being the special agent that I am, I was wondering, how does a guy train for this because most people have to work from nine to five and it’s very difficult to train for this part-time.” (He also told the grand jurors that sometimes, when he sees somebody driving a Ferrari, he’ll check to see if they make enough money to afford it. When I called Mr. Nordlander and others at the IRS to ask whether this was an appropriate way to choose subjects for criminal tax investigations, my questions were met with a stone wall of silence.)
Nocera, who bitch-slaps Mozillo pretty good in the piece, is moving to op-ed, probably because the business page isn't happy with writers who deliver anything but tongue-baths to the rich. Incidentally, it's a much better deal to get the dead-tree format Times three days a week for $20/month. You get full on-line access, plus their Web ap which is pretty cool. Also lots of ads for $8,000 watches, should you be in the market for such baubles.
Hot tip:
Large type edition addressed to the local retirement/nursing home, plenty of people there love to read. $42.50 a quarter or year or something.
all web access, no dead trees, and you've done a mitzva.
(It's been over five years since my dear departed mother died, but that large type edition in her name shows up every week at the nursing home.)
No snark: I really love people like you.
Also no snark; riverside wins the internet this morning (so far).
Joe Nocera is perhaps America's last journalist who actually works for a big paper. He's a hero. Google his report on the Home Depot stockholders meeting a few years back. Legendary.
Good article indeed. No one would mix Nocera up w/Lou Dobbs.________________________________________
U.S. of America is truly Ekseptional. We have conventions of 'home schoolers"…Fuck yeah.
No Bob Herbert. No Frank Rich. I've got an idea: get rid of Krugman, and they can flip the paywall inside out: They'd have to pay me $20 a month to read Ross Douhat, Maureen Dowd, and the other douchenozzles that remain. Add a few more "Fresh Conservative Voices" and it will cost them a clean $50 spot for me to even consider reading their new sinus infection of an opinion section.
Douthat? Dowd? The NY Times op-ed is turning into the Arcade Fire of opinion: trust-fund babies all the time.
The Times lost all credibility, completely and forever, with the Judith Miller case and that was like, 2002 or 3. I am amazed that they continue to exist.
Here is the one thing that gives me hope in the middle of all of our fuckedness: We were fucked in November of 2000. Really, it doesn't get more fucked than that. A retarded alcoholic with bad intent had been elected President fraudulently and there wasn't a damn thing anybody could do about it. And yet, the rivers still flow and the green grasses grow.
It always get darkest right before it gets completely black.
Yes, that was the beginning of the end. Alcoholic, I could accept, even retarded, but to have this relentlessly mediocre character raised to the highest office of the land, in the country with the greatest potential for good the world has ever seen, was almost too much to bear.
Speaking of retarded, there are right-wing bloggers today sneering that Obama is getting us bogged down in a never-ending war with no clear objective, <o>as Democrats through history have done.
What's really fucked is that 25% of the population prefers a dumbass cheerleader born with a silver spoon up his nose to a serious student who's mother was on foodstamps(TheAmericanDream), because they don't like the idea that a black man could be smarter than themselves…
And buttsex for all.
Jeffrey Immelt, I presume?
Gee, no GE.
New York Times: "None of the News That's Fit to Print"
As opposed to our Wonkette which more like the Illini Tumor – an outgrowth of the student body:
All the News That Fits We Print
Amen!
The original Rolling Stone slogan was "All the News that Fits"
They're doing the paywall thing again? That worked out so well for them last time.
And this time the only readable editorial writer is Krugman and perhaps, Nocera. Oh well, I hope this is a ripping success for them, but if Krugman departs, fuck'em.
Thank God I married a Colombian immigrant who is savvy about navigating third world economies. That's MY financial planning, suckas! Eat it, Talk to Chuck! More Like Hable Con Fidel!
"When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth…"
Somebody get this damn fool a history book, or at least advise him on the vacuity of hyperbole.
Upfist because I thought the same thing.
To be fair, the Roman Empire didn't have an arsenal of nuclear weapons nor a fleet of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.
We're all dowded now.
Watching the Conservative Principles PAC on C-SPAN this morning and the pres of Citizens United is extolling the virtues of the CU case that led to republicans winning in '10. Bob Herbert is right and I've got to go back to my shrink to address these masochistic tendencies.
OT Geradine Ferraro just died.
She's actually still alive. Her husband just claimed she was dead to collect the life insurance.
Thanks, I always wondered what she would have been like with a different husband.
RIP
Great, another feminist spirit the Alaskunt can expropriate.
& Ferraro will be loving that.
Let us not forget this Guinea was so put off by a black man being the Democratic nominee, that she refused to say if she would be supporting the Obama/Biden ticket over Mc Cain/Palin.
My Italian-American grandfather, who never voted GOP in his life (& he was a WWII vet & business grad from Marquette (GI Bill)), would be ashamed. Is ashamed (as he's still kicking). Hell, my grandfather voted for Mc Govern! Yet, this entitled Guidette skank from Queens shoots her mouth off that Obama was privileged to be a black man in America!
OT, but I wonder where "Guinea" as an ethnic slur against Italians came from, given that Guinea is the name of a coupla three countries in Africa as well as the old informal name for the region of West Africa?
America has been fucked since January 20, 1981.
History, bitches…
Hear, hear. You are correct. That was the knockout blow. It takes something as big as the USA a long time to actually fall all the way to the canvas. I have been saying what you posted for about 25 years. Nobody wanted to hear it. Within a couple of years from now, it will be commonly understood and accepted, as the post mortem work is done on the corpse that is the USA. But understanding will come way, way, too late to do any good.
I would submit that November 22, 1963, is when it began.
I was sixteen. I have never cried as long as hard in all my 63 years. For four days the only time I wasn't crying was when I was asleep. And didn't the Age of Aquarius turn into a big, fucking bust? What a fucking joke my Baby Boomer generation has turned out to be.
Pfft… It's not like Libya will actually be a war. I mean, Obama himself said this would be en extremely limited conflict not to be escalated.
Oh, right. He's a fucking liar:
"Even after a week of U.S.-led air strikes, forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi are a potent threat to civilians, say Pentagon officials who are considering expanding the firepower and airborne surveillance systems in the military campaign." (AP)
Ever the optimist, I'll imagine things get better, but still feel that at some point soon, even the pacifists in this county will begin stockpiling rubber bullets.
WTF good are rubber bullets? Unfortunately, I will probably be moving to Florida soon, and I am buying me an AK. Until I can afford something better anyway.
Where's Neillist when you need him?
Yep. Just took my son for his first excursion to an army surplus store. About the only "surplus" there were ammunition boxes and socks. But lots of pretty guns and assault rifles. This was my favorite<a/>.
Well since he spent his career as one of 7 or so black guys working at the Times, I can well understand his bitter bitter bitterness. He comes off as rather angry too. Why couldn't he have thanked America for affirmative action and been done with it? Hopefully that Chris Rock vehicle he left his job to write will take off, or he'll end up ghostwriting the Shirley Sherrod biography "I HAVE SINCE REVISED MY VIEW OF WHITE FOLKS."
The depressing part is if Repukes win just 4 Senate seats out of 23, then they will ram their Greedhead agenda down our throats…
I think you meant farther down our throats.
As far as angry resignation letters to your boss go, this gets a C+. Where are the complaints about the nonfunctional hand dryers in the bathroom? Where are the accusations that David Brooks finger-banged your wife at the holiday party?
It's supposed to be all about YOU, not our failing empire.
And the boss's jokes were all stupid, Mr. Herbert only laughed to be polite.
David Brooks is a pussy and the only fingering he'll be doing at the holiday party will be with his iPad.
But he'll be smirking while he does it! Doesn't that count for something? Hmmm?
Have I mentioned that we are freakin' doomed?
Break out the Sapphire martinis…
Or perhaps something spiritual, gospel even by a pair of troubadours on Nixon's Enemies List.
Thank you for that. Sweet memories, indeed!
Nearly haiku – excellent.
The economy is shit
Leaders are absent
Alcohol for everyone
Oh Ken, Ken, Ken. What am I going to do with you? You've been reading fan fiction written by Brits again, haven't you? Where else would you have picked up "all THE sudden" if not there? That's the only place I've ever encountered it. (I edit the crap out of that stuff because somebody has to.) Just to set you straight, it's "all OF A sudden." Yes, I know if you sayitfast it can sound like what you wrote, but then, that's how wars get started, isn't it? Well, they used to, back when we were more civilized.
I have never said "All the sudden'" honest. My pet peeve is"off of" as in 'I get off of the bus" drives me smooth around the bend.
When our 'foreign aid' consists of giving money to dictators specifically to buy our weapons…….and then we have to go bomb them eventually because they are dicks like GaDaffy?
yea, we are fucked.
That there writerman is slanderizin' my 'Murika. We got Pole Dancing for Jesus and Extreme Nacho Doritos. What's not to love?
So who's going to fill his shoes? I hear Condoleeza Rice is available.
The Gray Lady = nobody's MILF.
If I were a Captain Of Industry, I'd be nervously tapping my foot every time a budget riot breaks out in England or anywhere else. Like Robert Plant said, "Your time is gonna come".
Re the new war, it was the thing to do regardless of our sorry situation.
We don't have a single leader who hasn't made some extreme moral compromises to get to where they are at. You don't get to any position of power without going through the vetting system of the wealthy elite (the Ivy League schools, the media buttsecksing your private life).
I hope we don't have to have a revolution, but I do like the 10% vs the 90% odds.
I've always thought my Columbia University education was a vetting system for a leftist revolution. But I see your point about the jackasses at Harvard and Princeton.
Exactly. I got there in the fall of '68 – from a very conservative suburb of Milwaukee. Took a while, but I eventually got my head fixed. Now I'm hoping our daughter will be accepted for this fall; her head's just fine.
Elm Grove? Union Grove? Tosa?
Maybe. I'm always worried about a school where you can pluck a goon like Mikheil Saakashvili out of to run your puppet state.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against these schools or saying that they produce reactionaries or anything, I'm just saying that sections of them certainly are part of the American Empire leadership mill – at home and abroad.
I'm talking specifically about Columbia College. I don't think the graduate schools provide the same kind of formative experience.
Hey, I went to Columbia too. Fucking leetust Ivy League.
But… some of my best friends went to Columbia!
No, I don't have anything against the schools or its students. Necessarily.
It is just that i highly suspect (suspect being the operative word) that there are parts of them that part of your application is a NSA/FBI background check.
Not totally related, but somewhat — I learned this, found it entirely weird: I knew someone who worked at a Smithsonian – found out that Institutions like the Smithsonian scattered around the country require some kind of federal background checks to work there (including asking former employers, co-workers if you have any "anti-american" sentiments). Even, I believe, at the lowest levels.
So I learned of this, then found out a certain presidents daughter, needing a job, was put into one of these museums for work. Then I sort of realized that there are these elitist "safe-houses" scattered around the country, where everyone who goes in and out is completely vetted, and they sort of act as places safe from "anti-American" sentiment and protest where the elite and their families can be plugged in and can be sure to not be hassled or threatened.
I'm probably reading too much into this (and may not have much of it right even), but I just found it to be an interesting aspect of Royal America.
Get a grip and ignore the trolls. Bail out on the '12 elections? Meet your
sock puppet President, with a hairy Koch arm up her/his butt.
I'm already to work on the my Musln Overlord's reelection- plus the Repukelican infighting should help.
What's the point of being in the top 5% if you can't keep concubines, deaf-mute dwarves and eunuchs? I, for one, miss the Ottoman Empire.
All in good time. All in good time.
The Bachmann sponsored HB1092 – the "Helping Americans Own Deaf Dwarves and Eunchs Act of 2011" is pushing its way through committee now.
I believe it's been renamed "Creating Jobs for Disabled Americans Act of 2011."
I popped on C-Span a few hours ago and saw ole Crazy Eyes warming up the crowd for Steve King (R-Analwart).
As "thrilling" as this all is… WHAT DO WE DO?!?!???
We need Wonkette in real life. Somehow. And then do something.
This was not helpful, I realize.
Spent all day thinking something very much along the lines of your comment.
Help us, Obi-wan-Kelayne, you're our only hope.
I know what I'm gonna do. Drink more.
A Wonkette Groupon for bulk purchases of hobo beans?
Training courses on how to survive the trip by cattle car to Sarah Palin's Alaskan detention camps?
Wonkette hand gun training and trips to the firing range?
I think we're all probably down for whatever. I've had all I can stands and I can't stands no more. Our country is in the toilet, our leaders are vain elitist nitwits who call us "they", and the rest of us are completely atomized. We've got to do something from the ground up or we really will all have to move to Canada. And, I don't know about anyone else but I say fuck that. Really. It's cold and they have a leaf on their flag.
Somebody go to town and get a shitload of 150$ imported steaks, and we'll have a boose party right here in the old barn! Whadaya say kids!
Obama needs to be more like Reagan. When he found out GE wasn't paying tax, Reagan got pissed and closed the fucking loophole they were using. Overton Window doesn't cover this shit. Through The Fucking Looking Glass might cover it though.
This is the most bitter pill to swallow about the whole thing, that REAGAN for Christ's sake, wouldn't let GE get away with it. Hopey's making Reagan look like a progressive.
Meanwhile, Obama hires the CEO.
Did you ever, in your wildest, most pot and booze filled dreams, ever visualize the day you would think longingly back to days of the old fuckhead who started this shit in the first place? That the pawn of the capitalists would be a progressive compared to the Democrats of 2011? Ever?
Dystopian nightmare is an overused term, especially in Hollywood and shit, but really–can anyone think of a better term for a USA completely controlled by an oligarchy consisting of multi-national corporations? At least in the 18th. Century they still had hope.
Kudos to Bob Herbert.
It appears even the Commienadians are losing interest in the Pagan rituals of Gaia:
http://edmonton.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/2...
Due to the Lamestream Media, I was not even aware of this event before I read about it on Die Wonkette. I am so ashamed I ran my basement supercooled supercollider this evening. Not even one Higgs Boson particle appeared to support my interpretation of the Standard Model and and that energy spent. The horror! The horror!
I know the feeling–the bastards!
Look, if you want to get shit done, you need to get organized. This means… you need a fucking COMMUNITY ORGANIZER. Organize the pissed-off people into groups (call them 'committees' or 'soviets' or fuckin 'granfalloons' for all the difference it makes). Set goals and work toward them. People with nothing much to lose get desperate, and if you don't find them before the brownshirts recruit them, you have two problems: one, you don't get your toaster or your congratulatory lapel pin, and two, the bad guys win. Now, where can we find someone with some experience as a fucking community organizer?
I'm with you, 4. But the community organizer doesn't seem to have a clue about realpolitik.
America's precarious situation can only end with the spilling of blood. Either we eradicate our corporate masters and their uneducated guardians or the nations that hold a financial stake in the United States' debt certainly will. And I honestly think that a considerable amount of the population would simply roll out the red carpet.
I often think of James Burke's narration about the fall of Rome – "Better the conquerors you didn't know than the tax collectors you did."
Depends: If our new overlords are to be Indian, then I am this close to rolling out the saffron carpet. Chinese ones, on the other hand, would just pretty much suck.
Indians, please. More Buddhism, less Budweiser!
Chinese, natch. More Taoism, less filling.
Bob Herbert is 66 — this is a fine time for him to retire, and it is hyperbole to declare the end of the world due to his moving on. I hope he has a great retirement, just like his great career. On the bright side, it will now be impossible for Herbert to turn into David Broder.
Glass half-full much?
See you all in Canada.
Maybe the British won after all.
What Bob Herbert really lacked was a mustache of understanding.
We upset. Term "eating pussy" rejected by Wonkette. But Cheetah wish list of monkeys he like to fuck now including Megyn Kelly and Mrs. Clarence Thomas accepted. Tarzan confused, Cheetah aggravated, Palin on phone with lawyer
Tarzan, Cheetah & Palin, attys at law
Better than booze:
http://www.stonekettle.com/2011/03/america-you-ke...
Yeah, yeah, I could've tilted with HTML and given it some cool alt text. Except that's too much work because I'm an HTML retard.
No, sorry, not better than booze cuz that's what I sound like on booze. (Or boose, as the camper would say.) But blingees could help! Or drugs.
Oh, come on. Nothing's better than booze. Nice article, though.
Thanks for that. Why do you hate America?
Holy crap, dude. Pretty freakin awesome!
Wait, doesn't everybody hate the MBA's?
Bob Herbert and Frank Rich leaving the Times completely hollows out the editorial page. Except for Krugman and Gail Collins. I love Gail Collins. I would have her babies.
38 Whatever did an informal twitter poll asking who should replace the departing giants. Ezra Klein, Glen Greenwold and two women I should probably be hip to (but duh, have not read) were the top nominees. The NYT should hire all 4 of them, just to balance out David Oatmeal and Ross Iseriouslydoubthat.
"David Oatmeal." Again with the oatmeal-insulting?
Digby, please.
Frank Rich, too? I saw him with Stephen Sondheim in Tulsa, just the two of them, Rich asking Sondheim questions about the theater. It was the wittiest, most sophisticated evening I've ever spent, and I was just sitting in seat at a small basketball arena, watching and listening. Frank Rich was as personable as he appears on television.
I love Frank Rich. And Steve, of course.
i'm reminded of a quote from my favorite novel, War and Peace. ehem. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…"
Exactly, although it doesn't appear events are rushin', heads will roll, Poncho. Members of the Wonketteriate are already knitting scarves.
SOOO OT, but it's the weekend, so where else could I post. SO IT'S NOT MY FAULT! I AM THE VICTIM HERE. And yeah, I drink. Anyway, gotta love all the scare quotes and misspellings in this article.
[b]Japan loosing it’s fishing industry due to radiation in the Pacific[/b]
LOL, that's good, but more follows.
"Newport and West coast dogs reported to be acting strange in the wake of the recent Tsunami
… local dog owners point to recent “crazy reactions” by their pets after returning to run on the Newport area beaches [i]after almost two weeks of being kept off the coast[/i] due to recent Tsunami warnings and massive amounts of “questionable” debris that may be from Japan."
Maybe they missed the beach? NO!!111! ITS THE RADIO THINGIE BRAIN KILLER RAYS!!11!1!! http://www.examiner.com/outdoor-living-in-eugene/...
Spacemonster bless me, I hope I got the coding right on this post. If not, who cares. I'm passing out soon and won't remember. Also, too.
Oh, no, coding FAIL. At least the bar is still open (as well as the radioactive steam release from Fukushima #2 reactor….)
The little bell just sounded in my head. The Times goes to pay per view. It needs readers with money. Liberals have far less money than the ultra-conservative lunatic fringe. Ergo, those further to the left, i.e. Rich and Herbert, are not writers those with wingtard money would pay to read. Got it.
Rumor is that the Grey Lady will be enforcing a new dress code to keep up with the WaPoo & HuffPoo. A somewhat different take on tinfoil hats.
Getting back to the Great Wall approach to flogging news, here is a WSJ behind the wall article on Debtor's Prison 2011. It'll be just the dickens when the states bring back workhouses.
Canada ?
Sorry , also about to be fucked . Creepy ' Shark Eyes ' Harper – barely able to conceal agenda of health care privatization , religious school enablement , abortion limiting , corporate tax abolition – is about to get a majority government .
Has already signed agreement with USA to share cross border troop movements in event of 'national emergencies ' , so when your revolution breaks out expect standard 'Mountie' encounters ( " stand back from the vehicle sir while I recharge my Tazer ' )
Canada ?
Is our Wonkette morphing from a WarBlog to a ClassWarBlog? If so, count me in!
Ah, cheer up kids! Zombie Jeebus is coming to rapture up all the gullibles on May 21!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110103/ap_on_re/us_r...
Dear Mr President,
We absolutely cannot educate our children. If they get an education, then the military will not be their ONLY chance to live in something other than a rat infested tree house.
Education… Boo Hiss Boohoo Hissssssss. No more money for education.
Hugs,
Republitards
Don't tell Natl Decency Commdr, because he worries about me, but I hate the Republicans, dead, alive and in a coma more than I did yesterday and less than I will tomorrow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuqHlv1YPe0
I'm going to take a different angle, here, and say that it's good to see Bob finally come around, or at least so publically, because from what I've seen of him on Morning Joe, he's been your typical courtisan paying bullshit deference to "both sides" – no matter how illegitimate the other – for years.
I hate that only at the end do these men and women find the courage to publically voice awesome and righteous indigination.
I shall return. But I have to say that it is extremely — nay, prohibitively — unlikely that you will turn out to be the biggest cunt I've ever met.
You both sound way too reasonable to be cunts. My time in the business world almost changed my views, luckily my Mom, liberal democrat that she was kept me on track.
Upon reflection in my later years the people I worked with in business were some of the most self-serving bastards I have ever met. And I continue to make a conscious choice to not follow their lead.
That's a little hard to expain, some peope think it is a snobbish term against the working-class, but it's generally a teen or early adult who is very fashion conscious , wears designer or fake designer clothes and is a bit of a yob, the Situation would be a chav , or the bridge and tunnel crowd in NYC, Jersey boys, that sort of thing.
Thanks.
Croydon facelifts FTW!
Lauren Cooper!
Ali G!
The Streets & Lady Sovereign are pipping up to say they, too, are Chavs.
They'll take any publicity they can get at this point.
Un-ironic burberry scarves not purchased at Goodwill!
Branch 47, National Association of Letter Carriers 1974-1978. The union makes us strong. Until my harridan ex-wife threw it away, I used to have my father’s Teamsters badge.
Is it true they want to do away with the Union Jack and just call it the Jack?
Wel, I'm glad she's an ex. I adore the teamsters, they are the best
I await the continuation of this discussion with great interest.
Sure we do! I guess I figured we already had them.
So what am I (Operating Engineers), chopped tofu?
We do? Goddamnit where did I put those things.
Hmmm Operating Engineers sound pretty sexy. I'm Screen Actors Guild, Actors Equity and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists…actors are so stupid we can't mange to just have one union and have it be strong, we have to have 3 weak ones.
…consarn it!
You nearly got taken to the dark side? Do tell.
For me, the worst, most shitty people I've met have been the ones with the fantastic educations attempting to climb the corporate ladder – and they will.
Starting and making a company work is hard. Being a fucking weasel and getting up on someone else's shoulders is easier.
From my personal experience, the creators are liberal and the coat-tail riders are republican (and human) filth.
I'd love to think it wasn't deliberate, but I'm almost certain it is. The uneducated and ignorant populace is the easily manipulated populace.
Bread and circuses? FOX and 2.5 men.
People in general aren't really interested in learning. That would take effort. However, some outlets exist which may educate by the back door (NPR). Those are getting fucked over.
When I compare the level of education in the UK (which is obviously where I'm from) with the US, I wonder how the fuck the US gets so fucking arrogant about its place in the world.
I had some fine food in that town last fall, also, too.
sounds just loverly!
I'm in. Though I'm not nearly as fun IRL without the ability to edit.
Or we can put on a show! Betty's grandma has some old clothes in the attic . . . etc.
If it's a reference to the AC/DC song of the same name & suggesting the austerity measures of Etonian David Cameron are like VD, then I approve.
Were you in A Fish Called Wanda? Let's just say you were, whot?
As if I needed another reason to be madly in love with you. *sigh*
No sorry, but there are a couple of Law and Order episodes out there , unfortunately Ithey do not involve me having sex with self-effacing barristers , and a couple of Broadway shows that get shown on PBS every once in a while
Always pegged you more of the Kline type rather than a Cleesian.
My dream man, other than MrLimeyLizzie, is Robert Capa <a href="http://.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Capa.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Capa<br />
natch.
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