Wednesday at home.

Back at home after a little gallop through the addresses of my life. Fort Wayne, Columbus, then back up I-75, a chunk of it with Kate at the wheel. We spun through the Ohio State area on the pretense of a college visit. As usual, the whole place seemed to be under construction. As long as I lived in Columbus, the OSU campus was under some sort of construction. That’s good, I guess — a place needs to grow, and living in the land that progress forgot, sometimes it’s easy to forget that. But there’s nothing like a few orange plastic fences to make you say, “Eh, well, that’s the place right over there. You think you might want to go here, we’ll make a formal visit later.”

We went to Magnolia Thunderpussy, a record store, aka the Place That Could Not Be Named in the Columbus Dispatch. Every time the football team had a big win or loss, reporters would head down to High Street to interview business owners. If you chatted up the clerks or managers there, the copy desk always changed the name of the business to “a High Street record store.”

Good times.

Kate got a Sublime CD, a Wavves LP, and I got a De La Soul CD. And then the mother/daughter team trundled out for Sally’s Hillbilly Cheeseburger.

I will say this: Columbus looks like a thrive-o-polis. The Tea Party should stop disparaging government, because show me a place where government is the foundation of the economy, and I’ll show you a place where things aren’t so bad. At least better than, say, Fort Wayne, where all my old landmarks are now spouting weeds and FOR LEASE and AVAILABLE signs. The cheese and onion enchiladas at La Margarita are still the platonic ideal, however, so there’s that. To be sure, it’s not so much that things are collapsing as changing — Dupont Road and West Jefferson seem to be hanging in there.

Alex lives closer to Dupont, and we spent some time wondering when the real estate wave would reach the shores of his little sliver of a lake, which has the advantage of being a little sliver, which means no ski boats, which — to me, anyway — spells D-E-S-I-R-A-B-L-E.

And that was my long weekend. The next two days I plan to exercise without worrying about when I get home, clean closets and then heading to Stratford for some theatuh.

You?

Bloggage:

Olympic swimming fanfic. Wonderful.

Friend-of-NN.c Laura Lippman has a new book out. Here’s how she came up with the main character.

Why, Fareed Zakaria, why? Why?

Vacation continues. I’m enjoying it.

Posted at 12:25 am in Same ol' same ol', Uncategorized |
 

135 responses to “Wednesday at home.”

  1. Dexter said on August 15, 2012 at 1:38 am

    We finally found a way for someone to dog-sit my Labbie and Jack Russell Terrier so we can head straight south a few hours on this coming Saturday and attend a baseball game at Cincinnati’s Great American Ballpark. It’ll be fun as the Cubs are in town. For all the hundreds of games I have seen…no MLB games since the Sunday before 9-11 for me.

    Having a kid and grandkid in Columbus means we are there a lot. While this little city I live in is losing businesses and almost all the industry except the lollipop factory and the huge industrial tire plant have left years ago, Columbus is always thriving, it seems to the visitor.
    We had our pre-enrollment visit in 1995 at the OSU main campus and the damn place was under construction then, too…and seemingly for the four years daughter Vanessa attended there for u-grad studies. I just got used to it.
    I used to hate Columbus for many reasons but I have mellowed.
    Now I reserve my hatred for the horrible parking situation for big concerts and events at The Schottenstein Center.

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  2. MarkH said on August 15, 2012 at 2:10 am

    Magnolia Thunderpussy still exists? Complete with the aviator bespectacled and headphoned cat on the sign?? That makes over 40 years that I know of. And I thought the Agora would outlast everything on High Street.

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  3. MarkH said on August 15, 2012 at 2:43 am

    …or Larry’s Bar, which I just saw had closed two years ago. Another classic, one of the best OSU campus bars, transcending generations, gone.

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  4. Sherri said on August 15, 2012 at 3:22 am

    I’m in Ashland for the week for theatah, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We’re being gluttons, seeing 9 plays during our stay. Favorites we’ve seen so far are All The Way, a new play about LBJ’s first year in office, and Animal Crackers, based loosely on the Marx Brothers movie. Romeo and Juliet was well done with an interesting setting (1840s Alta California) which worked quite well, but you’re still stuck with Romeo and Juliet at the end and all that teenage angst. Looking forward especially to seeing Henry V, to complete the three year cycle of the Henriad.

    If it would just cool down about 10 degrees, everything would be perfect.

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  5. beb said on August 15, 2012 at 8:31 am

    Atrois had an interesting comment about the Fareed Zakaria situation. He noted that in these plagiarism cases, after the first charge people have a habit of looking through everything else that person wrote with s fine tooth comb looking for fleas – I mean other hints of plagiarism. It becomes like a pile-on, a feeding frenzy making a bad situation into something unforgivable.

    And speaking of media hype, apparently the media is not as into Paul Ryan as they were supposed to be. They keep asking embarrassing about that “zombie-eyed granny-killer” (yes, we all read Charly Pierce) about why he wants to kill granny. Things are looking so bleak for the empty suit that is W. M. Romney that the swift-boats have been unleashed. According to this Yahoo news feature a group of former special ops people have formed an association that claims Obama is taking credit for something he didn’t do, i.e., killing bin Laden.
    http://news.yahoo.com/special-ops-group-attacks-obama-over-bin-laden-011757844.html
    They even have a 22 minute documentary proving it. 22 minutes… exactly the amount of time available in a half-hour tv show. How convenient (also a swiped quote).

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  6. brian stouder said on August 15, 2012 at 9:26 am

    With regard to the killing of bin Laden, the Republigoon-squad can say anything they want; but I will always, always remember reading a news article (might have been a by-lined national news story from the NY Times? Reprinted in our local paper) sometime during the second term of President Bush, that made me angry. It detailed how President Bush had dismantled the CIA office tasked with finding/killing bin Laden; the administration had explicitly removed that as a goal, and specifically de-funded the special efforts to find him.

    And when the new president took office, he (President Obama) specifically made finding/killing bin Laden a top priority, and specifically funded and staffed-up the effort to get him; they put lots of assets into that specific effort; and when the high-risk opportunity finally arose, the new president rose to the occasion, and shouldered the political risk, and made the decision to green-light the strike that killed bin Laden.

    President Obama would have owned it completely if it had gone wrong, just as he rightly owns the success. I realize the R’s wanna say “You didn’t build that” – and of course the president didn’t do it alone. As with any successful leader, he organized, prioritized, orchestrated and enabled the success to happen, and he kept a steady nerve when events came to him, and his efforts – along with the coordinated efforts of many other dedicated people – were crowned with success. The Republigoons that want to say otherwise can go straight to hell, for all I care. (Maybe their baloney story will be better when it is coal-fired, eh?)

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  7. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 15, 2012 at 9:38 am

    The only thing I miss about my son’s youth soccer days was standing, often as the only male, along the sidelines eavesdropping whether by design or accident. It was an education. Apparently, I was either invisible, or deemed harmless.

    (Re: Laura’s link, if you haven’t read it.) Sorry I missed you, Nance, but it’s been a lively last few days!

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  8. Colleen said on August 15, 2012 at 10:01 am

    I miss Columbus. I would move back there in a heartbeat. Is the Blue Danube still there?

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  9. nancy said on August 15, 2012 at 10:22 am

    Didn’t go that far north on High, Colleen, but Google Street View says it’s still there, still open, and still in need of service on its neon. Part of the charm.

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  10. Connie said on August 15, 2012 at 10:40 am

    I think the ongoing construction on college campuses is ubiquitous. I drove through East Lansing last fall and my old dorm had no windows, just big openings.

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  11. MarkH said on August 15, 2012 at 10:47 am

    The Blue Dube is still there, Colleen. They have a facebook page.

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  12. Dorothy said on August 15, 2012 at 11:21 am

    I’m jealous Connie had a chance to use the word “ubiquitous” in a comment. I love that word! Note to self: use little-seen words more often in comments. Makes you look like a helluva brainiac!

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  13. Joe K said on August 15, 2012 at 11:31 am

    This guy is a heart beat away from president? Disgusting!http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-0815-20120815,0,1133578.column
    If a republican said this, or said North Carolina when he was in Virginia, the left would be screaming like a 12yr old girl.
    Pilot Joe

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  14. Connie said on August 15, 2012 at 11:36 am

    Dorothy, plus I managed to spell it right on the first try!

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  15. brian stouder said on August 15, 2012 at 11:54 am

    Well, Joe – as you and I both know (since we’re both fathers of daughters) – when my oldest daughter was a 12 year old girl she didn’t scream about much, but if she screamed about anything, she’d have my undivided attention!

    As for Biden – was his reference to “chains” a dog-whistle?

    I agree – it was. And at the end of the day, I’ll also agree that demonizing one’s political opponents is best avoided.

    For example, you might agree that all these dog-whistles about “the food stamp president” and about “ending work requirements for welfare” are unnecessarily divisive, yes?

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  16. Prospero said on August 15, 2012 at 11:59 am

    I thought “ubiquitous ” had been retired back in the ’80s when it was reserved solely for use in describing Phil Collins.

    I really find it hilarious when the current GOPers have to ignore the Raygunistas. David Stockman says Ayn Ryan is full of shinola, and implies that the whole “job creator” thing is mythology. This is kind of like 900-foot Jesus appearing to Pat Robertson and telling him he got the Bible all wrong.

    I don’t know, Joe. Seems as if RMoney got away with contradicting decades of reality and US foreign policy when he was in Israel and said the capital, as far as he was concerned, is Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv. And Kass is not credible in any context. He’s a self-made version of Mike Barnacle, a sad thing to be. Finding race in Biden’s (somewhat ridiculous) comment is a willful stretch. What Biden should have said, with more historical accuracy in his analogy, would have had to do with serfs and feudal lords, or millworkers forced to shop at the company store. More Anglo-Saxon, right? And how disgusting was that comment?

    For pure dogwhistle, it’s difficult to beat Willard Windsock’s accusation of “envy and anger” directed toward the President of the United States of America. It’s extremely more obvious the whitebread bastard is talking about the anti-colonial Kenyan usurper than that Biden meant anything about slavery. As for Willard, I guess his feeling that everyone envies him has been gestating for decades. It’s an inherent aspect of what is wrong with him, borderline personality disorder, which convinced him he was entitled to attack a schoolmate with a pair of scissors. I’d like to have his cash, so I could spend huge amounts ruining him politically, but other than that, I see nothing about him to envy.

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  17. alex said on August 15, 2012 at 12:08 pm

    The Republicans — and Kass — are going to laughable lengths to find fault with anything the Democrats say or do.

    So what if Biden was dog-whistling, Brian? What he said is hardly equivalent to the “food stamp president” and other patently offensive and false things being said by Republicans.

    Joe, if you want to say nya-nya to liberals you should at least pick a smarter columnist making valid criticisms and not these alarmist phonies who are screaming like four-year-old girls.

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  18. Danny said on August 15, 2012 at 12:13 pm

    Summary of next bunch of posts rebutting Joe K.: Yeah, but…

    1. Aw gee, it’s the lovable Joe Biden, that rascal.
    2. It’s kinda true what he said.
    3. It’s all the Republicans’ fault anyway.

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  19. coozledad said on August 15, 2012 at 12:19 pm

    Who the fuck is Romney? His whole campaign is based on “I am not that man you say that I am simply because I said and did the things I said I did,so hold it right there and stop saying I said the thing I said, because it fills me with metastatic ass-hurt”

    Biden simply said that Romney would repeal Dodd-Frank, and let banks steal the shit that’s left after their last big round of thefts.

    Yes Romney said it, yes he’s a thief, and yes he will fuck up America. Joe Biden has shat things with more character than either of the fucking golems on the Republican ticket.

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  20. coozledad said on August 15, 2012 at 12:24 pm

    Every Republican argument is reducible to “Ow my ass hurts because preznit is black!” Every goddamn one. If a Republican had nailed OBL you’d all be humming him nonstop. Especially if he’d waltzed across a carrier deck showing you his cods. Freaks.

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  21. Laura Lippman said on August 15, 2012 at 12:27 pm

    Thanks for the shout-out. I’m on the road for the first time since 2009, but primarily on the two coasts, although I do go to Tulsa and Oxford, Miss. It would have been nice to return to Ann Arbor.

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  22. Prospero said on August 15, 2012 at 12:28 pm

    RMoney is the astoundingly dishonest crybaby prick who denies his Goober-natorial experience, runs on his experience at the money-laundering Bain Capital (whose clients were Salvadoran death squads), then squeals like a piggy when anybody mentions what Bain and Willard did to people. Way to take responsibility Windsock. That’s so presidential.

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  23. Prospero said on August 15, 2012 at 12:32 pm

    Oxford makes sense, though I think Faulkner is less coherent than James Joyce at his most stoned, but Tulsa?

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  24. Bob (not Greene) said on August 15, 2012 at 12:47 pm

    David Frum says the Washington Post accusation about Zakaria is bullshit

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/14/plagiarism.html

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  25. Prospero said on August 15, 2012 at 12:53 pm

    Joe and Danny,

    What was RMoney surrogate goon Sununu talking about not long ago when he said he wished President Obama would “learn to be more American”? That one seems to have slipped everyone’s mind.

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  26. coozledad said on August 15, 2012 at 12:56 pm

    What is it about Republican draft dodgers and naval craft anyway?
    Is it the phallocentric allure of the heavy guns? A reminder of their core Alfred Thayer Mahanesque imperial fantasies?
    Or is it all just theater for wattled killderps and guardians of the chicken bucket?

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  27. Joe K said on August 15, 2012 at 12:59 pm

    Alex, Pro, Cooz you all just proved my point. Danny has it figured out. Attack the Messenger, ignore ol Joe Biden, Kass is a ass, blame Bush, the republicans are all racist. It’s the response I figured it would be.
    Pilot Joe

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  28. jcburns said on August 15, 2012 at 1:03 pm

    Nance, I just wish the Scioto Trail was still around.

    People of the world, unite, you have nothing to lose but Fox News freaking out about chains.

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  29. coozledad said on August 15, 2012 at 1:04 pm

    The Republicans are racist, Joe.
    And Romney is alright with dishing shit out, but simply can’t take it. Emblematic of the pack of losers and thieves who selected him. Cowards to the bone.

    Oh, and Joe, you have no point. Your “points” are the agglutinated swill of talk radio deviants and Rupert Murdoch’s ballwashers.

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  30. Bob (not Greene) said on August 15, 2012 at 1:04 pm

    Joe,

    I don’t think anyone’s ignoring Joe Biden. I think what people are saying is they don’t care. These are the rules of the fight that Republicans have laid down since 2008. Quite frankly, the Dems should have starting doing this sooner, since it seems to resonate with the yahoo voting public. All of a sudden the Dems are giving the GOP a dose of their own medicine and they’re crying like babies. Classic bullies. I’m not outraged, Joe, at all. I’m laughing.

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  31. Prospero said on August 15, 2012 at 1:12 pm

    If a republican said this, or said North Carolina when he was in Virginia, the left would be screaming like a 12yr old girl.

    You said that, Joe. I merely pointed out with an example how this is decidedly not true.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/romney-campaign-tripped-by-bidens-chains/2012/08/14/2e599fba-e64f-11e1-8741-940e3f6dbf48_blog.html

    I don’t remember any Dems getting the vapors when the certifiably insane Allen West spouted this shit:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/02/allen-west-president-obama-wants-americans-to-be-his-slave_n_1643769.html

    Was that the race card, because apparently I don’t know it when I hear it?

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  32. Prospero said on August 15, 2012 at 1:20 pm

    Please fill in the blanks with examples.

    1. Aw gee, it’s the lovable Joe Biden, that rascal:

    2. It’s kinda true what he said:

    3. It’s all the Republicans’ fault anyway:

    Bullshit.

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  33. coozledad said on August 15, 2012 at 1:27 pm

    Danny and Joe are different types of preliterates. Like many engineers, Danny finds the English language a mysterious impediment, and can’t give proper shape to the beasts of his conscience.
    Joe’s beasts speak earnestly, in fartbubbles.

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  34. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 15, 2012 at 1:38 pm

    Laura @#21, you’ll get a warm welcome at “Reader’s Garden” in Granville, Ohio any time — those coasts, meh. Come to the heartland! We read here, honest.

    Coozledad, as close as we’ll ever come to agreeing: check out (if you haven’t already) Chris Hedges & Joe Sacco’s “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt.” I think he massively overestimates the goodwill and intentions of most of the “Occupy” encampments, but some days you take your hope where you can get it. The book, which reads well on an e-reader, is a mash-up of on the scene journalistic interview & analysis with graphic novel sensibilities. For graphic novel fans, there’s probably not enough graphic content, but it leavens the grim narrative well, while increasing the impact of the injustice they’re trying to interpret to us. Starts at Pine Ridge, rambles through a post-Whitman Camden NJ, and winds down paths that come close to almost anyone on this blog by the end, wherever you are.

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  35. Joe K said on August 15, 2012 at 1:38 pm

    You can not sit there and tell me with a straight face that if Ryan said the same thing Biden said, you would not be calling for his head. I don’t care what color the president is, it has nothing to do with the way I feel the way he is governing. This election is going to come down to one question. Do you believe we should be a intitalment country, thinking government is going to take care of us. Or do you think we should go the other way. Pretty simple. I personally wouldn’t let Obama balance my check book let alone keep spending us into oblivian. Most on this blog screamed bloody murder about the republicans spending, yet this president has spent more than all others combined and you don’t see a problem? How and the hell are we going to pay for all the spending? If Obama got his wish and taxed the rich like he wants, the money it would take in would last 8 freaking days. Hope and change my ass, we are still in 2 wars unemployment is over 8% more like 15% the debt is out of control, did we forget about closing Guantanamo bay? I payed close to 4 bucks a gallon for gas today, and av gas has doubled out east it is almost $10 a gallon. I told my liberal leaning brother after the last election that I really hoped in 4 yrs I could vote for Obama, but he is just like all the rest, whatever to get elected and the hell with anyone else.
    About the the only thing left to say to othe whole world is BLOW ME!!
    Pilot Joe

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  36. Little Bird said on August 15, 2012 at 1:51 pm

    Why not tax the rich? They can afford it. Why should the burden always be on those who can least bear it?

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  37. Danny said on August 15, 2012 at 2:00 pm

    Derrick and Prospero/caliban/michaelj assailing my concise, but prescient post… that’s rich. I’ve sometimes thought to chide you two for poor reading comprehension, but perhaps writing comprehension may be more to blame since you seem to be arguing with what you wrote yourselves. Quixote much?

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  38. coozledad said on August 15, 2012 at 2:03 pm

    Wow. The party of village idiots is all cranky-pantsy.
    I thought it was just the white nationalists here in North Central North Carolina and the prolapsed asshole of Virginia who couldn’t speak two sentences without descending into fist-shaking, spluttering rage over “that black-un”.

    Y’all ought to watch eating that hormone-hopped fried chicken. Shit’s gonna give you an aneurysm.

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  39. jcburns said on August 15, 2012 at 2:03 pm

    So Joe, you’re voting for, uh, Romney? Excited about him, are you? Or do you just nonspecifically hate Obama?

    As for taxes, Little Bird @36 really summed it up beautifully.

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  40. coozledad said on August 15, 2012 at 2:13 pm

    Danny, if I spent half as much time kissing my own ass as much as you kiss yours, they’d have to put me in a back brace. One of the first things they teach you in those English classes with all the hippie girls and the instructor with the leather arm patches, is Don’t write like the unreliable narrator from a Nabokov novel when you are trying to persuade readers that you are not an asshole.

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  41. Danny said on August 15, 2012 at 2:23 pm

    I know you are, but what am I?

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  42. Dorothy said on August 15, 2012 at 2:26 pm

    To Ms. Lippmann – I think I’ve plugged her store before, but just in case you missed it – if you’re in Georgia try to stop by my niece Janet’s store, Avid Bookshop, in Athens, home of the Georgia Bulldogs. Her store is a thriving independent and she’d be honored to have you.

    Little Bird if it were only that simple…it’s a mystery to me as well.

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  43. brian stouder said on August 15, 2012 at 2:29 pm

    I met that woman in Ms Lippman’s superb (and somewhat troubling!) collection of short stories, a few Christmases ago. I will certainly snap up her new book.

    And in other business –

    Joe expressed this vision of the 2012 election –

    This election is going to come down to one question. Do you believe we should be an entitlement country, thinking government is going to take care of us. Or do you think we should go the other way.

    And I agree with him completely. Romney embraced this sort of “Hope and Change” – change back to ‘every man for himself’ and ‘I don’t care about the safety net’ – when he selected Representative Ryan. Ryan is randy for Ayn Rand, and has expressed (in the past) fairly straight-forwardly his disdain for government programs, and his adoration for people who are extremely wealthy (by whatever means; nobody in the Rand crowd asks a rich person “How?”, but only “How much?”).

    This despite that he always always always voted FOR President Bush’s unfunded wars and unfunded prescription benefits, and the tax cuts.

    And let us not forget that Ryan himself directly (and rightfully, too) benefited from Social Security survivor benefits – not even means-tested, as a rich kid such as him would otherwise NOT get the bennies – when his dad passed away, and went to college.

    Joe is right; the election will come down to whether the “I got mine” (by whatever means) crowd outnumbers the rest of us, or not.

    A question for Joe (et al) would be – what IS the proper role of our government (‘of the people, by the people, for the people’) be? Is public education a mis-application of government? (lots of employers would disagree with that idea, as would I) Is fighting hunger in America a misapplication? (the farmers who benefit from that USDA program would disagree with that idea, as would I) If someone shows up at the emergency room and has no insurance, should that person be ejected from the building and allowed to die in the street? Do we need government meddling in air traffic control? Do we need a huge standing army (those Second Amendment supporters ought to join the National Guard – aka “the well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state”, and we can disband the professional military, right?)

    The 2012 election will be partly decided by these sorts of foundational questions. If the election is won by Romney, so be it; I’ll be disappointed, but the message will be clear. Similarly, if President Obama is re-elected, the general question you pose will have been rejected, yet again. I’ll go so far as to say – this is not necessarily a “good” thing or a “bad” thing; this is what elections are about. (although in my opinion, a Romney election would be a catastrophe; still – if that’s what my dis-satisfied fellow citizens want, then they shall have it, I suppose)

    To be honest, I think – and I will bet a 44 ounce icy cold Diet Pepsi on this – that Joe’s ‘referendum’ notion is absolutely correct, and that this will cost the Republicans contnrol of the House of Represenatives

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  44. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 15, 2012 at 2:38 pm

    Danny, you’re expected to swear more and use violent scatological imagery if you expect to be taken seriously in political discourse around here. Which is why I’ve given up, mostly. But I have a recipe for shepherd’s pie I’m trying with lots of white pepper & paprika if anyone is interested. And an apple-cranberry pie for afters!

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  45. alex said on August 15, 2012 at 2:41 pm

    yet this president has spent more than all others combined and you don’t see a problem?

    I do see a problem, Joe. The problem is that you’ve been misinformed and you’re acting on a premise that is completely false.

    This president has not spent more than all others combined. In fact his spending is dwarfed by that of his Republican predecessor, the one who wrecked the economy and bailed out the banks, which is another thing I believe you’ve been blaming Obama for because you don’t listen to real news.

    But, hey, you’re not alone. There are a lot of Republicans who hate Obama not because he’s black but because they’ve been deceived by their own party into believing all kinds of lies and they, like you, go around repeating them as if they were indisputable facts.

    Yes, I see something very wrong with that. Christians — the real kind, anyway — call it bearing false witness.

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  46. Prospero said on August 15, 2012 at 2:42 pm

    Danny.

    I didn’t resort at all to any of the laughable predictions you made. If you think that’s not so, please explain. As to comprehension, yours @37 is decidedly incomprehensible.

    If you want to claim prescience, you need to show where anything at all you predicted came true. Perhaps it did in your mind, but if that’s so, the comprehension problem is yours. And it used to be that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel. Now it’s spouting outright racism and defending yourself with the “race card” nonsense. Racism is so deeply rooted in the GOP since ’68, it is inculcated to the point of being essential to every GOPer policy and pronouncement. But the most knee-jerk of GOPers should be willing to admit that talking about the “food-stamp President” and claiming that Obama is “gutting” welfare reform are appeals to dogass racism. That’s a fact. By the way, more Americans were enrolled in food stamp programs while Shrub was President than under Obama. And the state welfare waivers were an invention of GOP Goober-nors, including Mittens. So flat out lies in dogwhistle terms can’t be called out for the racist drivel they are because that is “playing the race card”? Bullshit.

    Oh, and when a GOPer talks about entitlement, he means, giving black people stuff they don’t deserve because they are, after all, black people. This is Lee Atwater garbage and whether y’all like it or not, Republicans own it.

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  47. Joe K said on August 15, 2012 at 2:58 pm

    I still propose the question, explain how we pay for all of this?
    Lil bird I did 30 yrs in a factory makeing dang good money, people would tell me all the time that I was overpayed, my response was to ask them why they didn’t apply like I did for the job. The response was always the same. ” I could never work in a factory!” we’ll guess what. You don’t get paid like I do then. So what your saying is Since I am doing the hard work and makeing more money than you do because you don’t want to do the job iam doing I should give you part of my pay? That’s the part I don’t get make the rich pay more. Why? Dang near half the country doesn’t pay income tax, why not make it a flat tax and everyone pay the same percent?
    Pilot Joe

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  48. coozledad said on August 15, 2012 at 3:02 pm

    Violent scatalogical imagery is what makes English the motherfucker of a language it is. To paraphrase some Borges that I smoked too much dope to remember with any precision, English circumvents causality and can get you from the seat of your automobile to fucking on the roof in a matter of about four words. At least it did that before the Victorians got hold of Shakespeare and cut off his nuts. And then there’s the euphemisitic class of Americans who have nine hundred misnomers for ass-wiping paper because they prefer to spend all that energy pretending they don’t wipe theirs.
    And that euphemist’s creed is where the corruption begins to overtake the language, until you wind up with “liberal” as a perjorative, and “conservative” changing from the defender of the existing political order to “bible flogging torture porn enthusiast”. The stench of authoritarianism is always evident in the language of such people, and they don’t even realize it’s a warning bell to those who understand just how many of their fellow citizens would willingly herd them into the chambers for the crime of naughtiness.

    And I propose this thread be christened the Republican butt-hurt thread, because it’s obviously the predominant theme here.
    Sheesh. Just wait till Obama gets that nonentity Romney in the debates.
    And speaking of debates, Biden’s going to spatter the walls with that fratboy’s hair.

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  49. Jeff Borden said on August 15, 2012 at 3:09 pm

    It’s always a rich comic buffet when Republicans get a taste of their own medicine. Poor dears. A party that has depicted its opponents and its followers –you know, people like me– in the most despicable terms for years suddenly gets its fee-fees hurt because mean Joe Biden said something nasty about them?

    A party that questioned the patriotism of those who saw that Iraq was a giant cock-up in the making? A party that smiled gleefully as the U.S. stopped following the Geneva Conventions and embraced torture? A party that wiped its lily white ass on the Constitution? A party that seeks victory by denying the vote to those citizens who might oppose it? A party that demonizes the poor, the non-white, the women, the immigrants and the educated?

    Fuck the Republican Party. You cannot say enough nasty things about it. Biden is a wimp compared to what I would say about this collection of idiots, crackpots, power junkies, lotion boys and racists.

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  50. Danny said on August 15, 2012 at 3:14 pm

    Derrick, stop. You’re embarrassing Mom in front her her important friends like Laura.

    Mom, he’s LOOKING AT ME!!!

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  51. coozledad said on August 15, 2012 at 3:16 pm

    Dang near half the country doesn’t pay income tax
    Racist dogwhistle is racist.

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  52. Bowditch said on August 15, 2012 at 3:22 pm

    And, now, for something completely different: Olympic commentary befitting Irish sensibilities, or what NBC might have been.

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  53. Sherri said on August 15, 2012 at 3:26 pm

    It’s not our healthcare they come for, it’s our Costco! http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/08/12/bc-bellingham-costco-canadians.html

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  54. coozledad said on August 15, 2012 at 3:28 pm

    Bowditch: Those guys are hilarious. That’s Viper from Hardy Bucks.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn6rwhivEog

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  55. Prospero said on August 15, 2012 at 3:30 pm

    Joe, You didn’t get rich working in that factory. You made a decent living. Somehow, the GOP has convinced people in that situation that they are threatened by reasonable social welfare plans that allegedly Christian politicians want to destroy. The beneficiaries will not be hard-working Americans, they will be the so-called “job creators” that made 30 times more than actual workers back in the 70s and are now up closer to 300%. The abject dishonesty in all of this is stunning. When Ayn Ryan talks about privatizing SS, i.e. creating another profit center for obscenely wealthy robber baron bankers, and switching out Medicare for vouchers that would be too small to help most people and pure gravy for those that don’t really need any help, as well as a huge infusion of cash for insurance companies and their stockholders, he is talking about breaking contracts with Americans that have been paying payroll taxes for decades. He is talking about stealing your money and my money because he can, and because typical Teabangers have allowed themselves to be duped. There is no way this is even legal, and it is, in fact plain to anybody not dazzled by GOPer bullshit, another wedge to lever wealth upward and concentrate it on top. It’s infuriating that people are taken in by this con.

    It’s even more infuriating when a political party that has thoroughly incorporated racism as it’s organizing principle since way back in the 60s thinks it can get away with race-based class warfare by invoking the “race card” defense. Frequently, a Party based upon racism actually says racist stuff, and it is not offensive to call their asses out on it. Closest thing to this “race card” bullying is the NRA saying talking about banning assault weapons in the wake of mass murder by assault weapons is disrespectful to the dead, who are dead because of NRA demagoguery and anti small d democratic principles.

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  56. Jolene said on August 15, 2012 at 3:40 pm

    Danny, what are you getting out of referring to Cooz by his real name? Obviously, some people here use their real names, and others prefer an alternative. Sounds as if you’re mocking him–trying to pick a playground fight.

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  57. Sue said on August 15, 2012 at 3:41 pm

    I would throw some profanity in here but I just don’t have the knack, dammit.

    http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3505 :

    Another Way of Looking at Who Pays No Federal Income Tax

    A separate TPC analysis categorized people who do not owe federal income tax in 2011 in a different way.* It found that of the filers who don’t owe federal income tax for 2011:

    50 percent are in this category because their incomes are so low that they are less than the sum of the standard deduction and personal and dependent exemptions for which the household qualifies. As TPC Senior Fellow Roberton Williams has noted, “the basic structure of the income tax simply exempts subsistence levels of income from tax.”** Some 62 percent of the households who will owe no federal income tax in 2011 have incomes under $20,000.
    Another 22 percent do not owe federal income tax because they are elderly people who benefit from tax provisions to aid senior citizens, such as the exemption of Social Security benefits from income tax for beneficiaries who have incomes below $25,000 for single filers and $32,000 for joint filers and the higher standard deduction for the elderly.
    Another 15 percent (of the households who don’t owe federal income tax) don’t owe the tax because they are low-income working families with children who qualify for the child tax credit, the child and dependent care tax credit, and/or the earned income tax credit, and the credit(s) eliminate their income tax liability.***

    * Rachel Johnson, James Nunns, Jeffrey Rohaly, Eric Toder, and Roberton Williams, “Why Some Tax Units Pay No Income Tax”, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, July 2011; and Roberton Williams, “Why Do people Pay No Federal Income Tax” TPC TaxVox, July 27, 2011. For a further discussion of this TPC analysis, see Aviva Aron-Dine, “Trends”, Milken Institute Review, First Quarter 2012, pp. 5-11.
    ** Roberton Williams, “Why Do People Pay No Federal Income Tax?”, TPC TaxVox, July 27, 2011
    *** The remainder of those who do not owe federal income tax, about 13 percent, don’t owe federal income tax because of itemized deductions or other tax benefits.

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  58. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 15, 2012 at 3:48 pm

    Sue, I’m with you. Darn it.

    The subtheme, alongside the politics here, is the enduring question as to whether or not Zola (or Hugo?) was right in saying “Behind every great fortune is a crime.” Mugwump that I am, while my butt hurteth not, I go back and forth on that question. My default mode is that it’s often, maybe even usually true, but I want to judge each case on the merits.

    Anyhow, why did I re-open this laptop? Right, how much ground mustard to mix into the ground beef . . . (skitters off again).

    Update: dummy me. It was Balzac, n’est ce pas.

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  59. Jolene said on August 15, 2012 at 3:48 pm

    Sherri, my family is from North Dakota. A couple of years ago, I was planning a trip back for my niece’s high school graduation and tried to make a hotel reservation in Grand Forks, which is in the neighborhood of 100 miles from the Canadian border. Every room in town was booked because it was Canada Day, a national holiday, and everyone was coming south to shop. Ended up having to get my sister, who has corporate privileges with airlines and hotels, to get me a room.

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  60. coozledad said on August 15, 2012 at 3:51 pm

    Jolene; Danny found my real name when a friend of ours commented on my blog and inadvertently left it. It’s a coup for Danny. A talisman that attests his skills as a junior spy (pretty common feature of Republicans-they view themselves as policemen in waiting). The only reason I use a pseudonym is to keep my crazy-ass sister from finding my blog and then drunk dialing me that I ought to be shot for not hanging out with my white trash family and groovin’ on some colored jokes and why would I break my father’s heart by continuing to live with my wife.
    I’m fast losing interest in concealing my contempt for them, so Danny’s Jimmy Olsen shit doesn’t bother me. It is an indicator of his profound-ass weirdness, though.

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  61. Little Bird said on August 15, 2012 at 3:52 pm

    Once again Joe, you’re missing the point. I’m talking the Romney rich. And actually, yes. I do think you should pay more in taxes if you make more. Do you think you deserve a medal for having been a factory worker?

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  62. Danny said on August 15, 2012 at 3:56 pm

    Jolene, I use his real name because I’ve always thought that “coozledad” is kind of a stupid handle. Plus, this guy comes with his own handy, built-in mnemonic device: You see, “Derrick” is an anagram of the noun “dick” and the verb “err” and the more he posts, the stronger that connection is made… see? Easy-peasy.

    And Jolene, I find it somewhat laughable that that with all of the vitriol, name-calling and race-baiting this a-hole throws around, that you find me using his real name one of the more objectionable things you’ve read in this thread.

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  63. Prospero said on August 15, 2012 at 4:04 pm

    Ryan is randy for Ayn Rand

    Except for that part about taking gubmint money when she’d smoked her lungs.

    And the part about not believing in the existence of a Supreme Being, much less Her Son Jesus.

    And, oh yeah, the part about abortion right up to full term.

    As for Ayn Ryan, the intellectual GOPer, any adult whose hero is John Galt and who believes that Atlas Shrugged presents a coherent philosophy is a severely intellectually and emotionally stunted case of arrested adolescence.

    Most of those people that don’t pay income tax that drive GOPers so loony? Well, they used to, before rich people abetted by the GOP and its union-busting ideologues redistributed the country’s wealth with the immense bulk of it in a small safe at the top. When GOPers start talking about the no tax Lucky Duckies, they sound wistful, like they’d be happy to trade places. Out of touch? by a few million miles.

    Oh, and that 50% figure GOPers toss around as if it’s etched in stone and gilded, in 2005, the number was 32% in 2005 and 47% in 2008. Suggest anything about radical income redistribution? Anybody believe that’s the American way? And all of those people that work pay large amounts in payroll taxes, which Ayn Ryan wants to confiscate to finance additional tax cuts for millionaires. Mittens would say I’m just jealous and angry, but guess again. I’m just disgusted by people buying such regurgitated dreck on such a widespread basis. And I sure as hell pay income tax. I’m trying a RMoney tactic this year with a large gift to my daughter and her husband. Accountant says I have to limit it to $13grand apiece. So how did Mittens give his layabout, shifless kids $100mill apiece?

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  64. Jolene said on August 15, 2012 at 4:04 pm

    Danny, it’s objectionable because it has nothing to do with a point of view. It’s just name-calling. However crude the other comments in this thread might be, they are about something.

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  65. jcburns said on August 15, 2012 at 4:09 pm

    Joe, okay, 17% flat tax. You make $10,000, you pay $1,700. You make $770,000, you pay $130,900 in tax. Seems ‘fair’ by the math, but I’m telling you (and you should sense) that if you’re making 10k, it’s going to be more of a burden to you to lose 1700 of that than it is to lose $130,000 (even though that sounds like a lot) out of $770,000. You’re still getting $639,100! You can buy a lot of whole foods with that. You can pick up several new cars.

    Person who’s only getting $8,300 of that $10,000 is going to have a lot of maxed out things go that much higher–pay more credit card interest just for the necessities of life. When you have less money, the margins are tighter.

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  66. Prospero said on August 15, 2012 at 4:13 pm

    There is no higher irony than a GOP supporter accusing somebody else of race-baiting. Then again, as Willard might say, “They are the champions, my friend.”

    http://www.alternet.org/story/156397/romney_campaign%27s_race-baiting_strategy_could_have_dire_consequences_for_america

    Danny, the name business is childish, like claiming to be a grown-up and holding on to atrocious drivel like Ayn Rand’s books. It’s actually a symptom of infantilism.

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  67. Sue said on August 15, 2012 at 4:15 pm

    Somehow, I would never have guessed that Cooz was a Derrick. I assumed he would have one of those Southern three last names things, that trace the family back to the Civil War, like Harper Faulkner Williams or something.
    Don’t know why. But not Derrick.

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  68. Jolene said on August 15, 2012 at 4:16 pm

    Mitt’s kids aren’t layabouts, Pros. Am not sure of all their occupations, but those I know about reflect their heritage and connections–real estate investment, finance, pro sports management. One is a medical resident, so he is doing some good for humanity.

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  69. Danny said on August 15, 2012 at 4:22 pm

    Danny, it’s objectionable because it has nothing to do with a point of view. It’s just name-calling. However crude the other comments in this thread might be, they are about something.

    Yeah, calling Derrick by his real name is “name-calling” whereas calling me, Joe and every other conservative racist, nazi fuckwits is “about something.” I see your point now that you put it that way.

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  70. coozledad said on August 15, 2012 at 4:30 pm

    It does go back to the Civil War and beyond, Sue, but it’s a relatively simple bog Irish name I share with the guy who played drums with Genesis, and I changed the spelling of my(middle)name to Derek because I prefer that to the idiot spelling my dad insisted on because he actually wanted to name me after a fucking crane. He told me as much, the dumbass.
    Both my maternal and paternal great grandfathers lined up to fight in the Civil War because they thought the aristocrats were going to let them have something to eat if they risked personal annihilation for the institution of slavery.
    All they got was the shit they could steal on the march. They’d be Republicans, these days. They did manage to survive and fuck, hence me and a bunch of other whey-faced, buck-toothed natural born leeches who’ll be stealing Romney’s hard earned inheritance once we get the cancer from smoking or drinking like there’s no fucking tomorrow.

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  71. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 15, 2012 at 4:30 pm

    . . . cinnamon, some maple syrup, stir apples and dried cranberries together, think happy thoughts . . .

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  72. Jolene said on August 15, 2012 at 4:31 pm

    No, calling you a Nazi isn’t about something, but I think the emphasis has been more on what the GOP stands for, and, to me, it is undeniable that the Republican party has not only tolerated but supported people and policies that run counter to achieving social equality.

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  73. Jolene said on August 15, 2012 at 4:35 pm

    Cooz, is there a source for “foozled ad”? Something in literature, perhaps, or did you just make it up?

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  74. coozledad said on August 15, 2012 at 4:39 pm

    Jolene:I had a cat named Sam Beaucoups, who became alternatively Coozle, Sh’coozle, and sometimes Jethro Q. Walrustitty.
    I was his dad. Walrustittydad was too long a handle.

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  75. Sue said on August 15, 2012 at 4:41 pm

    Cooz, the three last names thing was explained to me by my friend Goob, a couple of lifetimes ago when I and my friends met him and his co-workers at a hotel in Italy where we were all trapped because there was unrest in the streets or something and no one could leave. Anyway, every one of those polite and extremely funny Southern boys had three last names and a ridiculous nickname.

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  76. Prospero said on August 15, 2012 at 4:45 pm

    Ayn Ryan You really didn’t build that.

    JC GOPers are dying to institute an entirely regressive tax system, it’s just hard to admit that and get away with it. “My” senator, Jim Demented, has been pushing a national sales tax for a while, the most regressive tax possible. For those that find that difficult to understand, imagine Paris Hilton buying food. Is she going to notice a sales tax on her Cheerios? Is a single mother going to notice the same surcharge on a necessity? Americans don’t believe in regressive taxation. Unfortunately GOPers like Ayn Ryan do.

    Doing real estate when you have $100million of daddy’s money is dabbling, Jolene. I just find the Romney boys vaguely reprehensible. Didn’t really mean anything by it. And as long as the GOP is funded by the Koch Kriminal Konspiracy, Nazi kinda fits the party. And yeah, Joe, for a fact the Kochs are engaged and have been for some time, in overtly criminal relationships with the government of Iran.

    I’d like to say one more thing about the fundagelicdalictment thang as represented by the GOP. All those fools claiming John Galt as the patron saint of their Christianity. I take Christianity seriously, and the idea that hatchet jobs on social programs are consistent with anything Jesus stood for beggars belief. Of course, every person’s religious philosophy is personal, but as a Catholic, I feel Ayn Ryan is an embarrassment to the Church. I am in the process of sending letters to all American Bishops explaining that I expect Ryan to be denied Communion and threatened with excommunication by the fools that pulled the same crap on Kerry in 2004. WWJD? He sure as hell wouldn’t support the current GOP.

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  77. Danny said on August 15, 2012 at 4:58 pm

    Danny and Joe are different types of preliterates. Like many engineers, Danny finds the English language a mysterious impediment, and can’t give proper shape to the beasts of his conscience.
    Joe’s beasts speak earnestly, in fartbubbles.

    Hey, Jolene. That post at 33 is where the name-calling started (and yes it was before I posted to him about anything today). Or was that one of the substantive comments that you would categorize as being “about something?”

    As usual, having you and others act as a willfully ignorant apologists for Derrick is just part of the charm of this place.

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  78. Jeff Borden said on August 15, 2012 at 5:17 pm

    You can call Cooz anything you like. He’s a damned funny man who is outraged at what has been done to this great nation by a political party that never got over losing on the New Deal and has been trying ever since to undo all the progress it made.

    The GOP is a puddle of primordial ooze these days. . .bubbling with toxic gases that stink to high heaven and are poisonous to the national discourse. It is a party devoid of ideas. . .inspiration. . .even basic competence.

    By the way, right-wingers, if a questionable Joe Biden statement on the stump generates such outrage, how did you manage to remain silent when a teabagging superstar, Michele Bachmann, accused Hillary Clinton’s aide of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrating the state department? This is REAL slander with real repercussions, not a stupid political dustup, yet our brave defenders of all that is right and holy sit mute.

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  79. Blue Tongued Warbler said on August 15, 2012 at 5:19 pm

    “…show me a place where government is the foundation of the economy, and I’ll show you a place where things aren’t so bad. ”

    Okay. Uhm. Washington DC?

    Detroit?

    East St. Louis?

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  80. Scout said on August 15, 2012 at 5:29 pm

    God almighty, this thread is seriously starting to piss me off. Who gives a shit what cooz’s real name is? I can certainly tell that he doesn’t. And just because someone uses a favorite pet for an internet handle doesn’t mean they have something to hide, and to try to insinuate otherwise is infantile. By the way, my name is Jeanne Smith. Scout is my cat. That’s all, nothing sinister. Ferfuxake.

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  81. nancy said on August 15, 2012 at 5:30 pm

    Have you been to Washington D.C. lately, Dwight? Place looks like Dubai, there are so many construction cranes swinging around, throwing up condos at a Chinese rate.

    Government isn’t the foundation of the economy in either Detroit or ESL, but nice try. Anyway, the workers in those cities who aren’t hurting are the ones who work for the city, county, state or feds.

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  82. Jolene said on August 15, 2012 at 5:41 pm

    Folks, be sure to check out Google’s home page before the end of the day. They’re commemorating Julia Child’s 100th birthday.

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  83. Prospero said on August 15, 2012 at 5:58 pm

    BTW: Problems in Washington stem more than anything from GOPers stymying loocal government because they see Chocolate City as a natural Democratic Party enclave. The situation of DC is ridiculous. Look what the GOPers did when DC tried to institute sensible gun control laws. They did the will of the jack-booted thugs of the NRA, that’s what.Or maybe you’re like RMoney and think it’s a cultural thing. Not Anglo-Saxon enough. And if the premise weren’t valid, why have GOPers chosen public employees unions as a target for mass deflation of employment figures? When they decided to attack the American economy to damage the President, they went where the relative prosperity is. These treasonous fools display their ulterior motives like Amazonian frogs puffing up ruby-colored throats trying to lure females. As for Detroit, hasn’t the GOPer goober-nor taken over?

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  84. Prospero said on August 15, 2012 at 6:13 pm

    Aqua Buddha loses a few more marbles:

    http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/15/694261/sen-rand-paul-info-wars/

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  85. Danny said on August 15, 2012 at 6:23 pm

    Folks, be sure to check out Google’s home page before the end of the day. They’re commemorating Julia Child’s 100th birthday.

    Translation: I am sorry, Danny. I now see that from reading through the comments in numerical order, it was really {insert objectionable name} who started all the childish name-calling that is a symptom of infantilism today … before you or anyone else even mentioned his real name in any comment.

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  86. Jolene said on August 15, 2012 at 6:44 pm

    Danny, you seem to feel I owe you an apology. In fact, I think you insulted the group by assuming how people would respond to Joe in your first post (@18), befire Cooz said anything at all. But, really, I don’t want to fight w/ you. I thought the way you were addressing Cooz was childish, and I said so. That’s all.

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  87. jcburns said on August 15, 2012 at 6:54 pm

    Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine now says the President staged the Aurora and Sikh Temple shootings. This then, is just a small sampling of the dysfunctional political climate we’re in.

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  88. Rana said on August 15, 2012 at 6:56 pm

    Danny, if you have a substantive response to any of Coozledad’s accusations or characterizations, go for it and post it.

    This “he called me things I didn’t like so I’m going to tease him by referring to him by a name he doesn’t use here” is childish. Didn’t most of us get over the “Ha-ha, so-and-so has a weird middle name!” crap in grade school?

    Right now it looks like you have nothing to debate him with on the merits, and you’ve left the high road with this Derrick thing. This leaves you in the position of trying to out-coozledad Coozledad in the area of flamboyant lyrical profanity and obscene wit – an inherently losing proposition.

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  89. Julie Robinson said on August 15, 2012 at 7:29 pm

    Nice try, jefftmmo. How’d the recipe come out?

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  90. Connie said on August 15, 2012 at 7:41 pm

    Yes, Jefftmmo, how do you do the meat and gravy part of your shepherd’s pie. We usually use leftovers but would love a from scratch recipe that is as tasty as the shepherd’s pie I had in the English pub in Niagara by the Lake.

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  91. Scout said on August 15, 2012 at 7:44 pm

    Personally, I’m opposed to eating shepherds.

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  92. Joe K said on August 15, 2012 at 7:53 pm

    Jburns,
    Rosie odonald and roseann Barr think 9-11 was a inside job.
    Where is the difference?
    Nazi, racisest homo phobe
    Pilot Joe

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  93. Prospero said on August 15, 2012 at 7:56 pm

    Dave Mustaine was too drugged out to remain in Metallica. Hetfield and Ulrich kicked him out for his drug use. He probably spends most of his life in a deep dark K-hole when he isn’t high.

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  94. Bitter Scribe said on August 15, 2012 at 8:16 pm

    Nancy: Ugh. Why’d you have to link to that fan-porn? What’s so “wonderful” about explicit sexual fantasies involving real people who have done nothing to deserve that kind of treatment?

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  95. Danny said on August 15, 2012 at 8:24 pm

    Jolene, the unprovoked childish comment was at 33 and you know it. Moving the goal post back to my rather accurate prediction of the group-think responses we would see here at 18 doesn’t help your case since it wasn’t really provocative unless one considers truth as fight’n words!

    Rana, other than letting you know exactly how much of a total mis-characterization your second paragraph is in regard to the reality here today, I am not sure what sort of substantive response one could have to Derrick’s bullshit? I mean, when he is stating incessantly that we are all a bunch of racists who hate the president because he is black and then he further invokes images of the gas chambers at #48, are these the type of substantive things which you would call upon us to debate about with Mr. High Road? These questions are farther afield of the norm than “when did you stop beating your wife?” and there is no response needed to such foolishness.

    So to sum it up, you two are saying that no matter how offensive and ridiculous Derrick’s comments are (racist and Nazi’s … oh my!), responding to him while refusing to call him by some cutsie-nickname is what really keeps you up at night! Well-played ladies. I think you are on to something.

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  96. Danny said on August 15, 2012 at 8:45 pm

    And one more thing for the record: I don’t care what Plugs Biden says about anything. He is beneath contempt. But I just knew that after Joe brought it up, we were going to hear a lot of yeah-buts crap-o-la from all y’all. Thanks for making my dreams come true.

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  97. jcburns said on August 15, 2012 at 8:56 pm

    Got it, Danny. Biden: beneath contempt. Obama: hate him. Got it. Just, wow.

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  98. Danny said on August 15, 2012 at 9:04 pm

    Actually, I do not hate Obama. I kind of like him.

    EDIT: I do have some concerns about his handling of the economy though. My caveat is that this seems to be a worldwide mess and I really cannot blame him much more than I could Bush for it.

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  99. jcburns said on August 15, 2012 at 9:06 pm

    Got it, Danny. Biden: beneath contempt. Obama: kind of like him. Got it.

    EDIT: Obama can’t be blamed for the worldwide mess much more than Bush. Good to hear!

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  100. Danny said on August 15, 2012 at 9:13 pm

    You are cracking me up. Stop it… “-)

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  101. Prospero said on August 15, 2012 at 9:23 pm

    my rather accurate prediction

    Not a one of them showed up.

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  102. Joe K said on August 15, 2012 at 9:35 pm

    Anyone hear of the shooting at the family council center in Washington today?
    Maybe it will be in the news Thursday. Then again since it was at a conservative building, maybe not.
    Pilot Joe

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  103. Danny said on August 15, 2012 at 9:36 pm

    Prospero/caliban/michaelj, whatever were you reading today?

    1. Aw gee, it’s the lovable Joe Biden, that rascal.
    A few responses were that it did not matter what Biden said for one reason or another,

    2. It’s kinda true what he said.
    Derrick, you, Borden and a few others said this.

    3. It’s all the Republicans’ fault anyway.
    Well, that was pretty much everyone’s response. The “new civility” doesn’t apply because Republicans were mean also. And even meaner, since they are big meanies! So they deserve everything Biden said! Nya-nya!

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  104. Joe K said on August 15, 2012 at 9:43 pm

    Lovable ol Joe also called Ryan governor, and said where was it written we could not lead the auto industry in the 20th century. Silly ol Joe.
    Pilot Joe

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  105. LAMary said on August 15, 2012 at 9:44 pm

    Joe Biden’s comment made me cringe. It’s dog whistle stuff. However, the number of far more blatantly dog whistle statements that come out the Republican members of congress, the barely cloaked racist comments about the President, the outright lies about the President, are much more offensive.

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  106. Suzanne said on August 15, 2012 at 9:56 pm

    Pilot Joe. I did hear about the shooting at the Family Values Center. On NPR late in the afternoon. So, I don’t want to hear about the press not covering it because it’s a conservative entity.

    I lost a job several years ago, as I hit 50, when the place I worked ceased to exist. Until then, I was a pretty died in the wool conservative. But guess what? Once I was unemployed, I discovered that most of my conservative friends saw me as somehow flawed. I’ve still not found a decent job several years hence, in spite of having worked continuously for almost 30 years and never being fired or having a bad performance review.

    So what I take from the Roll Royce’s of the world is that when you end up on the bottom, even through no fault of your own, you will never be allowed back in line. If you were fortunate enough to never work at a place with financial problems and keep your job for years, you must be one of God’s people. If not, well, sorry. Sucks to be you. Go off somewhere and quietly pass on and leave the rest to their banquet.

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  107. beb said on August 15, 2012 at 9:59 pm

    Yes, I heard about the shooting at the Family Research Council office. Since no one died I doubt that it will get much attention. Not because it was an attack on a conservative organization but because it wasn’t much of a disaster. I am disturbed, though, that someone decided to shoot up the FRC. I think they’re scum but I don’t want then shoot up. We’ll leave that to the Aryan Nation types.

    I think Coozledad stepped into it at 33. I am sorry I ever brought up politics in my comments @5.

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  108. Jolene said on August 15, 2012 at 10:02 pm

    Anyone hear of the shooting at the family council center in Washington today?
    Maybe it will be in the news Thursday. Then again since it was at a conservative building, maybe not.

    Joe, it’s currently on the Washington Post and NYTimes web sites, and there was a story on the NBC Nightly News. Instead of making assumptions about the evil media, why not check to see what they’re actually doing?

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  109. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 15, 2012 at 10:03 pm

    Browned off a pound of ground beef with a judicious* amount of white pepper, paprika, and ground mustard, pulled it out of the saucepan and put in casserole; sauteed up a chopped big yellow (not Vidalia, sorry Prospero) onion in the leavings and a pour* of cheap olive oil**, pulled those out and layered them atop the ground beef while I nuked half a bag of frozen peas with two chopped cloves of garlic, too much basil, and a pour* of the better olive oil**, which went atop the onion layer. Then I threw some more olive oil and a spoon* of flour in what was still in the sauce pan, a little* milk, stirring over heat until I liked the look of it all, then poured it over the peas/onions/beef in the casserole.

    Then (the squeamish should look away at this point) I nuked a large tub of the Bob Evans mashed potatoes, because I lack moral fiber nor do I care about Mother Earth. In between three minute blasts of microwave radiation, I added half a block* of shredded muenster cheese, because I like to eat the orange ends I trim off while I cook. Second dose of power, stir, then layer atop what’s in the casserole, sprinkling some bread crumbs lightly over the surface. During the winter months I might melt butter and paint that over the top before the bread crumbs, but for Pete’s sake it’s August. Bake in a 250 oven until my wife gets home (45 to 90 minutes, it depends on last minute phone calls).

    Was it good? At this point in the week, if it isn’t raw or covered with mold, my wife will eat it and say “wow, that was wonderful, honey.” But my 14 year old son who had four wisdom teeth removed last Friday ate it without complaining audibly, which means more than Julia Child descending from heaven to knight me with her wooden spoon.

    *I just can’t be bothered to measure, can I?

    **I keep a pricey, good flavored olive oil and a cheap store brand bottle of EVOO, and whimsically use them depending on how directly I think I’ll be tasting the stuff. My choices may or may not actually make any sense, chemically speaking, but I know why I grab which bottle when. YMMV, or YEVOOMV.

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  110. Rana said on August 15, 2012 at 10:04 pm

    Actually, Danny, the thing is… when Coozledad is talking about a certain segment of the Republican leadership, and a goodly portion of their voting support, he’s not wrong. Regardless of what you (and Joe) think personally, you’re hanging out with and defending people who are proud to be racists, homophobes, sexists, cruel to the poor and the disabled, and so on. Do you not remember people cheering when one of your guys advocated letting handicapped people die? Do you not remember the full-throated roars of approval when they talked about putting women in their place? Or when they censored female representatives for saying the word “vagina” during a discussion about abortion? Or the folks who sent around pictures of Obama with a bone in his nose and making jokes about how there was going to be a watermelon patch at the White House now? Or the guys who shoot up a bunch of Sikh women and children because they’ve been repeatedly told that it’s our American duty to kill all “Muslims” because they’re a bunch of terrorists? Or the various Republican politicians who repeatedly treat our elected president like a foreigner who usurped the throne? The ones who can’t be arsed to tell Romney to release his tax returns – like every other candidate for the last thirty years – but will spend all kinds of time “wondering” about the legitimacy of the president’s citizenship?

    These people exist. Moreover, not only do they exist, but the current Republican leadership is actively encouraging this behavior.

    That you seem ignorant of these FACTS, or, worse, inclined to defend them, doesn’t paint you in a very nice light. If you don’t like the shoe Coozledad’s holding out, don’t bloody wear it. Don’t go waving your Tea Party flag around and brandishing your Chik-Fil-A waffle fries and then act all surprised and offended when people recoil; they have very good reason to do so. There are ways to be conservative without defending the assholes; witness how gracefully Jeff (tmmo) manages it.

    Now, I’m not saying that the Democrats are pure as the driven snow – they are not. But neither are they playing the incredibly nasty, homophobic, racist, sexist “game” of “if we don’t get our way, we’re taking it all down with us” that the current GOP is.

    Thirty years ago the Republican party was something I could respect even as I disagreed with its policies. That’s not what the party is now; it just isn’t, and a lot of people I knew and respected who were Republicans back then have since become independents out of disgust with what the party has become. If you want to defend it, you should know precisely what you’re siding with, and, honestly, Coozledad’s got an awful lot of it right. Up to you whether you want to associate with such people; if you do, I’d say you deserve the abuse Cooz is dishing out.

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  111. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 15, 2012 at 10:06 pm

    Oh, and my actual name is Zoso. But please keep calling me Jeff TMMO, because it keeps the demons at bay. Don’t ask, but if you’ve seen “The Cabin In the Woods,” you understand. Cthulhu fhtagn! And speaking of Cthulhu, I don’t think anyone deserves what Cooze tends to dish out, but I draw a bright line at mucking with people’s names, chosen, adopted, or otherwise. Say, I could just start going by Cthulhu . . . because, as the campaign says, “Why settle for the lesser evil?”

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  112. Sue said on August 15, 2012 at 10:15 pm

    You’re right Joe, the shooting seems to have had a ridiculously short media life. It’s barely a blurb on Fox News’ website, too.
    I think the concealed-carry guy who shot himself in the rear is still getting play, though.
    Just a warning for anyone who thinks that other guy who might be a heartbeat away from the presidency can be classified as ‘loveable’, this is what happens when someone gets out of line around him. Not sure this ever made it out of WI, it happened last year, but you’ll probably be seeing it in one of the interminable attack ads coming down the pike in the coming months. Incidentally, the reason this guy is taken down is because he was ‘trespassing’ at a constituent town hall meeting. Apparently he didn’t pay the $15 admission fee.
    http://rootriversiren.blogspot.com/2012/08/paul-ryan-doesnt-hate-seniors-he-just.html

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  113. jcburns said on August 15, 2012 at 10:20 pm

    So Pastor Zoso, a lot of support for Romney/Ryan out there in the heartland where Ohio routes 16 and 13 collide?

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  114. Danny said on August 15, 2012 at 10:23 pm

    Jeff, so you are Jimmy Page? Awesome. I knew it!!

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  115. Joe K said on August 15, 2012 at 10:26 pm

    Rana,
    If you haven’t noticed I have been called a racist, homo phobe, mouth breather, nuckle dragger, uneducated , idiot, and some I probably forgot, and all I did was ask some questions and state some things I have the right to think So don’t Paint the left quite so rosey. Also according to reports, the shooter today worked for the gay lesbian transgender office yelled stuff about the family place and pulled the gun out of a chic-fil-a bag.
    Pilot Joe

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  116. Sue said on August 15, 2012 at 10:29 pm

    Talking Points Memo still has the FRC shooting on its front page, in two spots on the page itself and twice in the Livewire section.

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  117. Jolene said on August 15, 2012 at 10:29 pm

    All true re the shooter, Joe. And a coalition of LGBT groups immediately issued a statement condemning his actions and disassociating themselves from it.

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  118. jcburns said on August 15, 2012 at 10:31 pm

    “all I did was ask some questions and state some things I have the right to think”—Pilot Joe.

    Your halo’s a bit crooked, oh innocent asker and stater.

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  119. Danny said on August 15, 2012 at 10:40 pm

    Jolene,I remember similar events around the shooting of that abortion doctor in Kansas with various Christian organizations issuing statements. And I bet that if you went back to the comments on here at that time, you’d see a free-for-all of partisan vitriol with no one caring who issued whatever statement about whatever.

    So jc, Joe asking the Biden question made him deserving of what was said today. Got it. Thanks!

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  120. Sue said on August 15, 2012 at 10:40 pm

    MMJeff, cooking didn’t distract, so how about… a kitty!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bmhjf0rKe8
    No? How about… a puppy!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SZJ6PEH8Gs

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  121. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 15, 2012 at 10:43 pm

    I believe I retweeted (@Knapsack) a statement from the HRC calling for a rejection of violence and supporting the guard shot, which came out pretty quickly after the event; it may have been how I first saw that there’d been a shooting — and I don’t “follow” HRC, but a National Review editor friend had retweeted it in the first place.

    I’m not so much a Jimmy Page fan as my wife and I got hooked on “Once Upon a Time” last season. Anyhow, JC, yes, Romney’s got plenty of fans hereabouts. As is Ryan, in a conditional sort of way . . . I’m very proud of my colleague at the weekly Gannett-owned paper here in Granville, who wrote an editorial saying that it’s all well and good for Kasich to brag on tax cuts, but if it’s just a shell game to push the obligated costs down to where our local school superintendents, library boards, and fire chiefs have to ask for more levies faster, then what’s to celebrate? And is it really just a shell game?

    He will take some serious flack from GOP partisans, but conservatives in general around here are not far off of where I stand: if we’re making regular pay, then we are the tax base. We don’t care what the federal tax rate or state tax or any other particular tax bill is, it’s about the fact that year after year after year, if you barely keep up with inflation wage-wise and own a home, your total tax bill has been going up year by year for twenty years. The state may trumpet this, and the feds that, but overall, your tax bill in sum is growing as a percentage of your relatively flat gross income. Pundits and pols may say this about the rich and that about taxes “this year,” but my total outlay for all forms of governance is increasing, and don’t tell me it isn’t.

    And there’s even a resigned willingness to understanding that the full cost of Medicare and SS isn’t underwritten, and that for that and state pension etc. obligations, it will go up more — but we want to KNOW that there is a line. Right now, it doesn’t feel as if there is one, and one more venture into all caps: if you don’t think there was great frustration with W. over compassionate conservatism and prescription drug benefits and overseas military costs, YOU DON’T TALK TO PEOPLE MUCH. Bush 43 was seen as having given away the farm, federal outlay-wise..

    That is the basis for the Tea Party folk I bump into. There’s a glee and relish in talking about “slashing” government, but it doesn’t take much conversation to end up hearing them concede “we can’t roll much back, but we can stop the growth.” My Marxist friends in town say the growth is entirely military in origin, and if we just pulled back (as they weirdly echo Ron Paul) from around the world to our borders, our budget would have enough to cover everyone’s medical expenses: and they themselves say that tax bites can’t keep nibbling more widely indefinitely.

    You can’t jack taxes on the rich indefinitely. Can they go up? I don’t think you get much disagreement that they will from folks on the right, they just want guarantees that there’s a limit to how far they will go up. France is trying 75%, and good luck with that. I don’t think it will last, because we bring in more money from the top 10% at 35% tax rates than we did from the top 10% earners when it was 70%. That’s not Laffer curve stuff, that’s just pragmatism writ large.

    Mmmm, pie.

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  122. Jolene said on August 15, 2012 at 10:47 pm

    And I bet that if you went back to the comments on here at that time, you’d see a free-for-all of partisan vitriol with no one caring who issued whatever statement about whatever.

    Maybe. I don’t recall the topic being duscussed, but you could be right. But rather than speculating, why not search Nancy’s archives and see what you find? The doctor’s name was George Tiller.

    By the way, as I write, I just heard Rachel Maddow report today’s shooting on MSNBC.

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  123. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 15, 2012 at 11:01 pm

    Maddow, that flaming right-winger. Just like the HRC.

    I can’t believe I didn’t have any ice cream in the house. Suddenly, I don’t care what Cthulhu wants to do in R’lyeh.

    Okay, I have to admit, I am enjoying Jon Stewart putting his face in his hands over Biden’s “chains” line.

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  124. Prospero said on August 15, 2012 at 11:37 pm

    You can’t jack taxes on the rich indefinitely.

    When did anything remotely resembling that happen, Jeff? You also can’t keep paring taxees away, particularly if you want to run two illegal invasions and operate two occupatioons while you’re doing it. Starting two wars while slashing taxes is undoubtedly the stupidest thing a President of the US could do. Economic disaster is guaranteed. Cut the banking and other financial robber barons free of any sensible regulation, and you’ll croak the economy like you fed it strychnine in huge doses. GOPers deny that anything like any of that ever happened, and that is infuriating in its abject, deliberate obtuseness. The great Pharma giveaway, Medicare Part D for donut hole exacerbated the surreally bad policy decisions, and Yup, this crapola was sure as hell the fault of Shrub, the neocons, and the teabangers. So now one of Danny’s predicitons has come true. But I defy anybody to explain how anything I’ve just said isn’t an accurate description of what left the country in a spectacularly deep hole by Jan., 2009.

    As far as employment is concerned, according to GOPers, the bikini pattern bar graph never happened:

    http://reflectionsofarationalrepublican.com/2012/02/03/bush-vs-obama-unemployment-january-2012-jobs-data/

    At the same time, experts agree that the unemployment rate would be in the low sixes if not for massive local and state governmental job cuts engineered by the GOP. If anybody wants to try to prove otherwise, have at it, but that will be an unproductive effort. GOPers do try to claim that the national party has no control over those jobs, but that claim is meretricious. They cut fed funds to states and localities and jobs fly out the window. RMoney has promised to dump more teachers and first responders. That kills tow birds, jobs and the economy, in one stroke. That is the Republican MO. I suppose some people may call this “blaming Republicans. I call it recognizing facts as facts. Willard disagrees with my assessment, and has actually said he’d go back to Bushonomics. That should 86 the dumbasses campaign immediately for any voter with an operating forebrain that doesn’t believe it’s in anybody’s best interest for one of two national parties to identify Job No. 1 as defeating the other party in the Presidential race because the sitting President has an abundance of melanin in his dermis.

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  125. basset said on August 15, 2012 at 11:41 pm

    Jeff TMMO, you can’t make shepherd’s pie without Bisto.

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  126. alex said on August 15, 2012 at 11:43 pm

    Rana,
    If you haven’t noticed I have been called a racist, homo phobe, mouth breather, nuckle dragger, uneducated , idiot, and some I probably forgot, and all I did was ask some questions and state some things I have the right to think So don’t Paint the left quite so rosey. Also according to reports, the shooter today worked for the gay lesbian transgender office yelled stuff about the family place and pulled the gun out of a chic-fil-a bag.
    Pilot Joe

    And everyone who has characterized you has gotten it basically right, even if they’re too politically correct to call you a fucking retard and a defective product from God’s big assembly line in the sky who got short-changed in the brains department.

    Man, you are too stupid to get it which is the problem with half the population in this country. I’m tired of indulging and humoring you. You come here with the intention of being offensive and you manage it every time. Much as I adore your daughter and your brother I am sick and tired of playing in kid gloves and I wanna sock your ignorant-ass face until you bow down and eat the shit you so rightly deserve to taste, motherfucker. Except for the fact that you’re already devouring it and think it’s yummy.

    And Danny, you obviously aren’t here for any other purpose than being a provocateur. Quit whining about liberals who have a low opinion of conservatives. You don’t come here expecting anything else so quit pretending to be offended when your kindred get called out for being what they are.

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  127. brian stouder said on August 15, 2012 at 11:55 pm

    But I just knew that after Joe brought it up, we were going to hear a lot of yeah-buts crap-o-la from all y’all. Thanks for making my dreams come true.

    I had uttered no “yeah-but”; I agreed with Joe’s statement.

    If I had a magic wand, I’d use it to arrest this tendency (by the candidates themselves, and their campaigns, and by extension then, by we, the people) to try and demonize the political opposition. Note that this tendency is as American as apple pie; hell, in the old days, disagreements amongst our political leaders would occasionally devolve into duels, and indeed, a vice president shot and killed a former Secretary of the Treasury…so we’ve improved, at least a little.

    The reaction Joe expressed was one that ALL of us have experienced; probably all of us has experienced this very feeling in the past 7 days.

    In all honesty, I’m a weenie. I laugh at Cooze’s outbursts, despite (or because?) they are mostly things that I’d never think of; or if I thought of them, I’d not state them publicly. One Cooze is definitely enough, for any good website; if we had three or four, this place would become (for me) unbearable.

    I don’t know about the news sites that Danny or Joe visit, but here in Fort Wayne, I’m in the habit of going to WANE TV’s website to see the headlines; they’re very fast and very thorough. (If you hear a lot of sirens, they will have whatever the story is within an hour). And you know what? They have a comment section after every news article; and a genuinely detestable set of commenters pipe up after every shooting or other horrible event.

    See this one, from tonight, about what looks like a gang-related shooting:

    http://www.wane.com/dpp/news/crime/shooting-on-oliver

    and this comment:

    Such primitive simians they are…I’m so proud to be white..

    It would take several Cooze’s posting and posting again on each and every one of these articles, to achieve “fair and balanced”* status, and suffice it to say, there aren’t any Coozes answering these people back.

    So again – I’m a weenie; not big on personal attacks and direct rhetorical conflict with other posters. I (imperfectly) aspire to some sort of even-handedness, which usually translates into mush and (if you want to be unkind) spinlessness. I have this at work, too. People are always wanting to enlist me (and anyone else they can get) into this or that cause or conflict or disagreement – and I’m always the “on one hand” and “on the other hand” guy (or the guy who says “Let’s take a big breath…Innnnnnnhale….and….exxxxxhale”)

    Danny, you seemed a bit avid to have this conflict with your fellow posters here in nn.c-land, and I think your cause (in this case, calling out Joe Biden) might have been better served by an avoidance of simply attacking posters here, and instead focusing your attack on Vice President Biden.

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  128. Danny said on August 16, 2012 at 12:29 am

    Alex, there is a chance that you are well into your cups tonight, but it’s still a bit disappointing…

    EDIT: Wow Alex, you really toned down your comment while I was typing this. Just for context, my comment above was for your original comment that said to me: “Fuck you”, “Bite me, Bitch” and As far as I am concerned you are a troll like Dwight who should be banned (and for alll I know you may be a Dwight’s alter ego)”

    Brian, if you get a chance, reread the Derrick’s unprovoked comments at 33… Then those of his apologists later assailing me for simply using his name… And if you still come away with the idea that I was the one picking a fight today, then your Swiss visa is ready. And as I have already said, I could not care less what Biden says. I just thought it would be funny to anticipate the reactions from the peanut gallery.

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  129. brian stouder said on August 16, 2012 at 12:56 am

    Well Danny, we’re in political season now – and your post at 18 was a direct challenge to the posters here. I enjoy sitting up here in the cheap seats, and the peanut gallery hereabouts is, as you know, pretty good natured. You can challenge anyone here to try and top whatever interesting thing you had for lunch (foodie commentary almost always leaves me out, but I know what I like!), or have a big discussion about the relative strengths or weaknesses of this or that book or movie or ball game, and get all sorts of controversy going.

    And you know – better than me! – that 80-odd days from a presidential election, when one or another major candidate does or says something extraordinarily good or bad, that it’s all fair to go after that thing….and it is simply asking for brickbats to go after other posters – specifically – on political grounds.

    Why do this?

    Four years ago I had a hand in upsetting Jeff tmmo, and the memory of it still makes me cringe. Mind you, I’m not arguing that you have to repent (so to speak!) – only that you jumped into the bull pen and waved the red blanket, and then got the horns.

    If you want to attack President Obama or any other political figure by name, I’m all ears. But, in my opinion, the other posters here are Nancy’s guests, and not ours; and we should try to avoid spilling things on her furniture

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  130. Rana said on August 16, 2012 at 1:02 am

    Rana,
    If you haven’t noticed I have been called a racist, homo phobe, mouth breather, nuckle dragger, uneducated , idiot, and some I probably forgot

    I’ll grant you the uneducated idiot part, but where did Coozledad call you any of the others? He was speaking about the Republican leadership and a segment of the base that shares those ideas with them. As I said to Danny, if the shoe doesn’t fit, no one is making you wear it. You can express your views without choosing to stand alongside bigots and bastards, and I’ve been assuming that you’re a decent enough fellow that you wouldn’t want to. Maybe I’m wrong.

    Unfortunately, blunt as Cooz and Alex are, they do have a point: the people you’re defending and siding with are not nice people. And this isn’t a partisan statement; I have no dog in this particular party fight.

    (Have you heard of the Political Compass? Well, both the Republican party and the Democratic party are in the dead opposite position from my views. The main difference is that the Democrats leave some room for me to exist; the Republicans are busy promoting policies and enacting laws that would, in a very literal sense, result in harm to me and many people that I love. That’s not rhetoric; that’s fact. I don’t love the Dems, but they’re not trying to wipe out any and all who disagree with them.)

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  131. Danny said on August 16, 2012 at 1:06 am

    Brian, so if I am attacked by name, just grin and bear it? Why would you not call out Derrick for much more acerbic comments? Is it okay for him to screw up the furniture? Odd…

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  132. Danny said on August 16, 2012 at 1:13 am

    Rana, Derrick has said these things for years about Joe.

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  133. Rana said on August 16, 2012 at 1:25 am

    Citation and link, please.

    (And, no, general condemnations of Republicans and conservatives don’t count.)

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  134. Sherri said on August 16, 2012 at 2:55 am

    Jeff(tmmo), nobody I’m aware of on the left who has any clout of any kind is calling for confiscatory tax rates; the most people are talking about is returning to Clinton-era tax rates. And that’s just on income tax; I haven’t seen anything about undoing the capital gains tax rate cut that Bush passed in 2003.

    Social Security is simply not really a problem, despite how often it gets painted that way. Medicare is a problem, not so much because of Medicare, but because health care in this country is a problem. Health care costs are the big problem in almost everything, whether Medicare or private insurance. I think the entire way we consume health care is going to radically change in the next ten years or so, because the current system is that unsustainable. If Romney and the private equity guys get their hands on the system, it could get ugly.

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  135. alex said on August 16, 2012 at 8:13 am

    Wow Alex, you really toned down your comment while I was typing this. Just for context, my comment above was for your original comment that said to me: “Fuck you”, “Bite me, Bitch” and As far as I am concerned you are a troll like Dwight who should be banned (and for alll I know you may be a Dwight’s alter ego)”

    I did no such thing. You obviously are a troll trying to stir up shit.

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