The post-, and pre-game.

It’s been interesting to watch the reaction to Clinton’s speech last night. Of course, Monday-morning quarterbacking of all things is a great and glorious tradition in American life, but you don’t often get to see it done on a stand-up act like that.

Tom Junod on Clinton the conductor:

A simple line of script, such as “my fellow Americans,” would become “my fellow Americans, all of you in this great hall and all of you watching at home” — it would be amplified, elongated, exaggerated, and it would once again remind you that the first talent Bill Clinton revealed was for playing the saxophone.

…He had a talent for familiarity here, as ever — a talent for wearing a blue suit with a red tie, a talent for biting his lip, a talent for waving his finger, a talent for being Bill Clinton that allowed him to get away with everything else. He raised one finger, he raised two fingers, he raised one hand, he raised two hands, he lifted his chin, he dropped his chin, he licked his lips, he flicked his tongue, he lowered his voice in abashment and he raised his voice in something like anger, and every single one of his stock gestures served to remind the audience of who he was and what he meant to them, and allowed him to control the dynamics in the room. He was what everybody said he was — he was a jazz musician and a rock star, but he was also a conductor, and when he lifted his hands, palms up, people rose from their seats, and when he lowered his hands, palms facing the floor, they sat back down.

Molly Ball on Clinton the master:

Bill Clinton spoke for nearly 50 minutes. His speech was dense, didactic and loaded with statistics and details. The paper version handed out to reporters took up four single-spaced pages in a tiny font, and he departed from it frequently. It may have been the most effective speech of either political convention.

…Clinton made arguments. He talked through his reasoning. He went point by point through the case he wanted to make. He kept telling the audience he was talking to them and he wanted them to listen. In an age when so many political speeches are pure acts of rhetoric, full of stirring sentiments but utterly devoid of informational value — when trying to win people over to your point of view is cynically assumed to be futile, so you settle for riling them up instead — Clinton’s felt like a whole different thing. In an era of detergent commercials, he delivered a real political speech.

James Fallows on why Clinton’s speeches succeed:

Because he treats listeners as if they are smart.

That is the significance of “They want us to think” and “The strongest argument is” and “The arithmetic says one of three things must happen” and even “Now listen to me here, this is important.” He is showing that he understands the many layers of logic and evidence and positioning and emotion that go into political discussion — and, more important, he takes for granted that listeners can too.

Yeah, it can get a little tiresome. But there’s more!

The Clinton text vs. the delivered product. Compare and contrast.

Finally, Charles Pierce, because, duh, Charles Pierce. (Link fixed.)

And now it’s time to watch the new big dog speak. I have to get up early tomorrow and work all day, so I’m leaving it to you guys to carry later tonight and in the morning. Let’s see how it goes.

Posted at 12:24 am in Current events |
 

100 responses to “The post-, and pre-game.”

  1. Jolene said on September 7, 2012 at 12:44 am

    Nancy, your Charles Pierce link goes to one of your articles in The Bridge.

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  2. Dexter said on September 7, 2012 at 1:25 am

    The great orator Obama was dull as dishwater last night because after you have seen the lion at the circus who wants to see the pony show? I know Obama gets to close the convention, but The Big Dog became the Eastwood chair, the one everyone’s still talking about.
    Bill Clinton rocked the joint, and Obama just mopped up the show.
    It was like a double billing show where Elton John would open and Ben Folds would close…in the political game, it had to be that way, but it seemed out of sequence.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12cLXeS14kM

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  3. Bowditch said on September 7, 2012 at 4:08 am

    OK, Dexter, maybe not the intensity we’ve heard from him before, but, as Nancy says, Charles Pierce. Talk about knee-capping the entire Republican construct. That Charley has a way, doesn’t he? Somehow, a little like a Richard Farina exigesis to me, but I’m just old.

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  4. ROGirl said on September 7, 2012 at 6:03 am

    I will never be able to think of Paul Ryan as anything but “the zombie-eyed granny starver.”

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  5. ROGirl said on September 7, 2012 at 6:32 am

    Something odd happened in the comment thread when I submitted my comment above.

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  6. brian stouder said on September 7, 2012 at 7:51 am

    I liked President Obama’s speech very much. It was measured, presidential, and inclusive; and it had genuine passion.

    If you’ve been watching the news reports recently, especially last week, as he came across all-important Ohio, the president has looked and sounded like a man with ‘the fire in his belly’; the man exudes energy and confidence and intelligence and dedication.

    In fact, that’s the thing about Romney; where’s the fire in his belly? It is not a cheap-shot to say it – and I really believe it – Mitt seems to think that because he can afford the race, it should end with him as president; he’s buying it fair and square, right? – it’s a transaction.

    Mitt acts like he simply deserves it, whereas the president overtly admits – with his impassioned request for your vote, and your understanding – that it was an honor to be elected the first time, and that it will be an honor to re-elected, if we so choose.

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  7. beb said on September 7, 2012 at 7:59 am

    So Obama endorses the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan that includes a reduction of benefits to Social Security at a time when more people are retiring with nothing but SS to see them through. I guess that makes BHO a zombie-eyed granny killer, too.

    What a way to kill the joy of voting Democrat.

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  8. Julie Robinson said on September 7, 2012 at 8:40 am

    Dexter, I respect you but this time I’ve gotta disagree. I was half asleep by the time he started and he woke me up and kept me engaged. Maybe he’s not Clinton, but the speech worked for me on every level.

    Brian, I think you’re on to something there. Let’s show Romney we can’t be bought.

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  9. beb said on September 7, 2012 at 8:48 am

    Elizabeth Warren said during her speak a couple days ago “people think the game is rigged against them. It is.” This story sort of proves her point
    http://articles.philly.com/2012-09-05/news/33583130_1_golden-nugget-casino-chips-gamblers
    The Golden Nuggest casino is refusing to pay a number of gamblers over a million dollars in winnings because the cards used in the game had not been pre-shuffled by the manufacturer. That’s not the gambler’s problem. that a matter between the casino and the card manufacturer. Refusing to pay players who followed the rules and won legitimately is wrong. It implies that casinos pay who they want when they want and to hell with the little guys.

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  10. brian stouder said on September 7, 2012 at 8:57 am

    Well, brace yourselves for the onslaught of the flying monkeys of the rightwing airwaves.

    Since the jobs report is modestly positive – it’s only PROOF that the damned numbers are all LIES!! LIES, I tell you! When they’re BAD, they’re TRUE – and when they’re GOOD, they’re fraudulent.

    I think the president will be re-elected, and my HOPE is that we see some CHANGE in congress. If the Democratic party doesn’t take the House back, whacking the R majority down by half (or more) would be good.

    On the other hand, if the R’s hold the House, and take the Senate, and elect Romney to the Presidency – then forget about Simpson Bowles, beb.

    The radicalized Republican party will have a governing mandate to roll us back the late-19th/early 20th century. It will be a mandate for aggressive war-making around the word, a genuinely harsh redefinition of our ‘social contract’ at home: anti-public schools, anti-welfare, anti-urban; but with no slowing the flow of Federal direct-cash (via price supports and crop insurance and set-asides, for example) to the mostly lilly-white farmers/agricultural economy (aka – “the Real America”); and anti-civil rights initiatives – including the damned right-to-vote itself!

    Governor Crist paraphrased what RWR said (and what I’ve been saying) – he didn’t leave the Republican party; the Republican Party left him. I think that party will have to either leave the (hard-right) path it is currently on, or else splinter and fall. It isn’t interested in looking at problems anew, and governing from there – but instead, rolling out all their favorite pre-judgements and prejudices and orthodoxies, and then hacking and sawing upon the body politic to make it fit.

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  11. Jolene said on September 7, 2012 at 9:10 am

    Jobs report is more negative than positive, Brian. June and July figures were revised downward by a total of 40K. Unemployment dropped from 8.3% to 8.1%, but de line due in large part to drop in labor force participation rate. Only 96K new jobs created, well below estimates.

    Obama knew this number while giving this speech last night. If he seemed more understated than on previous occasions, this might be why.

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  12. mark said on September 7, 2012 at 9:16 am

    Brian-

    The jobs report was not positive, modestly so or otherwise. That’s not politics, just fact.

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  13. brian stouder said on September 7, 2012 at 9:28 am

    Jolene – I’ve heard the “this is bad” interpretation, and I don’t agree.

    I’ll agree that this isn’t “good”, but it certainly isn’t actually negative.

    If I was going to be all “Serpentine!! Serpentine!!” (think Alan Arkin) about this, and accept that all this stuff is open to manipulation (cue Rush Limbaugh, if that addict isn’t dead in his bathroom yet), I’d say that the ‘Chicago operation’ has pocketed a 40,000 job bump, to be added to whatever the increase will be, in October.

    I don’t think our sluggish economy is “the new normal”, but I do think that we’re inching out of the trough that our last president left us in.

    And, from just a gut-level, let me say that I simply trust that our slower, more incremental recovery from the crash strikes me as more REAL (or sustainable, or genuine; take your pick) then some all-too-sexy boom (thinking of the go-go ’90’s/Clinton/tech boom/Enron/impeachment.

    It kills me when the R’s try and assert that these days are “the new normal”. When they had the White House, the “new normal” was genuine endless war in the furthest corners of the world, wherein we build our “all-volunteer” armies from only a narrow segment of the have-not economy.

    Sorry for yapping and yapping; we have a wedding in Cleveland this weekend (both our girls are in it) and I have the day off!

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  14. brian stouder said on September 7, 2012 at 9:31 am

    Mark –

    http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-07/weak-jobs-report-shows-obamas-long-road-ahead

    The U.S. economy added just 96,000 jobs in August

    Not great – indeed, “weak” (as the headline says), but definitely still “positive”

    And that is the “fact”.

    Sorry

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  15. mark said on September 7, 2012 at 9:33 am

    No, Brian. You really don’t understand what you are talking about.

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  16. brian stouder said on September 7, 2012 at 9:40 am

    Well Mark, the jobs number went up.

    You can argue that the unemployment number ALSO should have gone up (saved only by the numbers of people who dropped out of the numbers of job seekers), but the job numbers went up.

    Possibly you are correct, and I really and truly don’t understand one scintilla of this.

    Possibly “up” means “down” and “hot” means “cold” – or possibly this is like quantum physics and the essential randomness at the most basic level of cosmic creation.

    Or – not.

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  17. Prospero said on September 7, 2012 at 9:48 am

    The Rummy DoD, including the notorious and nefarious Cheney Stovepipe actually used the term “endless war” gleefully and with no shame whatever, Brian.

    Elevated bike turnpikes in London.

    As someone that can get anywhere I need to go, except a city with non-tourist restaurants and actual music venues, on well maintained bikepaths, this idea looks pretty cool to me. Of course its London, so it could become infested with droogs. The conceptual look is a nice piece of design one way or another. Wonder how long it would take for bike rage to become a thing.

    Please, nobody talk about Jabba dead from Oxy on his throne @9:30 am.

    I’d be extremely sceptical of jobs numbers discussions. One, it wouldn’t be a discussion at all if the House had passed the Presiden’t jobs bill (and we could build some bike skylanes, if that’s not to effete and commoniss one world). Two, who actually controls jobs? The same robber barons and captains of industry that were fucking up the stock market a few months ago by renting huge tankers and hoarding oil offshore, you fracking Kochheads.

    Returning to Shrub’s policies, as RMoney has said he would, is exactly like this logic:

    Remember last year when we all got really trashed and wrapped the car around that tree, and we all either went to jail or to the hospital. I think we should do that again.

    Any voter that would buy into Shrub Redux, would agree that’s a good idea.

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  18. coozledad said on September 7, 2012 at 9:48 am

    What was it you said about flying monkeys, Brian? This is why the Republicans are hell bent on making the economy fail under this President. There’s still some loose cash to mop up, and well, blackity black black black.
    We were watching the convention from the party office last night in Roxboro, and the feed was briefly tuned to ABC while we tried to get C-Span online.
    Brian Ross was suggesting that the thunderstorms earlier in the day wouldn’t necessarily have prevented the convention from moving to the stadium. He had to repeat Republican talking points because it’s the new fairness doctrine. Batshit crazy has to be injected into the national discourse regardless of the level of eye rolling tongue lolling tertiary syphillis league crazy. Chuck Todd was still too busy trying to comb the “Dems only wish they had the diversity of the Republicans” splooge out of his mons mandible to talk about Hilary Clinton being held hostage before we finally got C-Span.

    EDIT:
    The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday morning that, seasonally adjusted, the economy created 103,000 new private jobs in August, and shed 7,000 government jobs for a net gain of 96,000.

    And Romney would add government jobs?

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  19. del said on September 7, 2012 at 10:02 am

    Bowditch, that was a great Charlie Pierce link.

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  20. Prospero said on September 7, 2012 at 10:26 am

    Downton trailer:

    http://www.vulture.com/2012/09/lets-discuss-the-new-downton-abbey-trailer.html?mid=agenda–20120906

    It doesn’t reveal too much for me, and I won’t watch scenes from next week on NCIS. Anyway, you might want to skip it. I’m mainly offering it because I really want to hear an intelligent opinion on the trailer’s soundtrack. A Brit boys school choir singing Lou Reed:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYEC4TZsy-Y

    Do they understand what this song is about? Junkies? What TF? It was in Trainspotting, for God’s sake. Of course, there’s a Susan Boyle version and AT&T once used it in an ad. And BBC once had it in a Christmas special. But Lou Reed and Downton Abbey? Strange. What about that line “You’re gonna reap just what you sow”? I’m hoping they have Mr. Reed (NYT style) signed on for a guest spot as the ghost of Mr. Pamuk showing up on Lady Mary’s wedding night and unmanning Matthew. Lou would look great in those Edwardian dandy clothes Mr. Pamuk favored. Maybe the hunting kit.

    cooze: The new fairness doctrine is the equivalency doctrine, as in “Well Kerry commanded a swiftboat, but maybe the swiftboaters are on to something. And George W. was in the NatGuard in Texas but maybe those people that say he skipped his physicals because of drug tests and went AWOL to Alabama are on to something. They’re equivalent.

    So what is it Mark? Up is Down? War is Peace?

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  21. basset said on September 7, 2012 at 10:53 am

    Another bike highway, actually 26 of them, about to be built in Denmark:

    http://www.npr.org/2012/09/01/160386904/in-bike-friendly-copenhagen-highways-for-cyclists?sc=emaf

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  22. LAMary said on September 7, 2012 at 11:09 am

    Cooze, never believe anything Brian Ross says. I have no idea why this guy has a job.
    The analysis of Clinton’s facial expressions and gestures is interesting. While we were watching Mittens’ speech I became fixated on his facial expressions. He was like some second grade teacher telling the class that unless everyone was quiet there would be no recess and don’t say I didn’t warn you. The raised eyebrows/sad look combo. Ugh.

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  23. Prospero said on September 7, 2012 at 11:15 am

    The facts on jobs. Arithmetic:

    http://reasonableconversation.blogspot.com/2012/01/obama-vs-bush-on-job-creation.html

    Another four Shrub years and employment would have been 0%. And RMoney wants to give it a go.

    I was just reading a story about Brandon McCarthy, the Athletics pitcher who suffered a broken skull when hit by a line drive. In the comments, somebody brought up the idea of head protection for fielders, inside the caps. Some ahole said Maybe Obama could require it. Well, not some ahole, obviously a member of the ahole royal family, and a GOPer with severe Kenyan Usurper derangement syndrome.

    Hilarious photoshop of David Brooks:

    http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2012/09/stupid-shit-david-brooks-says-ctd.html

    That is beautiful Basset. But most American Citis are far too densely packed to do it that way. London definitely was already in ’69 when I was there. Did you read the comments on that article. The first was deleted but the commenter called himself United Against Socialism. Those paths look like sand-cement, or maybe finely ground cinders like what used to be used for tracks. We settle for asphalt, but I’m not complaining.

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  24. beb said on September 7, 2012 at 12:44 pm

    Atrois’s comment about the new jobs numbers was “pretty crap.” As in yesm it’s positive but we need around 150,000 new jobs a month just to keep up with population growth. So 96,000 new jobs is not a number to proud of, or happy for except in the sense of ‘it could be worse.’

    CBS has hired Republiian operative Frank Luntz, probably for the election season. Why give a job to the guy who organized the no deals with obama plan for the R’s? Why pay him anything since he would be desperate to get on TV to promote his talking points anyway.

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  25. Prospero said on September 7, 2012 at 1:38 pm

    So the GOPers lost out on the “endless war”, they’ve settled on “end;ess war on truth”. Major tactic? Just keep repeating outrageous lies no matter how often you’re proven a liar:

    http://grist.org/politics/as-romney-and-ryan-lie-with-abandon-how-should-journalists-navigate-post-truth-politics/

    I’m really waiting expectantly for Lyin’ Ryan to reprise the Medicare canard. That’d be some brass BBs.

    White House recipes for honey ale and honey porter:

    http://grist.org/list/heres-the-white-house-beer-recipe/

    New campaign statement from Deadbeat Joe Walsh about Tammy Duckworth:

    “It has become abundantly clear that at this point the only debate Ms. Duckworth is actually interested in having is which outfit she’ll be wearing for her big speech.

    Like Joe’s mom jeans with pressed creases? Someone beat the shit out of this schmuck.

    Whatever one wants to make of the job numbers, the most recent are on the positive side of the scale. Shrub’s last year was one small positive then 11 months of losses, culminating with a 700% loss. It wouldn’t be hard to argue the bastards were tanking hard to mess things up for the new President. Like Poppy creating the Somalia briar patch to fuck with Clinton, which he definitely did.

    CBS should have its FCC credentials investigated for hiring Frank Luntz. Remember the FCC before GOPers emasculated except in instances of wardrobe malfunctions that offend Brent Bozell? CBS has a license to use airwaves owned by the American people, and hiring an absolute partisan hack like Luntz clearly violates terms of their license, unless they want to give time exactly equal to somebody like Rachel Maddow to make him into mincemeat.

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  26. Julie Robinson said on September 7, 2012 at 1:40 pm

    Prospero, I believe the DA use of the Lou Reed song is ironic foreshadowing.

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  27. Bitter Scribe said on September 7, 2012 at 1:47 pm

    I cannot wait for the debates, both presidential and vice-presidential. Obama and Biden are going to chew up their opponents and spit them out, live on national TV.

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  28. Sherri said on September 7, 2012 at 2:36 pm

    No, the jobs number is not particularly good. But Brad DeLong does put it in some perspective here: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/09/private-payrolls-bush-and-obama.html

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  29. Prospero said on September 7, 2012 at 3:17 pm

    What things are coming to in the USA:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/sep/06/civil-rights-voting-under-threat-discrimination?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

    That’s depressing. Add Bork, and things will go back to time before the Civil Rights movement, and GOPers will approve in huge numbers. Hell the self-proclaimed “originalists” will probably decide we’re meant to go back to the 3/5ths.

    But along with the bike skyways and the WH beer recipes, here is some delightful news (almost makes me consider moving to Chicago):

    http://grist.org/food/fruits-of-old-chicago-gears-up-for-an-urban-heirloom-fruit-orchard/

    Maybe get a chance to visit before moving to La Libertad next February. I’m actively exploring this, and it’s nothing like all the people intending Canada if GOPers stole 2004 as they did. Disgust for the stupidity of my fellow Americans would make it easier, and the PNAC gang back in the driver’s seat will make America dangerous place to live, but this would be a practical matter. If SSI and Medicare get routed out by Ryan and RMoney, I’ve got investments to live on, but in a less expensive place than the USA, an one with actually affordable healthcare. Ecuador looks perfect, with expats living comfortably on $800/mo.

    Julie, that’s what I meant about the ghost of Mr. Pamuk showing up. How about You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory, by the dead junkie Johnny Thunders. That’d fit the storyline bill. How about a soundtrack where all the music is songs by punks and junkies sung by angelic boys choirs? If they are only using Lou in the trailer, that’s an inexcusable tease. The whole thing reminded me of the great Peter O’Toole movie, The Ruling Class.

    Got a great new CD in the mail today, Peter Green Splinter Group, Blues Don’t Change, has some Muddy, some John Lee, some Big Willie Dixon. Low key production gives the whole thing an Elmore James feeling. Blues fans of any degree will like this. Great harp and outstanding acoustic slide. Like the real Fleetwood Mac. Only thing I didn’t like about the convention was that goddamn awful screechy song. Anyway, I think it’s a great thing Peter Green came back from acid burnout and has an album this gorgeous.

    I’ve been showing people the famous bikini chart for months, and it’s too much math for a lot of people that just want Obama gone. The other thing that the critics all ignore as if it’s insignificant, is massive state and locality level cuts in public employment engineered by crooked GOP goober-nors and their aiders and abettors in Congress. Without those cuts, unemployment would be considerably lower. That is 716,000 public sector jobs cut since 2008. RMoney says he wants to fire first responders and teachers. He actually said that aloud. Hell just get rid of all of them and turn public education over to crooks like Marvin Bush and his cronies to run as effectively as Chris Christie’s halfway houses you dumbass.

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  30. John (not McCain) said on September 7, 2012 at 4:00 pm

    “I cannot wait for the debates, both presidential and vice-presidential. Obama and Biden are going to chew up their opponents and spit them out, live on national TV.”

    You got that right. Asked on Fox News why he didn’t mention the troops in his convention speech, Mitt said, “When you give a speech you don’t go through a laundry list, you talk about the things you think are important.”

    Mitt wants Obama to be reelected. It’s not like this is his first campaign, or his first time under a spotlight. The only possible explanation is he just doesn’t want to be president after all.

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  31. coozledad said on September 7, 2012 at 4:04 pm

    Sherri: I bookmarked that, and I’ll be making copies to hand out to the people at our campaign office. Gallup is also posting a net twelve point swing in the daily tracking towards Obama since the conventions (favorability).

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/07/1128991/-Per-Gallup-Obama-favorabilites-surge-during-convention-and-his-lead-grows

    Nate Silver has been saying any sustained bump over six points would be unlikely, but if it happened, to kiss Romney and his assistant shitenose goodbye.

    The only thing I expect to hear is more variations on the usual tea trash negrolalia.

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  32. Prospero said on September 7, 2012 at 4:07 pm

    Something on the cuts in public sector employment:

    http://www.citybeat.com/cincinnati/blog-3902-government_cuts_hurt_unemployment_rate.html

    Somebody want to claim that hedge fund managers provide greater value to their fellow citizens than firefighters and EMTs. That’s a tough sell, but it’s what Willard believes, apparently.

    Nice story (with a great photo) about Sasha and Malia.

    That RMoney statement about leaving out the military sounds a lot like “I was brainwashed.” He may be channeling George, but I ‘m sure his dad would not support today’s GOP, nor the deceitful manner in which Mittens is running his campaign.

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  33. Prospero said on September 7, 2012 at 4:10 pm

    Excellent Tony Auth cartoon:

    http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/client/wpc/ta/

    And this Luckovich is kinda sad:

    http://comics.washingtonpost.com/11_editorialcartoons_mike-luckovich.html

    Too bad they didn’t bring on W. It would have been all she wrote.

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  34. Prospero said on September 7, 2012 at 5:10 pm

    Something you history guys will enjoy from my other favorite website, Teddy Roosevelt’s lungs on X-ray:

    http://obituarytypo.blogspot.com/2012/09/teddy-roosevelts-chest-x-ray.html

    Allthose GOPers so fracking gleeful about a disappointing jobs report today should STFU before they embarrass themselves. Today is also the 1st Anniversary of the President’s sending the American Jobs Act to the House, which has never brought it to the floor. Jobs, jobs, jobs, right Boehner, you dick? During that year, the clowns have voted to repeal ACA about 50 fracking times. This is a red letter day for them, and it should be nailed to their pigeon chests:

    http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/09/07/812251/republicans-blocked-jobs-act-one-year/

    –Moody’s Analytics estimated the American Jobs Act would create 1.9 million jobs and add two percent to gross domestic product.

    –The Economic Policy Institute estimated it would create 2.6 million jobs and protect an addition 1.6 million existing jobs.

    –Macroeconomic Advisers predicted it would create 2.1 million jobs and boost GDP by 1.5 percent.

    –Goldman Sachs estimated it would add 1.5 percent to GDP.

    Whadda buncha socialist shills for the Kenyan stealth President, right. Wonder where that would have left the unemployment number. And those numbers would be higher if the bill had passed a year ago. Demand drives supply in a capitalist economy, a fact that smart GOPers like Ayn Ryan are completely ignorant of. Believing in supply side at this point is an exercise in Einsteinian insanity. You know doing the same damn stupid thing over and over and expecting a different result? Poor babies just so really want that bullshit to be true. While that definition is usually attributed to the great physicist, an earlier citation can be found in the Basic Text of Narcotics Anonymous. So what are these fools shooting up?

    And RMoney’s excuse for not acknowledging deployed troops? This is a classic Imagine the Howls moment. Wheres $Palin on this affront? Coultergeist? Rash Limbo? Seriously? IOKIYAR–well fuck you idiots. Maybe if one of Willard’s kids had been sent to Afghanistan. I don’t like the idea of compulsory military service, but the Romney family could be poster children for instituting it.

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  35. David C. said on September 7, 2012 at 5:43 pm

    Most brilliant smackdown ever of a RW homophobe from an NFL punter in support of an NFL linebacker who supports marriage equality, or anyone else for that matter.

    http://deadspin.com/5941348/they-wont-magically-turn-you-into-a-lustful-cockmonster-chris-kluwe-explains-gay-marriage-to-the-politician-who-is-offended-by-an-nfl-player-supporting-it

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  36. Prospero said on September 7, 2012 at 6:51 pm

    The comments on that are hilarious David. Everyone is so upset about the guy’s explication, by which I guess she means using impolite words, when the idiot behavior he’s addressing is odious and anti-Constitutional. The craven approach to the Owner reminded me of the miners that were coerced into attending RMoney rallies.

    http://www.care2.com/causes/coal-miners-forced-to-attend-romney-event-and-lose-days-pay.html

    A savvy candidate would have sent home those who’d rather be elsewhere and promise to take it up with their bosses. One of my favorite Cint movies is Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. Willard on the trail is more like Thunderfoot, and I don’t mean the great old punter Herman Weaver. I mean, he’s got a political touch like Gamera, not even Godzilla.

    Another instance:
    Juan Cole calls GOPeract of asking the “are you better off” question breathaking impudence. It’s also pretty stupid. If rational voters stop a moment to give some thought to the question, they’ll decide the obvious answer is, You betcha. Duh. No Shrub, no Dickless. That’s way better. No OBL. No chance of $PAlin in a national office.

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  37. Prospero said on September 7, 2012 at 9:39 pm

    Am I being picky? It strikes me as lazy, unprofessional and innately biased for news outlets to call Clinton’s speech a “defense” of Obama. I listened to the whole thing ane he waas neither defending nor making excuses. He was endorsing the President’s performance in the first term. I get more pissed off about this every time I come across another instance. It’s bullshit journalism and atrocious editing in my opinion. It seems like a Drudge sort of sleazy tactic, but NYT and WaPo both did it several times. I know my Jschool copywriting professor, Charlie Kopp, would have seen the obvious bias in the choice of words, and he was a conservative outhern gentleman that probably wouldn’t have voted for a Democrat.

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  38. Minnie said on September 7, 2012 at 10:48 pm

    Not picky, Prospero. Precise.

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  39. Dexter said on September 8, 2012 at 3:01 am

    coozledad, this pretty close to your old bar where you bartended?

    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/sinkhole-swallows-north-carolina-driver-article-1.1153233

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  40. coozledad said on September 8, 2012 at 7:52 am

    Dexter: I can’t remember where they put the Bojangles in Durham. From the picture, my guess would be somewhere around Chapel Hill Street, which was within walking distance of Val’s, if you were a committed walker.
    Durham is growing pretty rapidly, and the downtown has really taken off. It’s a wonderful thing, but there are areas of it I scarcely recognize anymore.

    They revamped the old bookstore (The Book Exchange) where I used to work into a tapas restaurant (Mateo). I haven’t been there yet, but definitely the next time I’m in Durham.

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  41. Deborah said on September 8, 2012 at 9:54 am

    Glorious morning in Chicago, 59 degrees at nearly 9. Only supposed to get up to 70. And sunny. At last I think the summer is over.

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  42. brian stouder said on September 8, 2012 at 11:47 am

    Gotta love Wadsworth, Ohio; ate at Marie’s last night, which is sort of a jumbo-sized Sarah’s Diner.

    Saw Lake St Claire made national news; a woman lost her class ring in the lake 25 years ago, and then somehow (I couldn’t quite hear the details of the story) found it again…here’s a cheap-seat request for details from the proprietress.

    Aside from that, I think John(not McCain) has it exactly right; the impression only grows – Romney hasn’t got the fire in his belly; he almost overtly pulls reign and stops short and otherwise places unnecessary obstacles into his own path.

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  43. Jolene said on September 8, 2012 at 1:48 pm

    That “laundry list” line is so boneheaded that it’s hard to believe he actually said it, but he did. He went on to say that he’d spoken about the military, which he did, but saying that you support a strong military as a matter of national security is not the same as saying you support the troops and their families as people.

    It’s worth noting that he also said something snotty to the interviewer, Bret Baier, when asked if he was sorry he hadn’t mentioned the troops. Also worth noting that it was neocon-in-chief, Bill Kristol, who first chided him on this issue.

    Just saw on Twitter that his wife will be with him when he appears on Meet the Press tomorrow. What’s with that?

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  44. Minnie said on September 8, 2012 at 3:18 pm

    Don’t you remember? She humanizes him.

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  45. Prospero said on September 8, 2012 at 3:24 pm

    Brian,

    Maybe the commonsewer of dancing horses is not enthusiatic about continuing to beat the spavined, dying horse the GOP has handed him, as in Raskolnikov’s dream:

    http://www.online-literature.com/dostoevsky/crimeandpunishment/6/

    That’s what I was reading when Ayn Ryan was missing the atheist message in Atlas Shrugged. Of course, finding a GOPer that believes in anything Jesus said in action rather than in the poetry of W. Shakespeare and the catamount, Kit Marlowe, well good luck. And those boyos translated from an English language version, which is how God ended up saying thee and thou. The Great Commandment? Socialism. Whatever you do? wimpy on fiscal issues.

    Course, with RMoney it’s also possible he’s thinking to himself: “Shit, the IRS is going to catch up with me, and if I don’t go to Club Fed, I still won’t be able to employ my wonderful tax dodges anymore, “Who would have thought…”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aopdD9Cu-So

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  46. Prospero said on September 8, 2012 at 4:16 pm

    Yeehaw. Couple weeks ago I was telling y’all about my sixth bike theft in as many years. And how I dedide to skip the net and get a real bike I could see before I paid for it. If you’re ever in Hilton head, let me know you’re coming, but also, make sure to go to my man Paul at the Bike Doctor. He got me a hybrid (the way to go) that I finally got to really ride today that I’m ecstatic about. A 7-speed Shimano shifting road and sand bike that is clean as a whistle and very fast, Specialized brand. Damn I love this bike. In my bud’s assessment, Specialized bikes are a chunk above what he calls K-Mart bikes (OK, he’s a bike snob). After a 300-mile hard drive, I’ve got to agree. I’m alive, and managed $200 worth of groceries up to the 2nd floor, including two cases of Yuengling (oldest brewery in America still brewing, and exceptional lager at a fair price) and a big ole jug of Mr. Jacks. And Dex, that recipe change you claimed before? Never happened. They fooled with the ABV and went back to the original 90 proof. Anyway, the bike has me so ecstatic, I’m considering riding across the two big bridges 35 miles to Savannah in the morning.

    If you want or need a new bike, look into Specialized brand. Gorgeous finish, no decals. High quality brake and gear train components. As in all-metal, no-plastic Shimano stuff. I couldn’t get to really ride the bike because I was stuck in my favorite part of my livelihood. Sitting in comfortabl, stylish chairs in lawyers’ offices, charging by the hour, waiting to be deposed. And annoying y’all by phone. But Dayuhm this bike is excellent.

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  47. Prospero said on September 8, 2012 at 4:24 pm

    That 300 was a typo. I meant 30. Or I was measuring on an Ayn Ryan scale of distance.

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  48. brian stouder said on September 8, 2012 at 5:47 pm

    I cannot find a good, old fashioned text article about the ring in lake St Claire, but here’s a video article –

    http://www.mycenturylink.com/video/play/489840/channels/cnn/us?playlist=1&pos=8

    While I was hunting for that, I read an article about Clint Eastwood here –

    http://home.knology.net/news/read.php?ps=915&rip_id=%3CDA153E2G2%40news.ap.org%3E&news_id=19210975&src=most_popular_viewed

    I mean, what?

    Seriously, if Romney really and truly wants to be president, and if he really and truly has judged the people who are running his campaign as can-do, capable people, then he must have been the luckiest bastard ever in the business world.

    How did Bain ever make any money at all, if Romney was in charge of assembling the brain-trust there?

    Seriously. The man seems incapable of hiring capable staff, and incapable of cleaning house when his staff (or cronies, or whatever) fail him

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  49. Prospero said on September 8, 2012 at 6:04 pm

    How did Bain ever make any money at all, if Romney was in charge of assembling the brain-trust there?You mean like how this dickhead crew acted like he deseved it? Ahat about the shitheads?

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  50. coozledad said on September 8, 2012 at 6:38 pm

    He’s just another crook. I think what really gets the Republicans’ peckers hard is his devotion to money. That’s really his only goddamn religion: there isn’t anything else that matters to him.
    http://theweek.com/article/index/232386/gawkers-bain-files-7-revelations-about-mitt-romneys-finances

    Inconveniently, when it comes to investing, “Romney puts his money where Obama’s mouth is,” says Gawker’s Cook. In a 2010 letter to investors in Prospect Harbor Credit Partners LP, for example, the fund’s managers say that “with an economy that is still highly dependent on fiscal support… an expiration of stimulus would be a significant fiscal drag.” Just “let that one sink in.” Another fund’s 2010 PowerPoint presentation also says that “regulation will improve liquidity and transparency.” Romney, of course, is a fan of neither Obama’s stimulus nor financial regulation.

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  51. Joe K said on September 8, 2012 at 9:47 pm

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/richkarlgaard/2012/09/03/did-the-new-york-times-just-get-obama-fired/
    Pilot Joe

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  52. Joe K said on September 8, 2012 at 10:21 pm

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/09/02/obamas-accelerating-downward-spiral-for-america/
    Pilot Joe

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  53. Dexter said on September 8, 2012 at 11:17 pm

    I have had my Specialized bike twenty-four years now, prospero.
    For many years it sat under a tarp because it just didn’t fit me quite right. About ten years ago I put new tires on it and installed raised handlebars and new cables and had it tuned up so it was really like a new bike. I ride it now more than any other bike I have, but this week I have only ridden a new bike I bought for my brother at his request and then didn’t like it, so I just kept it, a nondescript Huffy mountain bike which I converted to a comfortable hybrid-type with road tires and raised handlebars. It has a really short wheelbase but is still fun to ride around town with the narrower tires , comfort saddle, and the high bars.

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  54. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 4:55 am

    Gotcha Dex. People here seem to steal bikes to get to a destination. Mostly to get to DUI court, I think. I have built a couple of my last bikes from detritus and even those have been stolen. But I’ll guarantee, those bikes ran like tops. It’s parbly a good thing to build your own bike outta junk. It’s likely a very good thing to be able to be a decent bike mechanic. I’m learnin’ on that one. Anyway, I love my new bike. I beleve I saw my last bike parked at the crackshop bustop yesterday, but what are ya gonna do without a AK and an empty chair? Must be Obama’s fault, not that pointy headed dick that tanked the economy with massive tax breaks and two-war spending (i.e. stupidest President ever) .

    Right, Joe. The folks at Forbes are worried about the middle class mean income and what Obama has done to it. What Obama has done to it? These are the very aholes that manipulate markets to screw the brown Kenyan usurper over Please spare me. They have all gotten richer. And the market’s gotten fat and sleek, thank God for my retirement. This country feels like dogshit anymore, and it is the rampant racism that’s really revolting. And it’s embarrassing, too. Finally elect a brown gut and the yahoos come out of the woodwork, and lo and behold, the yahoos in chief turn out to be them yahoos that run the GOP. I won’t listen to any bullshit about Harry Bird in the Klan. Old Lady Mitch is the Modern Klan. But that is slandering old ladies.

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  55. brian stouder said on September 9, 2012 at 9:49 am

    Prospero – if I were you, I’d invite all the criticism of Sheets Byrd that anyone wants to heap; and I’d unreservedly agree with everything they say.

    Sheets Byrd was a disgrace, as were many elected Democrats through American history.

    And then – somewhere in the past several decades (and particularly 5 decades ago) – the Democratic party mostly wrote the racist chucklehead voting block off.

    And they did not cease to exist; they did not disintegrate (pardon the pun); they did not evolve.

    They became Republicans.

    And now, the National Republican party has a hell of a problem. If they jettison the racist goobers, the rg’s still won’t go out of existence, but instead will energize a new Know-Nothing/Tea party, and national Republican candidates will have almost no chance of winning control of anything.

    But at some point, the national math (or evolving composition of the American electorate) will finally reach a point where it is more profitable to do the right thing than to continue doing the wrong stuff (such as overtly racist political appeals, or racially based voter suppression, for example), and then the Republican party – if it still exists – will move.

    I think the Democrats went from being terrible (and overtly treasonous) in the 19th century, to world-war winning, big-thinking, future oriented governing majority in the post-WWII era….and the Republicans saw (and reaped) the political profit in (as WFB said) ‘standing athwart history’ and saying “NO”.

    And now that string is almost played out.

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  56. alex said on September 9, 2012 at 10:20 am

    Joe, I don’t know if you actually bothered to read the NYT article itself or just what that right-wing hack had to say about it. It didn’t strike me as particularly unflattering. But I’m sure that guy expects people to accept what he says uncritically and look no further. His audience is predisposed to hating Obama anyway. Likewise for the second, who’s one of the foxes guarding the henhouse. Everything he says is discredited economics and he knows fully well that he’s on a mission to keep alive the fallacy that Republicans and big business are the best stewards of the economy and that Obama and the Dems are on a dastardly mission to destroy the world. The GOP is heavily invested in that narrative and it evidently still works for them despite the fact that the Bush tax cuts have been in effect for ten years and we have exactly zilch to show for it—none of the promised job growth and investment in the economy. And this is on top of the havoc wreaked by deregulation of the financial services industry.

    If anything, I fault Obama and the Dems for not making the case for stronger financial regulation and consumer redress. I know several elderly women who’ve been bilked out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by people who held themselves up as financial advisors. To me this is unconscionable and yet it’s “free market capitalism”—if you can snag someone else’s money through deceit it’s rightfully yours. Is that the world you prefer living in?

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  57. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 10:53 am

    Brian. I disagree that Byrd was ever a racist in the profound way that current GOPers are. This anti-Kenyan insane shit is a brand new strain of racism that isn’t going away, and there is no telling what these morons will do if they are saved from Mittens, who’d starve them, free them from the cares of healthcare and send all their jobs overseas.

    And Harry Byrd did vote against the mine owner. But I see your point. Then again, the astounding Obama derangement crap these days is something brand new and the GOP is responsible no matter what disclaimers thy attempt. And Willard is an active participant. McCain had more balls.

    And a Know-Nothing/Tea party is already running the GOP, but that is the reasonable outcome of the Southren Strategy. I’m not a student of US history, but I do know tidbits, like the Ananais Club, and we have them back. And they are drawing ape cartoons depicting the actual President. Did the Democratic Party ever make their strategic raison d’etre outright racism?

    http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/06/18/501145/obama-outhouse-montana/

    As for treasonous, that certainly fits the ahole GOPer House members that took the $200grand and the Maybach health care the past year while doing nothing but voting to rescind ACA and ignoring AJA, in an attempt to fuck over the first elected President in eight years because he’s melanin-rich and not lobby-friendly. Of course, they all signed Grover’s pledge, so they were all traitors to begin with according to Article III, Section 3 anyway.

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  58. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 11:06 am

    Alex, with respect, you can fault Obama and the dems, but how often do you have to tell somebody that supply side is an asinine myth, that caused whatever misery they think they’re feeling, and trickle down is piss off a very high bridge? If people are so fracking stupid they didn’t get it the first two times, they ain’t gonna get it. And a mortally imbecilic electorate is parbly not conducive to a healthy republic. Supply-side is the Laffer Curve, the most hilariously aptly named crackpot academic theory ever. If taxes are reduced to 0, government revenue will go through the roof. This insane crap is GOP dogma for 30 years, and people buy this shit and believe their big tent moment is just aroud the corner? Vote for Reverend Ike you morons. You can’t lose, with the stuff I use.

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  59. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 11:30 am

    an expiration of stimulus would be a significant fiscal drag

    It would really cut into my coke consumption and hurt my dealer in the wallet. But, you know, I have secretaries to pay for that.

    And the entire world believe’s Obama was responsible for bailing out the Wall Street crooks. That was Pretzeldent W. I’m trying to figure out how to put this in my drunken truck wreck scenario. But how are people so fracking stupid they don’t see this is part of the deficit issue? Representative democracy with incredibly stupid people to represent is FUBAR.

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  60. coozledad said on September 9, 2012 at 11:39 am

    Keep fuckin’ that chi… shaking that Etch a Sketch:
    http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/romney-says-won-t-cut-taxes-wealthy-americans-144438996–election.html

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  61. beb said on September 9, 2012 at 11:48 am

    A provocative article on a sensitive subject.
    http://falkvinge.net/2012/09/07/three-reasons-child-porn-must-be-re-legalized-in-the-coming-decade/
    The author claims that in Sweden, because of strict child pornography laws, it is illegal to possess pictures of yourself before age 18. And that these strict laws have not done anything to stop actual molestation of children.

    Another article that’s been floating around a lot is this one on organic grown vegetables.
    http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/09/04/160395259/why-organic-food-may-not-be-healthier-for-you

    The headline “Why Organic Food may not be healthier for you” is provocative but the body of they story actually refutes the conclusions of the study by pointing out its many limitations, the variability of foods grown in different places, and the lazy conclusion that if pesticides are below government limits then they’re harmless. This all seems part of a plot to undermine the concept of “organic” so that mega-mechanized farmers won’t be penalized by a market preference for pesticide-free produce.

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  62. nancy said on September 9, 2012 at 12:06 pm

    Not provocative, just trolling.

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  63. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 12:14 pm

    No matter what mediocre tailback wins the Heisman eventually, Jarvis Jones is the best football player in the country. And Michigan squeaks by mighty Air Force to head in strong against mighty UMass, way to schedule the iron, Wolverines.

    Incomprehensible shit from the liberal LSM:

    http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/09/06/804811/associated-press-fact-checks-clintons-speech-by-bringing-up-monica-lewinsky/

    And I have photos of myself as a toddler, when I was voted Cincinatti’s most beautiful baby. My mom and dad held onto them forever, and now that they’re gone, I’ve got them I want to use the frame and put the prints in the garbage, but S. militates against that plan.

    Right wingnuts are pulling out all the stops these days. Maybe the President was actully born in Finland back when it was a Soviet satellite.

    “Organic” is a label I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw Willard Windsock and Ayn Ryan with both hands, at the same time. I believe, for the most part, it’s a Congressional giveaway to Big Ag. Hate to be the one to break it to anybody, but Big Ag already gamed the Organic game, and hired consultants to brand their veggies Shinyhappy:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNW809QqF1g

    And I feel sorry for the idiots that thought the boyos from Athens weren’t making a mockery.

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  64. Dexter said on September 9, 2012 at 12:50 pm

    Taking the lead from prospero, I am giving a shout-out to my bike doctor, John from Colbart’s Bike Shop in Edon, Ohio. John recently retired from his day job and now spends more time in his bike shop. He sells new bikes, he’s fair-priced on repairs to older bikes, he knows his stuff. He advertises the fact he is fairly near both the Toledo and Fort Wayne markets, and I would say it’s worth the drive to visit his shop , especially if you are in the market for any kind of new bicycle. He has many bikes marked down below retail.
    http://www.colbartsbicycleshop.com/

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  65. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 12:51 pm

    My Sunday NYT is fat. Three arts sections. And in the Book Review, mirabile dictu, word of a new Michael Chabon novel. This guy has DeLillo all beat to hell, in my opinion, and unlike (I think) DFW approaches the best of Pynchon’s inspire lunacy and profligate hyper-knowledge. Which reminds me: y’all should read Lawrence Norfolk’s Lempriere’s Dictionary posthaste never used that word before, I don’t think, but it fits the book, which reminds me of one of my top ten movies ever, The Assassination Bureau, Oliver Reed and Diana Rigg in bed, lustily, holy shit). If you liked Jonathon Strange, you’ll love it.

    Now it’s time for some fresh-ground Kona, homemade biscuits, and steak-cut Burger’s smokehouse bacon and the delightful excess of a paper newspaper, with the Koln Concerts on the stereo. Crummy weather so we’ll be nestling today. Happy Sunday to everybody. They didn’t call it The Lord’s Day for nothing. In fact, Jews, Muslims and Jehovah’s, and I’m sure others, didn’t call it that for nothing. Definately my favorite day of the week.

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  66. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 1:18 pm

    And what I said about DeLillo, why’d he lose his sense of humor after the spectacular Great Jones Street?

    Biscuit recipe:

    http://www.bakespace.com/recipes/detail/Buttermilk-Biscuits-%28from-Alton-Brown%29/3749/

    from my UGA classmate, and the best you’ll ever eat. Infrequent when the biscuit is better than the sausage and pepper jam, and I despise recipes, but those biscuits are amazing.

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  67. basset said on September 9, 2012 at 1:20 pm

    How civilized. Spent most of this morning at Firestone getting an oil change, alignment, rotate & balance… need to get up from this computer and go check deer cams.

    Interesting coincidence last night. Mrs. B. and I were rolling up I-65 coming back to Nashville from Alabama last night and listening to the Nashville NPR station through the iPhone NPR app. Program finishes and I show her how to look up NPR stations all over the country, she settles on Anchorage and they’re playing the E-Town music program from Colorado, Emmylou Harris is the main performer and they spend a whole segment talking about the dog rescue she’s set up… which is named after her dog Bonaparte… who Mrs. B used to give medicines & shots to when she was a vet tech in Emmylou’s neighborhood here in Nashville. Colorado to Alaska and back just for a dog which lived maybe four miles from us, all satellited and wirelessed and who knows what else. The miracle of modern communication.

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  68. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 1:36 pm

    What sort of idiot does it take to support a lying bastard like this?

    http://mittlies.com/

    And he can’t keep the lies straight. What a freaking tool.

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  69. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 1:44 pm

    Here ya go, basset. And nice comment on the wired age.

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

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  70. Joe K said on September 9, 2012 at 1:53 pm

    What sort of idiot does it take to support a lying bastard like this?
    http://obamalies.net/list-of-lies
    and he can’t keep the lies straight. What a freaking fool.
    Pilot Joe

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  71. ROGirl said on September 9, 2012 at 2:05 pm

    Alex, I read that NYT article, too. Obama is competitive. I guess if the Forbes writer is using it to show his readers that the liberal media no longer thinks Obama walks on water, so be it. I don’t go in much for messiahs anyway.

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  72. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 2:05 pm

    Where has this issue gone, and has Mittens’ been called out on his idiotic “self-deporting” statement? Oh that liberal LSM is hard on a self-serving wingnut. Nutso or just painfully stupid? Ask his groundskeepers:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1UcoEXQieU&feature=related

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  73. Joe K said on September 9, 2012 at 2:31 pm

    http://www.ijreview.com/2012/09/15003-cartoon-democrats-vision-test/
    pilot joe

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  74. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 2:35 pm

    From a Heckuva Job Scottie Brown campaign email:

    Professor Elizabeth Warren addressed the convention in Charlotte, and true to form she attacked all her usual villains – successful people, Republicans, businesspeople, energy companies. The party activists in the audience loved her speech…

    The Progressive Campaign Committee sees Professor Warren as today’s liberal rock star and tomorrow’s presidential candidate so they have already raised a quick and cool million dollars for her. They’ve even established a new “wing” of the party in her name. It used to be called the extreme-left wing. Now they call it the “Elizabeth Warren wing.”

    Because, being a professor is a disgusting and dishonorable thing. And what is this “attacks” on successful people shite? Well, if they are lying, outsourcing tax-cheat scumsuckers, sure Scott. And you shouldn’t bring up funds when you have ridiculously more than your opponent from the leftover Nazi coffers of the Koch assholes. And brush up on politics, bonehead. There is no such thing as extreme left wing, anymore.

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  75. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 2:49 pm

    Right Joe. and $12trillion of that is W’s mess. And $2trill more is cleaning up that mess and preventing depression. BFD. And if you still deny the birther Teabanger shit is racist, and the Taliban obstructionism is racist, how do you manage to read and use a computer? Joe, way back to Nixon, the GOP decided to be the racist party. That’s an incontravertible fact. Then they decided that anybody like Senator Lugar that didn’t buy into that kneejerk shit was a RINO. And there went the last shred of intelligence and respectability from the GOP. Which part of the Sununu comment about wishing the President would learn to be more of an American isn’t racist, Joe?

    I swear, years from now, people will be saying “I vas neffer a Republican” about the unadulterated racism of the current GOP.

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  76. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 2:52 pm

    As far as who built what, GOPers built that deficit. And that is simple arithmetic. And the House of Representatives skinhead wing? They really built that.

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  77. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 3:25 pm

    Here’s a cartoon for you Joe:

    http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/client/wpc/ta/

    And really, if the kneejerk opposition and Taliban Congressional tactics clearly damaging to the USA were explicable in any other way, perhaps something other than racism might be considered.

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  78. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 3:51 pm

    And ya know, Joe. If the GOP wasn’t so above-board racist and ever provided a scintilla of evidence about anything the President could have done better, maybe nobody’d accuse them of racism. It’s incredible ironic that the poor job numbers that brought such glee and hilarity to GOPers came on the anniversary of the day the GOP in the House might have voted on the American Jobs Act, which would have reduced unemployment by now to about 5%. But then, it would be harder to get the brown guy out of the White House. And straight into managed bankru[tcy without the lan would have trashed aboat a million American jobs and the automobile industry in America. But that would have been a good thing in GOPer eyes because it would have trashed the UAW. These bastards do not give a flying frack about America, and they prove it daily, and blame the brown gu for the problems they created in the race to get rich.

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  79. alex said on September 9, 2012 at 4:10 pm

    What sort of idiot does it take to support a lying bastard like this?
    http://obamalies.net/list-of-lies

    I don’t know, but it sure isn’t the same kind of idiot who mistakes a misinformation campaign targeted at buffoons for serious, factually based news. I’d link to the Onion and show you some humor that’s a little more clever and a little less tinged with anger, but I wouldn’t want you to think that I take any of that silliness as gospel either.

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  80. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 4:16 pm

    Another pertinent cartoon, Joe:

    http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/client/wpc/bs/

    And you know what else? Willard thinks things were so good when W cut taxes and waged two wars, he wants to do it again. Remember when I whacked you on the head with a hammer? Yeah. Want me to do it again? Oh, hell yeah. It was so much fun the first time.

    Joe, we all expect you are too smart to buy drivel like Obamalies. That shit is moronic in its simplistic hatred for the brown President. Try a superior brand of bullshit. Oh, that’s right. There isn’t one. They’re all fracking redneck racist nitwits.

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  81. Joe K said on September 9, 2012 at 4:18 pm

    Blame the brown gu? What’s a brown gu? When I run I use gu but its kinda blue colored and tast like strawberry And saved aboat? Row boat? Power boat? Sail boat?
    Pilot Joe

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  82. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 4:34 pm

    Alex, the shit du jour is Obama nationalized GM so he could give it to China.

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  83. del said on September 9, 2012 at 4:57 pm

    Joe,

    Check out this clip of Paul Ryan on Face the Nation today:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRc18QHf0r0

    It makes the artistry in Bill Clinton’s takedown of Ryan in his convention speech apparent. Clinton doesn’t claim that Dems don’t spin facts, that would be a stretch, instead he just shakes his head and says that that guy Ryan has some nerve, or “brass” to be precise. One of the commenters to the video clip called him Lyin Ryan and that nickname might stick.

    His marathon lie should resonate with you as you’re a marathoner. Do you know your times within, say, an hour and a half?

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  84. Joe K said on September 9, 2012 at 5:39 pm

    Del,
    4:02 for my first, 3:47 was my best, Kerry claimed he ran Boston and no records were found, so I guess that makes it a mute point. Both sides spin facts, they are both guilty, it reminds me of what Patton said about Monty in ww-2. I’m apremadona I admit it. Monty is a premadona and won’t admit it. I know the republicans spin facts, I admit it, the dems spin facts, you all won’t admit it.
    Pilot Joe

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  85. alex said on September 9, 2012 at 6:12 pm

    No, Joe, it was serving in Viet Nam and piloting a swift boat that Kerry lied about. Remember, the Republicans say they can’t find any record of it so you know it just has to be true.

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  86. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 6:18 pm

    Claiming a specific time is a far cry from some ridiculous boast to somebody from a magazine nobody with a brain would buy or read. And claiming that Ryan’s and RMoney’s bullshit about ACA and Medicare and welfare to work are spin is nauseating mendacity. Flat-out lying. And idiot GOPers keep buying it and repeating it.

    What do the supporters of the lying sack of shit ticket have to say about Ayn’s insistance that he had no idea his favorite novelist was a proselytizing atheist. Is that spin. Because, if he didn’t he’s a fracking cretin. If he did he’s lying his ass off now, as he does about every other damn thing. If those foul shitheels get elected and do their damnedest. I’m taking my first voucher and buying an AK and a top-of-the-line Kevorkian devise, because it sure as shit won’t buy me health care. Lyin’s idea is Welfare to Insurance corporations, and he might as well just admit to it.

    Joe, are you buying that crap about GM? So maybe the President’s Caublasian rather than Kenyan? Those mofos are serious about what bad uncle told them, and they know Obama hates America. Where did that shit sprout? That would be Willard RMoney, but those are not the words he would have chosen.

    Calling the welfare and Medicare lies “spin” is beneath anybody’s intelligence, and it would be difficult to convince me anybody that believed that should be allowed to vote. More like knowing what you’re proposing is heinous and claiming its your opponents idea.

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  87. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 6:27 pm

    Willard’s birth certificate cracks? That wasn’t outreach to racist Teabanger’s? If you believe that bullshit Joe,

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

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  88. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 6:30 pm

    Michell Malkin once lied and said she’s a writer.

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  89. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 6:40 pm

    Before Michelle Malkin raised her little snake face to bring John Kerry into this shit, it was not about who’s a liar. It was about two monstrous lies being perpetrated relentlessly by Mittens and Ayn. About welfare and about Medicare. Far as I can tell, they’re sticking to their outrageous mendacity on both subjects. These lies are so fracking outrageously baseless, the liars did not have to be caught in them.

    Joe, do you think the RMoney ticket is telling anything remotely like the truth in these instances? Trick question. This level of bullshit is indefensible unless you are dealing with idiots.

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  90. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 6:45 pm

    You know why GOPers can’t let go of their obsessive John Kerry hatred? His Iran-Contra investigation exposed Raygun as a hoax, a Potemkin facade for illegal bullshit in Central America, funded with Bain-laundered cash, no doubt, which is what I’d imagine GOPers are worried about right about now.

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  91. Deborah said on September 9, 2012 at 6:50 pm

    Another glorious day in Chicago. It’s going to get warm again, 87 on Weds but the nights will stay cool. Four weeks from this past Friday until I retire! Only 20 working days left, only 4 more Mondays! I remember when I used to feel sorry for retired people, I couldn’t imagine what they did with their days besides watching TV. Now my mind boggles with all that I can fill my days with. So excited.

    Yes, Pilot Joe, it is a 2 way street of spin between the Repugs and the Dems but there are so may more lanes of spin and lies on the Repug side it isn’t even funny. Not one bit funny.

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  92. Joe K said on September 9, 2012 at 8:15 pm

    No Deb it’s 50-50, it just depends on who’s side your on. I’m flying into Palwakee some time Wed or Thur, will be looking for someplace for lunch. After you retire, you’ll be so busy you will wonder how you ever had time to work. Enjoy it
    Pilot Joe

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  93. Sherri said on September 9, 2012 at 8:46 pm

    Do not believe anybody who tells you they will keep the popular parts of Obamacare (like coverage of pre-existing conditions) but get rid of the individual mandate.

    http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/09/within-hours-mitt-romney-takes-back-everything-he-said-about-preexisting-conditio

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  94. del said on September 9, 2012 at 9:02 pm

    Deborah,
    When my friend’s asked about his retirement he says, “well, today I started off slowly, then I tapered off.” Enjoy your new freedom.

    Joe K, Kerry’s not running for office this time so Ryan’s lyin’ is not a moot point. Some people are more committed to the truth than others on both sides of the aisle.

    My first marathon was 4:01, best was a 3:38. So there’s that to consider.

    And the Rolling Stones link was funny Prospero.

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  95. coozledad said on September 9, 2012 at 9:06 pm

    Joe: We’ve got a pale Republican changeling down here named Kyle Puryear who claims he served his country by attending the Citadel. He equates this with combat duty.
    He’s pushed more than a few irate Vietnam vets over to the side.

    There is no statistical baseline for your liars, except for how much they have to lie to squeeze money out of feebs who couldn’t have been bothered to crack a book during their brief “alert window”.

    Here are some actual stats that might interest you:
    http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/08/sept-8-conventions-may-put-obama-in-front-runners-position/

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  96. Jill said on September 9, 2012 at 11:16 pm

    Joe, my office is 5 mins. from Palwaukee. What kind of lunch would you like? I can make some recommendations.

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  97. brian stouder said on September 9, 2012 at 11:23 pm

    Let me just say, if you get the chance to visit the Cleveland zoo – do so! It is a wonderful, wonderful place, which the girls and Pam and I enjoyed very much.

    The place is beautiful, with strikingly rolling topography. I think I liked the north-country section, with lots of (very active) grizzly bears, and reindeer, and wolves; all in an evocative setting.

    The girls seemed to especially like the snow leopard (she was quite beautiful, and she and I locked eyes, which was a fairly arresting experience) and the koala bears, and guerrillas.

    All in all, we’d go right back there

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  98. Prospero said on September 9, 2012 at 11:54 pm

    50-50? Seriously? Name any two “spins” from Dems that match up with the Medicare and welfare lies. NFW. 50-50 is like saying that the swiftboaters may have been right and maybe W didn’t really fulfill his NatGuard obligation. 50-50 not in a trillion years. So because Kerry, who isn’t running, may once have told a writer for ESPN he ran a marathon, RMoney and Ayn Ryan get to skate on their monstrous lies about Medicare and Welfare? Pardon me, but that is pure D bullshit.

    Brian, you know the snow leopard is the subject matter of maybe the greatest nature book ever written (other than Moby Dick), by Peter Matthiessen. I don’t generally read non-fiction, but The Snow Leopard is astounding and magical, and I’ve read it thrice. And they don’t really have guys dressed as Che in the zoo, do they?

    del, that has been one of my favorite Stones songs since the first time I heard it. Actually, first time I heard it was a live cover by the legendary Bosstown Sound band, the Neighborhoods in a bar in Cambridge. Great song. David Monoman Minehan, I believe it was the Rat.

    Sherri, that’s humorous, since Willard Windsock admits to the whole thing being the law in MA but claims there is no individual mandate. There is, of course.

    What’s truly laughable about all this Kerry bashing is that the GOPers have decided that Kerry will be the next Secretary of State if O gets reelected, to give some weight to their asinine claims. Supposed to be scary. Bolton anywhere near the State Department is legitimately cause for a severe case of anxiety. Ne’s fantasized out loud, in public, about blowing up UN HQ. GOPers will say that’s his first amendment right. Nucking futs, these shitheels.

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  99. Prospero said on September 10, 2012 at 12:03 am

    This doan mean dick in the long run, but it’s an indication of how easily lying for the Lord comes to the bastard:

    http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/09/08/romney_god_coins_mitt_brings_god_into_speech.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content

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  100. Dexter said on September 10, 2012 at 12:22 am

    Peyton Manning, long-time National Football League quarterback, is financially out of everyone’s league, but if you can look past the fact he has the best doctors and rehabs at his command, and he is indeed filthy rich, ya just gotta be impressed and I would hope some kids with injuries can be inspired at what he did to the Pittsburgh Steelers last night.
    For the non-sports fans, Manning had major neck issues, travelled to Europe and many other places seeking opinions, seeing if he could ever play NFL football again. After missing almost two seasons, and weighing his options, he was let go by the Indianapolis team and went to the Denver Broncos, and he looked great for his first game, and he’s gonna get a lot better. Bravo, Peyton Manning.

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