“If he isn’t an asshole, how come only POOP comes out of his mouth?”

I LOLed. Loudly.

If Hinderaker isn’t the Wicked Witch of the West, how come he spends so much time fighting straw men?

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

Wait, is he trying to argue against Citizens United?

Best not invest your money in a bank if towering legal intellects are willling to argue that banks, not being people, cannot be held to a contract or expected to repay a loan.

The projection is strong in this one.

“IF CORPORATIONS AREN’T PEOPLE, HOW CAN THEY BE GREEDY?”,

You’re right, we’ll need to start jailing these corporations immediately, seizing their assets like we do with drug criminals or kids suspected of hacking and… No, he doesn’t think that follows? Well, gawrsh, if there only wasn’t some other reason that corporations could be seen to have “human-like traits” like greed.

The corporation is merely a legal form in which people do business

Huh, you’re saying that a corporation is merely a shell, a handy conglomeration of people who have created a structure by which a business can exist without being directly tied to one individual.

Well, I’m so glad that when you take more than one person and put them together and remove direct responsibility, that they cease to have human motivations or behavior patterns in their actions. The mob in the street has no capacity for cruelty, greed, violence, casual indifference to suffering, or the worsening of the lives of those less powerful or large.

These attitudes completely dissipate, because the difficulty in demonstrating individual moral wrong, means there is no collective moral wrong and no one is tempted to use the corporation to do immoral or inhuman actions for short-term benefit of the few or have said behaviors become “business standards” to compete with their fellow people working in other corporations on behalf of this human creation.

In the same way people are unwilling to kill simply because “America has been attacked” or “America has been insulted in the world stage” or “America is being threatened”.

Maybe that’s why it’s a bad idea to anthropomorphize this structure, give it only the positive rights of being a person, thus furthering allowing its actions to be removed from the individual concerns for morality. Just maybe?

And yeah, it is humorous that he was so excited like a dog peeing himself to “get liberals on this point”, that ha, if you don’t believe corporations are people, how can they have human-like behavior, that he seems completely blind to the fact that he makes many of the same points that liberals do as to exactly why a corporation is not a person and giving it the some of the same rights as a person just leads to bad things all around.

But but but, I showed them liberals! Why can’t that be enough? Why do I have to make a coherent point too?!?

He explains perfectly why we need an active and strong federal government to keep corporations in check if we are going to have to tolerate their existence. Well done Hindscratcher.

Corporations don’t have human-like behavior – but then neither do Great White Sharks, and both will eat you for lunch just as quickly.

Smut:

Best not invest your money in a bank if towering legal intellects are willling to argue that banks, not being people, cannot be held to a contract or expected to repay a loan.

Which always makes me think that if we can’t find a good legal way to argue this without granting those institutions personhood (which was always a decision by a racist court to get back at the 13th-15th amendments that it strongly disagreed with by going “okay, if you are going to make the property people, we might as well make the businesses people too”. If they had an opportunity in that time to make chairs legally people too, they would have. It doesn’t speak well of us, that in the 150 years since, we haven’t fixed what is essentially a racist “so there” by slavery-supporters), then that speaks strongly for the abolishment of corporations and forcing businesses to be tied to their owner for establishment of fault and legality of action.

Also too, if ‘corporations’ have been around for hundreds of years, then the ‘Founding Fathers’ must have intentionally left them out when enumerating all the rights of The People. Thom Hartmann has dissected this point numerous times and reminds us that until the robber baron era, corporations were by law limited to a lifespan of 75 years. Because corporations have no moral or societal responsibilities, they should not live forever and their activities must be tightly regulated.

Same sex corporations can marry in Iowa.

Damn. How will Doughy Pantload be able to bottom this?
~

Do liberals really want the rest of us to be lazy; to be uncompetitive; to squelch change; to be inefficient and to pass the costs of that inefficiency on to our customers?

When it was 2008
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for mortgage fraud
And financial collapse
The market was like shooting craps
The taxpayer bailouts were great
When it was 2008

[…] This and this from the Sadlynauts made me laugh. A lot. Especially the Wicked Witch of the West line. That is all. Share this:EmailPrintFacebookTwitterRedditDiggStumbleUponLinkedInLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. This entry was posted in Media, Quick hits and tagged Right-wing noise machine, Sadlynauts, too lazy for a real post by lfrederick. Bookmark the permalink. […]

Ok, going in for mangos.

A few weeks ago, Mitt Romney observed that corporations are people. This prompted hysteria on the left, including a video produced by the Democratic Party. But of course Romney was right.

A) Mitt Romney? Really? You’re shilling for Romney already? Shouldn’t you wait until the race gets going and Romney starts pulling ahead before you start shifting into “we always respected him and everything he says is brilliant” territory? Or are you as scared of Rick Perry as everyone else with a brain?

B) Ok, so corporations are full on individual people, then why can’t we jail a corporation, how do we stop a corporation “dying, giving itself all its assets, and becoming a new legal person completely unconnected to the old crimes” and so on. And failing that, how do we give poor shmuck regular people some of these superpowers. I think Joe Schmoe trying to pay his bills would appreciate the ability to openly steal and being “too big to let fail” or the ability to simply declare himself Leroy Matisse and therefore not responsible to Joe Schmoe’s bills and debts.

A corporation consists of its owners, i.e. shareholders, and its employees–people.

That’s right, a corporation is a person because its made of people and contains people. In the same way that my apartment is a person because it is comprised of people trying to live their lives or the museum is a person because it is filled with people or California is a person because it is comprised of people.

And the way a person is a person because they are a loosely-connected and amorphous collection of individual people who may or may not be responsible to the long-term health of the person at large…

Oh wait, no, that’s not right.

It’s almost like “being comprised of people” is one of the surest signs of not being a person oneself, as if that meant that the people contained was what gave “your” actions meaning and dictated what “you” did. Almost like the anthropomorphization we give to things like museums saying “The museum is doing this, the museum is considering this exhibit” is just a handy short-hand for “those who run the museum in connection with the workers, depending on the funding from donations or grants and the kindness of artists or collection holders, is planning on X as they hope it will benefit the space on a whole and live up to the standards established by the desire to connect and create this space we call a museum”

In the same way regular non-doctor people may call a pregnancy a “baby on the way” instead of calling it “a sign of potentiality, that with the great investment of biological processes, assuming nothing goes wrong, may become a child in the fullness of time and may very well represent the joy of potential and hope anthropomorphized into a full child so you can mentally prepare for the demands of parenthood and what you will need if you reach that moment and it is not cut short in miscarriage or other medical fault”.

Again, doesn’t make a fetus a person either.

Actually, I’m starting to think that conservatives really have a problem with this “what is a person” question and seem to be under the impression that anything anthropomorphized must be a person. Maybe why they worry so much about man-on-dog marriage, because dogs must be people and thus capable of legally-binding contracts, establishment of clear and uncoerced consent, and so on.

Perhaps we could design a kindergarten primer on what is and is not a person.

Hindy, just because we sometimes give cars human names, doesn’t mean they are people. That means you and Surber need to keep your dick out of their tailpipes.

Wow, I’m not even through the first paragraph and I need to come back for supplies. This is going to be a crazy one.

If corporations are people, why can’t we put them in jail or execute them?

zencomix-

Same sex corporations can marry in Iowa.

A bit ago I had a play idea I might still write that basically lampooned that shit. Someone falling in love with a corporation who saw them as useful for a bit of tax evasion and so they strive to get married, buy a house, live in the house together and keep the corporation out of jail for its crimes.

The point being the absurd idea of a corporation being a full person in the way we see actual human beings would trigger a bit of understanding at how absurd it is that we treat corporations as people legally.

Yeah, when a merger is cancelled because that company “had already previously merged with another company and that marriage is not yet terminated” or when a company’s board is being marched to jail because “a merged company is nowhere to be found, and we suspect foul play on behalf of the company that merged with it, where did you bury the body?” then we can talk about personhood.

What g said. How come Bank of America and Citibank are still roaming the streets, free men?
~

Dig the mango in the comments where the wingnut claims:
“I have placed some of my wealth at risk by investing in what I believe are worthwhile endeavors for mankind. All I ask for, or at least hope for, is a reasonable rate of return for risking my wealth to provide a better world for many people who will purchase the products and services I seek to provide, for our mutual benefit. Thus, I am a wealth builder for the world, of which I am but one member. And that is how wealth is built for everyone involved in the process.”

Put aside the LULZ that such a tool does anything but sit back and expect financial gain no matter what his investment does to anyone else or the planet. Put aside his infantile economics construct that in order to be true requires the entire world to be made up of equal free agents acting out their self-interests under the guiding Invisible Hand of God. The really spectacular fail is in the fantasy that his investment activity is what builds wealth. He’s confusing capital gain with wealth. Real wealth that any economy relies on is only created by labor. The kind of wealth Wall Street creates today is illusory and vanishing: artificially pumped up, derivative, and fake.

Best not invest your money in a bank if towering legal intellects are willling to argue that banks, not being people, cannot be held to a contract or expected to repay a loan.

How can you kill something that’s already dead break the kneecaps of a bank?

@zencomix

Same sex corporations can marry in Iowa.

Someone notify Lil’ Stevie King – he is sure to be whorified…

It is an elementary principle of law that a corporation can act only through its employees and agents–people.

Again, this means it is not a person. If a person cannot exist unless other people are there speaking for it, it’s not a person, it’s a mother-fucking myth or a scam. When people start shilling for “Little Bobby Thompson” who needs his meds badly, please send money and it turns out that Little Bobby Thompson doesn’t technically exist, except through the stories that those who benefit from the Little Bobby Thompson Fund tell about them and speak about on behalf of the theoretical child, we throw their asses in jail.

We’re not even halfway through the first paragraph and he’s already arguing against his supposed impetus for writing this post. Mitt Romney says corporations are people. Liberals say, bullshit and that law is stupid and insulting to actual people. Hindrocket goes, nuh uh uh, corporations aren’t people, they are made of people, suck that libs!

Uh, yeah, that’s the point we liberals are making! What, did you think we were under the impression that corporations were a sinister alien plot?

The Democrats’ apparent belief that you can hurt companies without hurting people is absurd.

Apparently.

Also, and the idea that people operating corporations and the institutions thus perpetuated by people creating what we call “corporations” can hurt people is what? Also absurd?

Yeah, some people might be fucked if we take down a corporation for fraud. Innocent people who weren’t connected to the bad decisions, while those who truly benefitted can just recreate the corporation with a new name. That’s why we allow the type of hostage bullshit from corporations that we wouldn’t from a real person. A person can’t go, “you can’t arrest me, without potentially hurting all these citizens I’ve got strapped to bombs around me” with the government going “yep, guess we’ll just have to give you a big bag of money and let you continue to indiscriminately shoot them.” But somehow a corporation can get away with it because there’s nothing there to arrest.

It’s almost like they aren’t actual human beings and thus stripping them of those legal protections and putting more of the focus on the share-holders and owners, may make it possible to actually address criminal action without having innocents constantly threatened.

Not to mention, that jailing someone also “hurts a person”, maybe even more than one person if others depend on them. If we arrest a Mormon cult leader for various crimes, do we let him go because his wives were financially relying on him, or do we try and support them the best we can and accept their impaired lives as a necessary casualty of bringing someone to justice.

And hey, it’s almost like this hostage negotiation thing is the real reason that corporations don’t support a social safety net, genuine entrepeneaurship, or restrictions on a corporation’s size. If people would be taken care of no matter the state of “big” corporations and there was a reasonable pool of new businesses constantly looking to hire and the size of a business was limited, then corporations (or rather those who benefit from them) couldn’t keep saying “you can’t touch us or else you’re looking at a couple hundred thousand, maybe even a couple of million people out of work.

And the inability to just take a sniper and shoot the fucker pulling this bank heist stunt might say a little about whether or not a corporation is a fucking person.

Hey B^4, could you send me an email?

I’m at me (IF that is my real name, and with no ascii blingage) at yahoo.com.
~

Brief OT…

Governor Goodhair just went full birther.

Ladles and gentureens, your new GOP champeen, RRRiiick PERRR-ryyy!

Will do, old chum- got Jennifer’s (but not that Jennifer’s request).

RWW

Yeah, wealth building apparently means making more money than you had before.

That’s not creating anything. That’s not even necessarily building real wealth. If I rob a 7/11, I’ll have “built my wealth” in the same way, but I’d find people hard-pressed to describe me as a “wealth creator”.

And seeing as how very little of these investments anymore are based on an actual material good at any stage, it pretty much works on the same style.

Yeah, if you go to a casino and fleece the suckers who’ve had their 401Ks dumped on the market, you have “built your wealth” in the same way and with the same impact on your fellow man as most of these modern “investors”.

Does everyone in the class get to email you, thudner?!

Individuals have to pay tax on adjusted GROSS income while corporations pay taxes only on NET profit. A corporation determines for itself what the net profit is after paying for all its own expenses, salaries to the humans in control set at whatever levels they want, and reinvestment in its own future growth. Imagine if you could write off ALL your living expenses against your income and only pay taxes on what, if any, is left over.

Another part of original corporate charters was, if I recall accurately, some sort of phraseology along the lines of providing a net positive to the public.

What happened to that, and the 75 year lifespan? Was that a Reagan wealth vs. asset thingy?

If you hate progress and would rather live in poverty than see someone else prosper, you are a born liberal.

Awesome projection. I get the impression many teabaggers would live under a bridge in a cardboard box and eat rat on a stick as long as whoever they deem undeserving (queers, non-Christians, non-whites, etc.) don’t get a rat or a stick.

Yes, everyone with class may email me, vs.

😉

It is absolutely necessary for any major commercial enterprise because its existence can continue without disruption beyond any one individual’s lifespan. So being “anti-corporation” is equivalent to being pro-medieval.

I wanted to make a joke about the first line, you know, the same old, that would mean that it’s not a person, more like a vampire that isn’t held to most state laws, but the combination of the two lines is just beautiful.

I mean, that’s the transition in logic at play. Blah blah blah corporations are immortal and so treating them like mortal people may be a bad idea straight into “being against corporations is being for feudalism”.

The abruptness of the turn and the complete disconnect from the “logic” at play, makes it readily apparent to anyone with eyes (my apologies to the eyeless) just how much projection is going on here.

Um, um, “nuh uh, you’re the feudalists!” Ha, showed all those liberals who note that capitalism-fetishists seem to want a world exactly like feudalism, where the lords and their institutions were “above reproach” especially for the serfs, given status above and beyond them, because they were more people than actual people. Not much to say about that, other than “It’s always projection, always.”

Lately, we have heard a lot from the Wall Street occupiers as well as more mainstream Democrats about “greedy corporations.” But wait! This is sheer anthropomorphism: if companies aren’t people, how can they be greedy?

Oh, you can see his little piggy excitement at that one. His eyes all aglow, because finally, he’s got those bastards with all their facts and accurate observations about the economic and financial state of the country. Ha! It’s anthropomorphism to linguistically refer to a corporation as a single entity with motivations rather than listing 20 pages of caveats explaining the connections between individual actions and what we call corporations!

It’s like beating a puppy. No, I still gotta.

Yes, Master of the Obvious, that’d be the point that they’re trying to make. That we’ve turned a social anthropomorphism into a legal concept complete with rights and protections that don’t apply in the same way to us little people, with often catastrophic results. Same way that making money free speech basically means we’ve legalized bribery, not expanded our sum total of rights and since that legal bribery often works against the free speech of the whole, it leads to a direct diminishment of rights. That’s why your masters are siccing you on the OWS protestors in the first place.

You gotta love wingnuts who argue their opponents points for them as if they’ve really got their opponents now! Ha, abortion supporters, you view an abortion as a legal medical procedure that has been established as medically ethical and which is safer than all alternatives and as something mostly resisted on religious grounds or the belief systems of nutjobs! Take that! Got you in a lie good there, didn’t I?

In fact, referring to a company as “greedy” makes little sense. A for-profit company exists to make money for its owners, and secondarily to provide wealth and opportunity for its employees. The managers who run any company have a fiduciary duty to try to maximize returns for their company’s owners–that is to say, profits.

Again, yes, the system as it exists, makes a “corporation” and those who work for it, legally obligated to maximize returns for shareholders.

Above everything.

Moral considerations about the health and welfare of the environment or people at large or the protection of human rights or the like? Legally you can be in trouble for factoring them in if the financial risks don’t outweigh the financial rewards (which is why regulation, hard limits on what a corporation can’t do, and of course, harsh fines and penalties on improper actions are so damn important).

Even the long-term health of the corporation is on that list. If you spend one quarter into the red to make sure that the company will be in the black for the next 20 years or reduce corporate value so you can pay your employees a healthy salary so they can keep the middle class lifestyle alive that your business needs to stay in business, you could see yourself very quickly sued and replaced by the shareholders for “breach of contract” and a slash-and-burn technician put in your place to drive the stock price up by any means necessary.

Oh, and, the sociopathic desire for wealth at the expense of others or in direct and deliberate lack of consideration for others is the motherfucking definition of greedy.

Seriously, don’t know what planet you are from, but here on Earth, that’s what greedy means. A corporation, by law, must be greedy, and more to the point, must legally be a sociopath who hurts people to the very limit of the law. I’ll stress again that we don’t tend to let regular people get away with shit like that.

Phew, luckily this is short, will be back for more mangos.

So calling for corporate accountability makes you anti-corporate and that makes you pro-Medieval? I think that means that socialists are actually conservatives or something. Now my head hurts, so I am going to go lie down for a bit.

There would be nothing wrong w/ corporations if the profits were returned to the producers & creators (commonly known as employees, or “wage-slaves”) who do all the fucking work, rather than to the looting, mooching parasitical stockholders (or “owners”).

Hell, if the “owners” had more of a say than the mere option of returning a proxy that offers only the choice between confirming or rejecting the corporate slate of directors offered them it might be an improvement.

ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY NOW!!

Bringing in the mango sub, able to handle 8 times more mangos.

If a company’s executives decided not to be “greedy,” but rather to operate their company at a break-even level so as to avoid profit, they would be violating their legal duties and would be subject to shareholder lawsuits. And properly so.

One sec.

(Scroll up to see what had been said the previous paragraph and what I said in response).

Nope, he fully agrees with this conclusion. Corporations are required by law to be greedy, and furthermore, to maximize profits, so even staying at the same level of profit can get you into trouble. I don’t know how this is supposed to exonerate him.

I guess he’s setting up to argue that profit desire is totally not greedy, so being compelled by law to maximize profits by any means necessary no matter how illegal or unscrupulous isn’t either.

But the thing is, by old capitalism rules, before we started worshipping the stock market, a day your business could pay all its bills, pay its employees, cover its expenses and pay its owner a nice salary to cover the living expenses and have zero net profit was a good day. A little profit was even better, because you could set it aside for a rainy day, much like personal finances. If something terrible happened, you had the profit money to keep you going while you were in the red.

Now we chase endlessly more and more profit for its own sakes, people devoting their lives to making that little profit into more profit through such “innovations” as theft and making up non-existant profit.

It’s not being saved for anything. Hell, a company that’s paying its bills or even making a steady profit is more likely to be liquidated as a “failure” or turned into a real failure in order to squeeze every cent out of it, than it is to allowed to exist.

We would usually call this a culture of greed, one wherein fetishization of money for its own sakes took over any rational reason for the money’s existence.

Even the investors are just trying to grow their money hordes into even bigger hordes so they can claim to have more than the next guy. None of it is being used for any real purpose.

Honestly?

Greed is the polite euphemism for that.

And “Democrats being mean about it” is really them desperately trying to save the self-destructive rich from having this state of affairs fixed by angry mobs ripping through their houses, stealing what they want, and butchering and murdering all inside.

Wow, that was a lot heavier than I was expecting, perhaps depth is not the right approach here. Mango sub, you are hereby banished.

we’ll need to start jailing these corporations immediately

In this context, I have suddenly become and advocate for capital punishment. How you get a corporation’s neck into a guillotine, however, still eludes me.

The corporation is merely a legal form in which people do business

Actually, it is a legal form by which people avoid personal responsibility for their actions.

Okay, let’s use the mango-twaddler, able to twaddle even the most stubborn of mangos.

The same principle applies to taxes. Every company has a duty to minimize its tax liability–legally, of course. If a company’s management were to volunteer to pay more taxes than the law requires, it once again would be violating its legal duties and would no doubt be dismissed by its board of directors, and subsequently sued by shareholders.

Huh, that seems like a really strong argument for increasing the taxes on these corporations and the rich people who profit off them. If they are not going to invest anymore than they are legally compelled to, then legally compelling them is the only way to prevent a giant vacuum of money going to a handful of “corporations” (i.e. non-people) and the few rich people profiting off them (the 1% or the “investor class”). It also means that the only way to ensure workers are taken care of is to legally demand it with strict laws and stricter enforcement. Similarly hard-capping profits with high taxes is obviously the only way to ensure a corporation plans for its future and invests in its own health for its own good.

Again, you are making liberal points about capitalist structures for liberals. Yes, that is how it works and because we aren’t randomly turned on by money and incapable of imagining it working any other way, we recognize that the only means by which to coerce better behavior without a full overhaul and elimination of public traded companies is through higher taxes and stronger regulations and legal compulsion to treat the actual humans of a corporation with respect and dignity.

Furthermore, by acknowledging all this, you are also acknowledging that right now, the rich basically are using the construction of the corporation to treat their fellow men as slaves, abused and mistreated for their own profit with little to no actual work on their own part.

By demanding constant profit, expanding profit, and any means legally necessary, they demand the eventual mistreatment and slash-and-burning of even the best company to serve the greedy demands of a handful of plutocrats.

So yeah, corporations aren’t even people. They are tools of oppression.

When I was in law school, there were discussions of whether it is legally proper for a company to give money to charity. The question is debatable, but the law is that a company can make such contributions as long as they represent a rational business judgment that they enhance the company’s goodwill.

I will note that earlier he was purporting to argue that a corporation was a) a person, b) not greedy, and c) something good and glorious in order to “put it to the liberals”.

Here he is noting that even donations to charity, one of the few ways that the rich sociopaths of our society pretend to be human beings for a brief second or two is not only not something that corporations are not allowed to do (what human is barred from donating to charity), but may in fact be legally wrong if it isn’t for sociopathic reasons.

Again, this is the defense of corporations. This is a conservatives idea of a response to liberal complaints of capitalist excess. This is what he thinks will put liberals in their place and get them to forever shut up.

Furthermore he earlier argued that any criticism of this system was akin to full support of feudalism.

And yet, he makes this case.

This isn’t a problem of “I have no self-awareness”. The sick thing is I think he does, but lacks any remote idea of what a human response would be to anything. No wonder he seems so confused at the idea that we anthropomorphize inhuman institutions, but they don’t magically become human.

He may not be well-arguing that corporations aren’t human, but he’s doing an even worse job arguing that he is a human.

secondarily to provide wealth and opportunity for its employees.

i am willing to bet that the above mentioned *wealth* is NOT the same as:

“I have placed some of my wealth at risk by investing in what I believe are worthwhile endeavors for mankind.

He may not be well-arguing that corporations aren’t human, but he’s doing an even worse job arguing that he is conservatives are human.

FTFY

It is precisely the desire to maximize profits that drives businessmen, consistent with their fiduciary duties, to work hard; to innovate; to compete; to operate efficiently so as to reduce costs and prices, and thereby gain market share; and on on.

Wow, it’s been so long since I actually disagreed with any of his statements, I’ve nearly forgotten how to.

Um, okay, you can do this. B-B-

Focus.

Bullshit.

Ah, better. Yeah, he just spent paragraphs noting that not only does this drive not incentivize those things, but actually makes many of them illegal. Working hard and innovation cost money and cut into short-term profits which can leave you legally fucked with the investors. It’s actually a recipe to drive down costs and prices by price-gouging, skimping on basic materials (moral, environmental, or public safety issues be damned), screwing your workers to lower costs and eventually the slash-and-burn cannibilization of staff and the company in order to maximize profits for awhile.

Ironically, enough, not having this requirement leads to actual innovation as we see in countries with a greater ability to work for oneself as a non-public-traded company. When you are more focused on just having profit period or keeping a business running and paying your bills and you have a safety net to protect against the worst, you can try out new things, look into new markets, and take a few quarters of losses while you reposition yourself to meet new demands or upgrade fossilized old methods. Additionally, a well-compensated, well-treated workforce may be more likely to come up with innovations of their own.

But yeah, let’s be frankly honest. For all those other paragraphs, he probably didn’t see the problem and so here, he really does think that sociopath and the “grand innovation” of “let’s fire everyone and ship the fab to China” counts as “innovation” and “hard work” on behalf of the owners who make the decisions. He probably also thinks that investing a bunch of money in a corporation and then whining that they aren’t giving you enough free money is also working hard. Sometimes you have to whine for hours at a time!

Is this “greed?” Of course not. It is progress.

This line directly followed the previous. I submit it without comment for I feel it speaks for itself. I encourage all to take their own swipe at this.

Do liberals really want the rest of us to be lazy; to be uncompetitive; to squelch change; to be inefficient and to pass the costs of that inefficiency on to our customers?

As opposed to the “passed costs of inefficiency to customers” that comes from a corporation being legally obligated to maximize profits by any means necessary.

Someone seems unaware that “costs are passed to the customer” because a corporate leader would be risking their job if they just soaked it themselves, thus lowering profits. Hell, one of the greatest “innovations” corporations have found is not complying with a federal law, jacking up the prices on their customers anyways, and then blaming the whole thing on the government.

Hell, they’ve gotten so “innovative” in this department, that they’ve started blaming pre-jacked-prices long before the law ever takes effect or there even is a law or anyone even thought of having a law on “this culture of uncertainty caused by over-government-regulation”.

Truly, we would be a land of chaos and Renn-Faire re-enactors if we lacked such crucial, customer-focused innovations like that.

Also, not to kick a dead horse, but he is aware that in no point previous did he even mention customers and for good reason. Corporations do not in any way serve customers, hell, a lot of corporations have cut out customers entirely out of the equation of how they generate their profits. This is because making a good and selling to customers is often a source of un-editable expenses which could get them legally in trouble with their owners.

So trying to play consumer watchdog and protector after acknowledging all that just makes you look like the tool you are.

Okay, we’ll be wrapping this up soon. Sorry for all the scrolling.

liberalism is the reactionary dogma of our age. If you hate progress and would rather live in poverty than see someone else prosper, you are a born liberal.

Liberalism is conservatism. Conservatism is progressivism. So wait, which is the bad one?

being “anti-corporation” is equivalent to being pro-medieval.

Being anti-strawman is equivalent to being pro-non sequitur.

“I have placed some of my wealth at risk by investing in what I believe are worthwhile endeavors for mankind. All I ask for, or at least hope for, is a reasonable rate of return for risking my wealth to provide a better world for many people who will purchase the products and services I seek to provide, for our mutual benefit.

Now, see, if you expect a reasonable rate of return it’s not a risk, is it? Also, partially funding someone else’s good idea and expecting more out of it than you put in doesn’t make you a benefactor, a producer, a person who has ideas, a person who makes the world better, or anything other than an investor; neutral at best, negative if you’re as greedy a fuck as you sound, so cut the fucking self-fellatio.

Individuals have to pay tax on adjusted GROSS income while corporations pay taxes only on NET profit. A corporation determines for itself what the net profit is after paying for all its own expenses, salaries to the humans in control set at whatever levels they want, and reinvestment in its own future growth. Imagine if you could write off ALL your living expenses against your income and only pay taxes on what, if any, is left over.

Persons who are corporations also don’t have limits on giving to political candidates. If they’re going to be people, they should have to live by the same rules as the rest of us. Including having a life-span.

Well, yes, actually, they do–just as the federal government passes the costs of its inefficiency on to its customers, the taxpayers.

GOVERNMENT EVIL! Yes, score one talking point, USA USA USA!

Why, they even use the same heinous business practices as…corporations…who I was just arguing aren’t evil or greedy and are really just made of sunshine and kittens and besides liberals are stupid…

Um…

GOVERNMENT EVIL! Ha ha looney libs, I got you there.

What’d you say? Demonstration of how government “passes the costs of its inefficiency” onto the taxpayers when we’ve been slashing taxes like a mother-fucker on behalf of douchebags like us and aren’t under the same pressures to maximize profits at the expense of customer and employee?

Um…

Listen, that’s not the point. The point is that government is bad, free market is good, corporations are holy and above reproach, and liberals are stupid mean poopy-heads that don’t even think that corporations should be legal people. Also, I iz smart and showed all you stupid libs!

So there.

And so having just shat in his hand and called it victory, how does he celebrate his victory lap?

But then, liberalism is the reactionary dogma of our age. If you hate progress and would rather live in poverty than see someone else prosper, you are a born liberal.

What did I say about the projection?

Jesus, this is so bright and obvious, you might as well have brought a disco-mirror instead. Yes, it is liberals who are reactionary, dogmatic, hate social progress, and would rather have the majority live in poverty than see prosperity.

And also, two points on the sociopathy there at the end. Yes, it is a liberal “choice” to live in poverty rather than “see someone else prosper”. Um, how is someone else hoarding as much money as they can so they can have more money and only for that reason going to make a liberal suddenly not poor?

Does watching people steal money and applauding them loudly make money suddenly appear in one’s wallet? Also, how does one “choose poverty”? Does the liberal in this world just go “gawrsh, I don’t want to succeed, so I’m going to be poor and look really cross at rich people?”

And again, how is watching a few people acquire all the wealth make everyone else richer?

We’ve already acknowledged that corporations are giant money funnels designed to send everything to the “investors” who don’t even do the “hard work” of finding new ways to screw workers and customers for a few extra bucks, so how is that funding the brave conservative who “doesn’t choose poverty” and proudly applauds those who “succeed”. I’ll note again that the ending beneficiaries of the only “hard work” he mentions in this “defense” are not the people who perform the hard work, and especially not the poor bastards made to “do less with more for less pay” (i.e. the labor that actually generates all this wealth stolen by LAW by investors who couldn’t actually give a damn about the corporation or whether it survives passed next quarter and may actually sue if the workers are taken care of or actual innovation is invested in).

So how is he imagining this works?

Oh, right, silly me, he isn’t. He doesn’t actually have an argument. The liberals are right. The way the corporations work makes their legal protections as people as well as the lack of regulations and stricter taxation a genuine social threat and he has to acknowledge that.

So all he has left around that is projection and pretending that violent agreement with long-term liberal points somehow means a victory for conservatives. So now, liberals want what conservative free-market-fetishists want (a feudalistic society, and the impoverishing of the middle and lower classes) because…………reasons.

But here I see why the “faux-intelligent and sane” wingnut poise isn’t a popular one. There is no way to make conservative talking points seem even remotely tied to reality unless you completely abandon talking about the real world entirely and just create a fictional nightmare of paranoia based on your own projections.

When you actually try and argue back with some semblance of acknowledgment of reality, you end up just having to acknowledge all your opponent’s points and pretending you haven’t.

And somehow arguing that people aren’t actual people, but things made of people that are legally obligated to care as little about actual people as much as possible for the enrichment of a small segment of actual people who are really begging for some guillotines right now.

More “heads I win, tails you lose”ism from the conservatards:

We need corporations to employ us and sell us stuff to make our lives better, although those are not the reasons corporations exist. They only exist to maximize profits for the shareholders, so all other considerations have to be ignored when making business decisions. The decision makers can’t be personally responsible for the decisions made on behalf of the shareholders because they are only doing their duty to maximize profit. The decision makers work hard and therefore can set their salaries as high as they want even when they fail to turn any profit at all, let alone maximize it. When corporations are punished, it’s really the workers and consumers who suffer although the corporation’s goal must always be to pay the workers as little as possible and charge the consumers as much as possible in pursuit of maximizing profit. So corporations cannot be evil and the people behind them can’t be responsible for anything people want to consider evil because corporate decision- making has to be amoral and detached from anything but the profit motive. It’s really for the best, trust us.

As others have said, I’ll believe a corporation is a person when Texas starts lethally injecting them.

Beyond that, let’s suppose we accept that corporations are “people”. Well, then, what kind of people are they?

They’re prohibited by law from taking actions that minimize or hurt their ability to generate profit. As such, all other considerations are secondary to this person – the health and welfare of others, the short or long-term effects on society and the environment. The corporation is a “person” for whom money and profits are more important than the rights, welfare, and lives of other persons.

In short, a sociopath.

Not hard to see why Buttrocket identifies with them.

“Rick Perry goes full birther” is actually true FFS I’m sorry, but America is screwed. Most of you are nice people so you should get out.

Now, see, if you expect a reasonable rate of return it’s not a risk, is it? Also, partially funding someone else’s good idea and expecting more out of it than you put in doesn’t make you a benefactor, a producer, a person who has ideas, a person who makes the world better, or anything other than an investor; neutral at best, negative if you’re as greedy a fuck as you sound, so cut the fucking self-fellatio.

There is that. These people expect a strong return on their investment. If they don’t get it, if they have a large enough investment, they can force out those that haven’t given them that return and put in their hand-chosen lackeys to slash-and-burn the company to jack up the stock price long enough for you to dump it on some chump and get your “return on investment”.

That is not even risky.

That is the least risky thing on the planet, less risky than working for one of these corporations and being in line of potential downsizing because an investor didn’t like how much their portfolio grew this quarter and is demanding heads.

And it really isn’t altruistic. Because you aren’t donating the money for anyone’s benefit. You are expecting a free-money generating product. That by giving a company a certain amount of capital, that they will in turn steal some of the fruits of the labor of actual workers to give you free-money.

No other purchase carries with it the assumption that it will pay you everything back plus interest. You don’t buy a toaster and then expect that you’ll receive back your payment price, plus a little extra. Hell, you don’t even expect to recover the full price when you sell it a couple years down the line at a garage sale.

What they are revealing is that they are entitled parasites, expecting that everyone will make them richer without work, because they have a large amount of money to begin with.

They don’t have ideas, they don’t have a work ethic and they aren’t even doing anything that is even remotely connected to work and they aren’t even donating the money out of the goodness of their heart, they are fully expecting and feel entitled to all of it back plus interest.

These are essentially, loan-sharks. Except that a loan-shark doesn’t expect an ever increasing amount of money every time you pay them back. It’s more akin to indentured servitude. Forever jacking up the “cost” of the initial investment so as to make it impossible to “pay back adequately”.

With the added benefit that if the loan-shark doesn’t feel you are over-paying them enough then they can take all your hopes and dreams away and ruin them before your eyes to make a short-term killing.

Yeah, when your “value-add” to society makes loan-sharks and mafia-protection-racket guys look like model members of society, I don’t think you get to rant about how you are the “job producers” and “everyone needs to worship my generous contributions to society”.

And again to all wingnuts. If you truly believe that our elites have all the money, so that we must worship them so they may think of reinvesting some of that back into the economy and without them, we’d be unable to function, what you are asking for is the immediate seizure of the wealth of the ultra-rich.

You are arguing that they are a genuine threat to our continued existence and we are required to seize those assets and put them back to work for the economy and society in general. That they have broken the social contract that allows there to be rich people.

You are demonstrating the need for communist revolution and the rebalancing of wealth.

You are not demonstrating “gawrsh, these are hard working guys who work more than the 99% combined and deserve every penny of the global economy as their personal bank account”.

I say this, because wingnuts and capitalism-fetishists seem confused on this point.

Jennifer-

Yup, a sociopath, and a sociopath who isn’t even limited by legal coercion. A lot of people, if they go too far or follow sociopathic impulse to logical conclusion, find themselves instantly retaliated upon by society (well, the rich have always shielded themselves, from this, but we’re assuming a system that functioned as intended). If a sociopath kills someone, drives someone from their job, measurably lessens the lives of those he encounters, then he will be thrown in prison, or pushed into mandatory treatment programs or otherwise sat down by loved ones in an intervention.

But a corporation has no checks. If it kills someone, then who on staff gave the kill order? Who’s negligence caused it? If the blame is diffuse enough, then there’s no retaliation at all, perhaps a fine on the corporation, but if the fine is less than the profit gained by taking the risk that it will kill someone, then the corporate culture is actually incentivized to kill people.

And since you will have no shortage of idiots who react to corporations as if they were real people with real-sized bank accounts, you’ll get them arguing against any large fine likely to discourage murderous behavior. No, suing a multi-trillion dollar company a couple of million-dollars is “the real definition of greed”, “they’re just trying to get rich of the company’s hard work”, and “ride the train to easy street” (isn’t it amazing that conservatives will whine about poor people trying to “get rich with no effort” by suing corporations but find investors whose literal job is doing nothing and expecting free money often in excess of that ever given in a lawsuit, absolutely fine? It’s almost like it’s about worshipping the lack of mobility between class. If rich is rich and poor is poor then its okay that a hard-working middle class person hasn’t even remotely approached rich and actually seems to be worst off than they were as kids.).

So yeah, if a person, they are not only a sociopath, but a sociopath without boundaries. Without a means to actually be punished for ill-doings in any real way, without a check on their impulses.

If corporations were really truly viewed as people, then anyone who assassinated one would be viewed as a public hero, in the same way we praise the mobs or men who take down and murder vile dictators.

Being anti-strawman is equivalent to being pro-non sequitur.

A thing of beauty, this is.

And sorry for all the scroll vomit, everyone. I hope it hasn’t overly fucked up the thread’s flow.

“Rick Perry goes full birther” is actually true FFS I’m sorry, but America is screwed. Most of you are nice people so you should get out.

Fully to be expected. That the birther conspiracy had dropped out of the overall campaign was the aberration (though an aberration the paymasters in the GOP were probably really happy about). It was really only a matter of time that it resurfaced again in a GOP front-runner and frankly Rick Perry who has already gone full birther before, was always a good bet for the one to revive it for a nice-boost among the mouth-breathers.

weird

weird

Totally. Who called that guy “Pope” anyhow? Sounds so much like POOP.

“Yes, everyone with class ”

Oh.

I think “I am altruism” commenter is even better because he tries to argue earlier that:

I am a corporation

Someone is a little confused and yet still wants to be thought of as intelligent enough to deserve more than most families make in a life-time for absolutely no effort.

I hope it hasn’t overly fucked up the thread’s flow.

Well, you certainly have!! Over 50 comments & we’ve barely lurched off topic.

Note also that when there’s not much snarking going on, no trolls appear to “refudiate” the very serious points being made. It’s almost as if all they can do is moan about smart-asses being at a site for smart-asses, & have no very serious answers when a buffoon like Hineyscratcher makes an obvious idiot of himself.

Who called that guy “Pope” anyhow? Sounds so much like POOP.

In Spanish, of course, el papa also means the potato. Mere coincidence? I doubt it.

Cerberus,
Isn’t Wallstreet itself just a giant fucking Ponzi scheme feeding off people like these stupid drones in the Powerline comments section who mentally masturbate and rationalize over their winning and losing investments? I wouldn’t mind if those were the only victims, but these bastards have wired their scheme into our entire economy, banking, housing, and currency systems and we’re all getting royally screwed even if we’re not in the “investor class”.

M Bouffant-

I think the time when wingnuts even really pretend to have “very serious answers” to pretty much anything is pretty well gone. The troll comments on the websites mirror the posts themselves mirror the arguments made on the Congress floor. Nothing but projection, dog-whistles, nuh-uh, and attacking a strawman that never existed like a concern troll all the way down.

The fact that that still gets nearly half of the votes of the voting public is probably the most damning indictment against America ever uttered.

RWW-

Yup, it’s a casino for the real “high rollers” except that the role of the House is fulfilled by the richest players and banks and they are demanding the right to force everyone into the Casino floor and play whether they want to or not and have the House bailed out if they ever wipe out the marks too much to sustain the game.

the most damning indictment against America ever uttered

That 60 million of the sheep voted for Nixon in 1972 is condemnation that will last for eternity.

60 comments in. I can has`Godwin violation?
The defendants at Nuremburg would have saved themselves a world of pain if they’d followed this man’s fine legal approach and incorporated the Nazi party.

CORPORATION, n.

An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.

—Ambrose Bierce

No, suing a multi-trillion dollar company a couple of million-dollars is “the real definition of greed”

Corporations sue each other all the time. Just name a product Mc anything and watch McDonald’s pull up out front with a bus-load of lawyers.

Everyone’s heard the tired argument that corporations don’t pay taxes, they pass them on to the consumer. If that’s true and taxes are just automatically passed on as a cost of doing business, then why do the corporations lobby so hard against taxes? And in Herman Cain’s 999 plan, wouldn’t the consumers be hit with their own individual tax, the sales tax AND the corporate tax being passed on to them?

Consumers don’t pay taxes, they pass them along to corporations by not buying corporate goods and services.

RWW-

I’m more interested in people seeing the problem, “Corporations seek any possible means to avoid a drop in profit, including passing on the costs of regulations, law suits, and taxes against them” as a call to eliminate those things for corporations rather than making it illegal to jack up the price on goods and blame it on those things or create cartel pricing agreements so that the industry decides to collectively pass on the “cost” rather than be the one to take a potential temporary setback to completely corner the market.

It’d be like looking at the problem of “some people murder people” as a problem to be solved by making murder legal and demanding everyone bake murderers a pie when they kill someone.

I think the biggest problem we face is that we all seem to have a sort of Stockholm Syndrome and think we need to grovel harder against the institutions that hold us hostage hoping by currying their favor, we can avoid their wrath and have forgotten that we could just universally call for corporations and rich people to be bent over a barrel and soaked for the common good.

Given how much conservatives arguments rely on this kind of thinking, no wonder the rich are freaking out over OWS. People might start remembering that they aren’t actually powerless and the government is theoretically supposed to be working for them when we don’t split 50/50 on whether we solve the problem by begging for mercy and singing praises or actually doing something to address the issue.

Corporations sue each other all the time. Just name a product Mc anything and watch McDonald’s pull up out front with a bus-load of lawyers.

Something tort-reformers never seem to notice.

Yes, everyone with class may email me

Oh yeah? Go fuck yourself.

This is no joke and I am no troll. Conservative Ideals need no proof, links or discussion. They are asserted for the Truth contained therein and nothing more. We of the Tea Party understand this and we don’t confuse each other with citation of facts. Conservative Ideals are a priori and we all know clear meaning when we see it. You dismiss this as “dog whistles” and such, but even the true meanings of our words are understood by you so why should you cheapen our use of this method of communicating with clarity. Political correctness destroys minds and the meanings of words. Your hatred for corporations is self-hatred against Acorn and Freddie/Fannie Mac and the destruction left in the wake of those failed corporations run by liberals such as yourself. We warned you about these policies when Jimmy Peanut Farmer was in charge and Brother Billy was pissing his beer all over and embarrassing this country. You let Barney Frank run the show and look where that got you. A ruined housing market that is as bad as Taxachusetts is to business. You should have listened to Reagan and passed his very serious policies though your Democrat Congress. Lesson over.

And sorry for all the scroll vomit, everyone. I hope it hasn’t overly fucked up the thread’s flow.

No need to apologise. Your stuff always makes the thread longer to read, but it’s worth it.

The question is debatable, but the law is that a company can make such contributions as long as they represent a rational business judgment that they enhance the company’s goodwill.

I’m not sure I understand this statement. Is it like when a corporation cuts costs by shirking maintenance expenses, and as a result 3,000 people die in a week from poison released in the atmosphere, and 8,000 die later from diseases that are related to that poisoning, and 558,125 injuries occur including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries, then it’s o.k. if that corporation donates some money to the symphony orchestra nearest to their corporate headquarters before it dies and it’s body is resurrected in the same form with a different name?

I think the biggest problem we face is that we all seem to have a sort of Stockholm Syndrome and think we need to grovel harder against the institutions that hold us hostage hoping by currying their favor, we can avoid their wrath and have forgotten that we could just universally call for corporations and rich people to be bent over a barrel and soaked for the common good.

This is why I’m really hoping the OWS protests get behind a personal debt default strategy. People need to wake up to the fact that the only thing that keeps them enslaved to debt is their outmoded chivalry in upholding their “honor” by honoring their debts. Corporations have no such quaint notions and escape punishment by buying the government. While we as private individuals do not have access to this route, collectively we could bring down pretty much any financial institution and quite a few others just by coordinating a refusal to repay them. “Oh, I signed this “contract” when I opened the account saying I’d pay you back with X amount of interest? Oops! Too bad, so sad…I’ve decided you’re going to have to go fuck yourself on that. Thanks for playing!”

When it’s one guy, they can sic their entire apparatus on him; when it’s 10 million, they’re pretty much immediate and irretrievably fucked. They know it, and they’re just hoping that we won’t collectively figure it out and decide to do something about it.

They know it, and they’re just hoping that we won’t collectively figure it out and decide to do something about it.

My understanding is banks are foreclosing faster now(BoA CEO and fuck-faced turd Brian Moynihan has bragged about it), so they may be worried about that very thing and hoping that showing no mercy keeps people too afraid.

Speaking of corporations:

Time Warner Ordered Employee to Stop Administering CPR to Dying Co-Worker and Get Back to Work

The only surprising thing about the Time Warner story is that it wasn’t Comcast.

Cerb:

Ditto. It’s almost always a good read and if I am too tired to read it, I move on. No worries.

In short, a sociopath.

I was thinking the exact thing.

Empathy is not big in boardrooms.

Pity, that.

And, thank you T-W for the timely example.

Time Warner Ordered Employee to Stop Administering CPR to Dying Co-Worker and Get Back to Work

She is the 53%!
.

Food pron for the day –

I made a creole daube. Daube is basically French for “pot roast”.

Chuck roast marinated overnight in thyme, allspice, cloves, garlic, pepper, cayenne and red wine vinegar overnight.

Seared and then braised for 5 hours in red wine and veal stock with turnips, carrots, onions, green onions.

Served over pasta with a creole roux-based red gravy (a very thick, rich tomato sauce).

Well, my drool shorted out my iPhone keyboard. I’m not even sure HOW.

Has anybody here seen the documentary The Corporation? It comes to the same “psychopath” conclusion as this thread. It’s worth checking out, I think.

Spear – that’s where I got it from.

You can watch the Corporation for free online. Highly recommended.

Yup, saw it. Good shtuff.

Not as good as “Helvetica,” of course, but more pertinent to the subject at hand if you wanna be a dick about it.

The NFL rocks on NBC.

Just sayin’.
.

Spearhafoc-

Yeah, that was a really well put together documentary, one of my favorite.

vacuumslayer-

I’ve actually been meaning to see that. So it’s good then?

It really is. I can’t explain why, it just is.

Well, my drool shorted out my iPhone keyboard. I’m not even sure HOW.

“Drool”. Yeah.

We went from radical to reactionary in one bucket full of internet Repig slop.

I think Assrocket is really onto something here.

Hmmmmmm.

If corporations aren’t holograms, how can they create subsidiaries with exactly the same characteristics as the original?

If corporations aren’t armies, how can they have a hierarchy?

If corporations aren’t religions, how can they have mission statements?

If corporations aren’t countries, how can they have charters?

Hot damn! This is FUN!

I think the biggest problem we face is that we all seem to have a sort of Stockholm Syndrome and think we need to grovel harder against the institutions that hold us hostage hoping by currying their favor, we can avoid their wrath and have forgotten that we could just universally call for corporations and rich people to be bent over a barrel and soaked for the common good.

This.

I started saying it a while ago, when I first started hearing all this “but the rich are the job creators!” whining: well, they’re not creating jobs, and they’re sitting on enough money to single-handedly hammer unemployment to zero if they gave a damn, so, let’s pass a Full Employment Act and finance it by soaking the shit out of them. Lather, rinse, repeat, until it becomes more profitable for them to actually employ people than to let the feds take away their income.

Not rocket science. Oh sure, some of them might go Galt, but one, I seriously doubt if most of them will (none of them in Eisenhower’s days did). Two, I seriously doubt if it would have the devastating impact Rand predicts (they’re no more irreplaceable than the workers they fire: for every Master Of The Universe who quits, there’ll be dozens of people who’ll be happy to be as rich as he is if all they have to pay for it are a few more percentage points in taxes). And three, even if it did, who gives a fuck? They’ve spent thirty years wrecking the economy and they’re not going to stop until it’s wrecked for everyone else, so if we’re all fucked anyway, we might as well take them down with us.

This is why I’m really hoping the OWS protests get behind a personal debt default strategy. People need to wake up to the fact that the only thing that keeps them enslaved to debt is their outmoded chivalry in upholding their “honor” by honoring their debts. Corporations have no such quaint notions and escape punishment by buying the government. While we as private individuals do not have access to this route, collectively we could bring down pretty much any financial institution and quite a few others just by coordinating a refusal to repay them. “Oh, I signed this “contract” when I opened the account saying I’d pay you back with X amount of interest? Oops! Too bad, so sad…I’ve decided you’re going to have to go fuck yourself on that. Thanks for playing!”

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were advocating going Galt. I like it.

In… um… Germany, I believe, as far along as the 1980s, and it may still be this way today, they had one person whose title was, loosely translated, something along the lines of “Corporate Blame Officer”. This person sat on the Board and had some sort of piddly little responsibilities in running the company, but her/his real reason for existing, in the corporate sense, was to serve any jail time to which the corporation was sentenced, which was then (and may still be) a possibility in German jurisprudence. Seems like this might have been a way of strengthening the principle of personal responsibility for illegal actions undertaken as a member of a formally organized entity. I believe they had a bit of trouble with that last century.

I always like to think of German board meetings in which all the directors go, “So we’re agreed that we’re gonna switch to cheaper lead-based paint for this season’s Christmas toys?” and the one director holds up a finger and says, “Um, just one second here, fellas…”

Immortality, here I come!

(Note To Self: remember to always get back in the coffin before sunrise)

Immorality, here I come! Oh wait…

The corporation […] is absolutely necessary for any major commercial enterprise

Sadly, No! Says the Wickerpedia:

Many private firms in the 19th century avoided the corporate model for these reasons (Andrew Carnegie formed his steel operation as a limited partnership, and John D. Rockefeller set up Standard Oil as a trust).

Miss me yet?

…a reasonable rate of return…

Bond Villain No. 1: Do you believe in God, M. Le Chiffre?
Bond Villain No. 2: No. I believe in a reasonable rate of return.

Being anti-strawman is equivalent to being pro-non sequitur.

LOL. (No, really. I actually did suffer spontaneous amusement oral ejaculation. Luckily, I was alone at the time.)

If corporations are people, why can’t we put them in jail or execute them?

Actual sign at Occupy Wall Street: “I’ll believe that corporations are people whe Texas executes one.” (I’m guessing “an innocent one” would have made the line too long to fit on the sign…)

Everyone who mentioned the Texas execution thing by other terms can now *AHEM* me for my having CTRL-F “execute” and got nothin’.

liberalism is the reactionary dogma of our age.

Either Wing Nut CENTCOM sent out a memo awhile back, or various right-wing hacks get pissy about being accurately tagged as “reactionary”, because one of our local clowns has been calling liberals “reactionary” for quite awhile now. That they are explicitly showing Orwell to have been right does not bother them, apparently:

Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

Even dead, Orwell knows more about politics than does Corndog Buttmissile. Quelle surprise.

Nonetheless, Orly Taitz, the so-called Queen of the Birthers, is endorsing Perry’s candidacy. She told the ThinkProgress website that she believes if the Texas governor wins the Republican nomination, he’ll use the birther issue to attack Obama.

Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/World/20111023/rick-perry-hints-he-doesnt-trust-Obama-birth-certificate-111023/#ixzz1bfllyM5D

12 straight hours of editing. I am now officially sick of my own voice.

Queen of the birthers – I think I saw that movie.

Could he be twisting much more to do a half-pike, double summy to his conclusion?

And sorry for all the scroll vomit, everyone. I hope it hasn’t overly fucked up the thread’s flow.

Absolutely no apology required, sir, your so called scroll vomit is well thought out and inspiring (although not enough PENIS).

….This person sat on the Board and had some sort of piddly little responsibilities in running the company, but her/his real reason for existing, in the corporate sense, was to serve any jail time to which the corporation was sentenced, which was then (and may still be) a possibility in German jurisprudence……

Yes, still is, with similar positions in Dutch and some French companies. The UK also has a ‘guiding mind’ law which means that (in principal) a company director can go to jail through negligence causing death. Don’t know how often it is used, though.

If [noun] isn’t [adjective1], then how can [noun] be [adjective2 that does not only apply to adjective1]?

This deserves to become:
1) added to every list of logical fallacies as its own special category
2) an internet tradition

It reminds me of some of Bob Altemeyer’s work, where he observed in his research that right wing authoritarians are really bad at syllogistic reasoning, so to RWAs:

fish swim in the sea
Whales swim in the sea
Therefore, whales are fish

Makes perfect sense. They really are the gang that couldn’t think straight. Yes, they’re dishonest as all fuck when they need to be, but most of the time they really have trouble with elementary reasoning.

The UK also has a ‘guiding mind’ law which means that (in principal) a company director can go to jail through negligence causing death. Don’t know how often it is used, though.

Virtually never. In my service of corporate whoredom, I find teh Brits often asking how come their authorities are apparently much less effective than the FBI and other Real American asskickers. One view is that the criminal standard is usually too high a hurdle in these cases; or at least prosecutors see it that way, so don’t bring the cases. Another view is that powerful corporations just get away with pretty much anything.

Again wrt the UK, they thought about prosecuting rail company management for fatal crashes – indisputably caused by “cost-cutting” on track maintenance – but they didn’t because…

You start with “Corporate officers have a legal obligation to do anything within the law to increase profits” and add a court decision making it legal to give unlimited amounts of money to legislators in exchange for writing regulations that favour the company…

Don’t we arrive at “Corporate officers have a legal obligation to bribe legislators”? Shouldn’t that be the point when the robot explodes, allowing Kirk to escape?

Why not kick off a new week with some old shorter Pantload:

“Silly peasants, don’t they realize that without their penury, the system cannot function?”

“Corporate officers have a legal obligation to do anything within the law to increase maximize profits”

fiqqsed for Chicago School accuracy and efficiency because that’s how rational actors are meant to behave.

Since no on else wanted to grab this particular piece of low-hnaging fruit* How will Doughy Pantload be able to bottom this?

It’s an insult to bottoms everywhere to compare them to the Pantload.

*You know it, baby.

how rational actors are meant to behave

Avert their eyes during the Academy Awards show’s musical numbers?

fish swim in the sea
Whales swim in the sea
Therefore, whales are fish

Wait. I was told that fish need bicycles by an ex-girlfriend! Bicycles are fish too?

If corporations aren’t people, how come they fapped like mad over Citizens United, huh? Answer me THAT, Mr. Flying Monketbutt!

Hey, hope everyone had a nice week-end.

So, what’s Assrocket saying here? Can you make Soylent Green out of corporations or not? Asking for a friend collective of persons acting to further their mutual interests under a specific legal form which limits teh liabilites arising from their actions.

Can you make Soylent Green out of corporations or not?

In Russia, corporations make Soylent Green out of YOU.

Wait…what?

The “persons” who own everything

Odd. Not a Jew in the bunch…

I am a Corporation. Hath not a
Corporation eyes? Hath not a Corporation hands, organs, dimensions, senses,affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same
weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same
means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as
a Liberal is? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us
do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you
wrong us shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest,
we will resemble you in that. If a Corporation wrong a Liberal, what
is his humility? Revenge. If a Liberal wrong a Corporation , what
should his sufferance be by Liberal example? Why, revenge.
The villany you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard
but I will better the instruction.

Hey, Cerebus, Spear–

PZ was apparently so baffled by the “Cock is so awesome, but that’s moot because no woman anywhere ever enjoyed sex ever plus how do two chicks do it plus wimmin just want us for our ones of dollars” man boobz entry he couldn’t help commenting on it.

Odd. Not a Jew in the bunch…

SOROS!!!!!

If you prick us do we not bleed?

I find it hard to believe any corporation has a virginal ass.

I don’t know how many more of these “Imma be broke, working three jobs and in debt to my eyeballs, but I’m not gonna complain because it’s the American way!” entries I have to read before my chuckles turn into an ulcer, but it’s getting close.

Odd. Not a Jew in the bunch…

That’s because “Hollywood” isn’t considered a company, ya silly!

SOROS!!!!!

YAY!

You know, gay folks should eschew marriage and incorporate instead.

You know, gay folks should eschew marriage and incorporate instead.

You know the right-wingers will get all upset by their public shareholding.

You know, gay folks should eschew marriage and incorporate instead.

Right wingers would start railing about “preferred shares” and all.

You know, gay folks should eschew marriage and incorporate instead.

I’d incorporate myself right now if I wasn’t afraid that the stockholders wouldn’t hire a consultant who would end up recommending outsourceing all Helmut Monotreme related activities to Indonesia.

DAMN YOU, N__B!

I don’t know how many more of these “Imma be broke, working three jobs and in debt to my eyeballs, but I’m not gonna complain because it’s the American way!” entries I have to read before my chuckles turn into an ulcer, but it’s getting close.

“Work 72 hours a week while dying with cancer” pretty much tops the list. This whole 53% thing has been edifying in revealing a segment of the population who actually want to be serfs.

recommending outsourceing all Helmut Monotreme related activities to Indonesia.

Clearly, you’ve never been to Singapore, or you wouldn’t mind so much.

“Work 72 hours a week while dying with cancer” pretty much tops the list.

We ought to register dummy names on that 53% site and start the Four Yorkshiremen skit on it.

This whole 53% thing has been edifying in revealing a segment of the population who actually want to be serfs.

All the people who claim to be in the 53% while unemployed has surprised me. I knew a lot of folks on the right weren’t too clear on the concepts in the first place, but c’mon, folks: YOU ARE THE PEOPLE YOU ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT.

Bombs away.

Also too the “don’t protest Wall Street, protest Washington!” You mean don’t protest the people you lot have sworn for years are the movers, shakers, and real doers in the country and instead protest the people you’ve always said can’t do anything? Riiiight.

I knew a lot of folks on the right weren’t too clear on the concepts in the first place, but c’mon, folks: YOU ARE THE PEOPLE YOU ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT.

It just confirms that brainwashing can work. Also, some of them (comically) claim that they will be the 53%. As in, “some day I’ll have enough money to theoretically pay taxes that people poorer than me cannot (even though my understanding of this shows how much I really need to take a class in economics, American history and possibly business ethics).”

Bombs away.

I’m more and more convinced that we need to #Occupy Republicans

Stage protests and encampments outside the homes of prominent Republican politicians. No one goes there anyway, so no bombs.

Also too the “don’t protest Wall Street, protest Washington!” You mean don’t protest the people you lot have sworn for years are the movers, shakers, and real doers in the country and instead protest the people you’ve always said can’t do anything? Riiiight.

My response when some yahoo tells me that is, “That was done recently; it was called the Tea Party.”

Julia Nelson would have qualified as a 53 %er.

Julia Nelson would have qualified as a 53 %er.

“I’m, sorry, Ms Nelson. The cable co CPR provider can be there between 8 and noon, but we can’t promise a time.”

“don’t protest Wall Street, protest Washington!”

Management prefers that unhappy customers speak to agents who explicitly do not have the power to fix their issues, it’s much easier to avoid having to do anything unprofitable this way you see.

For decades the political establishment has told us they can’t do anything about rising inequality, it’s globalization! Technology! Free Trade! The market! The bond vigilantes will kill us if we do! The rich will go Galt!

So yeah, OWS is finally complaining to the people who actually have the power to fix things.

Other myths about OWS

Tie the Republicans in to Wall Street.

How hard can it be?

Mittens and Cain are prating about “jobs” when they made all their money by throwing people out of work. Why isn’t anyone banging on that? Too early? Please don’t give those bastards a pass. Track down some of the people who got thrown out on the street by McKinney or whatever the fuck Mittens’ corporate executioners were called and put them on TV. Devote one-tenth as much energy to that as the shitheads did to Swiftboating Kerry and I guarantee the election will be a breeze.

Julia Nelson would have qualified as a 53 %er.

Have the usual suspects started beating the tort reform drum yet?

It’s the free space on my wingnut bingo card. When tax cuts and deregulation won’t solve something, it must be a job for tort reform.

Have the usual suspects started beating the tort reform drum yet?

You’re behind the curve

Why isn’t anyone banging on that? Too early? Please don’t give those bastards a pass.

In terms of the election or in terms of getting soemthing done?

In terms of the election, it’s way too early. What if Perry or Romney or Cain fizzle? You’ll have spent millions for no reason.

In terms of getting something done, they individually hold no power at this point, so I’m not sure what calling them to account for this would do.

OWS explained graphically.

Wait, is he trying to argue against Citizens United? – g

Sadly (I betcha), yes. To the extent that Citizens United is an unpopular ruling, expect the right to start arguing against it as an example of “liberal judicial activism”.

OTOH, he might be arguing that “liberals don’t think corporations are people yet they refer to corporate greed, so liberalism is inconsistent QED, I can too make a logimical argument, take that you liberal Poindexters”, but I am too afraid to get off the boat to find out.

Anyway, it’s not us liberals who want to turn back the economic clock (or at least not most liberals I know) but rather the right that wants to (no surprise) turn back the clock — after all, they claim that a system of government predicated upon a pre-corporate economy is what we should go back to, so are they not advocating turning back the clock to a time corporations didn’t exist anyway?

I wonder why all the people who glowingly cite Citizens United don’t give the full name–Citizens United Not Timid? Is it perhaps because they’re a little embarrassed that this landmark decision, which will provide untraceable rivers of money for political slander, is based on somebody calling Hillary Clinton a cunt?

I wonder why all the people who glowingly cite Citizens United don’t give the full name–Citizens United Not Timid? Is it perhaps because they’re a little embarrassed that this landmark decision, which will provide untraceable rivers of money for political slander, is based on somebody calling Hillary Clinton a cunt?

Reposting because holy shit, I vaguely recall hearing this back when the original controversy over the movie being blocked happened, but totally forgot about it. Fuck, as bad as they are it’s so easy to forget just how fucking awful they are.

i don’t know, y’all…i miss my dog…we had to put her down this morning…fourteen years of loyalty and love from her…and then i read in the comments from the pantolad link, that ‘nobody is starving’ and ‘the only people who are homeless are those with mental illness so who cares’ and ‘there are enough shelters for everyone they just don’t want to go there’ and ‘yr st00pid cuz you want the gubbermint to help people when we should be the ones doing it but we don’t wanna!’ yeah, you evil fucker, you should be…our youngest (and i swear, not brightest) dog this morning kept going over to hootie and nuzzling her…then she’d go to her bed and curl up and look so sad…how can she be so much more compassionate than humans?…fuck me…there are not enough m&ms to get through this day…

I was the Occupied movement in my state one night this past week and an idiot starting talking to me about this very subject. In fact, he must have studied Hindwrecker’s points because they coincide so well with what I remember.

I listened, tried to teach a bit.

Then ignored him and walked off and forgot about it.

It was nice.

“is based on somebody calling Hillary Clinton a c****?”

I long for the day when people feel as ashamed to say or type or print that word as they do another word that was once used in common lexicon but now has been banished by those who know better.

That word is the absolute insult to a woman, the complete degradation from the mouth of the sexist who wishes to debase and dehumanize woman, reducing them to the vilest word they can find.

Something like the use of that “n” word.

This whole 53% thing has been edifying in revealing a segment of the population who actually want to be serfs.

WOO HOO!
PROFITBURGERS AHOY!

after all, they claim that a system of government predicated upon a pre-corporate economy is what we should go back to, so are they not advocating turning back the clock to a time corporations didn’t exist anyway?

i really don’t think they will be happy until straight out feudalism reigns again…

I wonder why all the people who glowingly cite Citizens United don’t give the full name–Citizens United Not Timid? Is it perhaps because they’re a little embarrassed that this landmark decision, which will provide untraceable rivers of money for political slander, is based on somebody calling Hillary Clinton a cunt?

so, really? i do not recall any of this…meaning, i was not really paying attention to politics at the time other than mocking bush and hoping like hell hillary didn’t get in…so, a little background might be edifying for me…

a little background might be edifying for me…

We aim to please.

There’s no shortage of reasons why we don’t put John on much.

Okay, okay, sure, yeah, Bachmann may be a shrill crazy doped-out whore, but at least she’s bright enough not to let herself get punked by some chirpy little high-school tighty in a debate … this yut would let that kid blend him like a fucking smoothie for a solid half-hour until she made him cry for his Mommy live on-air. Then he’d make it worse by blogging the next day about how easily he won. Dude’s a walking talking video clusterfuck waiting to happen, feel me?

Fuck, just remembering that gawky twit’s voice is enough to make me gack.
Like a goddamn mutant with a head-cold.

I hate to say this, but on second look, I think I may have been wrong. The Citizens United people who produced the movie that sparked the lawsuit were different from the “…Not Timid” jerk, who just wanted to sell T-shirts.

Of course, when it comes to ultimate destruction of the political process, the first group was/is way more effective.

We aim to please.

thanks…i think…i have no clue how i missed all that at the time…

I hate to say this, but on second look, I think I may have been wrong. The Citizens United people who produced the movie that sparked the lawsuit were different from the “…Not Timid” jerk, who just wanted to sell T-shirts.

Of course, when it comes to ultimate destruction of the political process, the first group was/is way more effective.

true…they are separate, but it all goes together…

i miss my dog…we had to put her down this morning…fourteen years of loyalty and love from her…and then i read in the comments from the pantolad link, that ‘nobody is starving’

I see a possible solution…

I see a possible solution…

leave it to you to make me laff inappropriately!

leave it to you to make me laff inappropriately!

Well, I’m just a dumb cunt.

Welsh woman anti-binary numbers

and was always regaling us with stories about her upbringing, her farming life and her family, to whom she was devoted.

regaling…yes, i’m sure that’s the word…i bet her family enjoyed her ‘regaling’ them with stories also…

I don’t know how many more of these “Imma be broke, working three jobs and in debt to my eyeballs, but I’m not gonna complain because it’s the American way!” entries I have to read before my chuckles turn into an ulcer, but it’s getting close.

I can’t click through on the link because, you know, firewall, but is that this guy?

i bet her family enjoyed her ‘regaling’ them with stories also…

I’m sure they did the first dozen times or so. The problem is that people that age tend to have lots of wonderful old stories but very few if any new stories.

I can’t click through on the link because, you know, firewall, but is that this guy?

“He’s” a “she” actually, but here’s the, ahem, declaration:

“I am 22 years old. I am a college student and will be receiving a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology with a concentration in Human Services. I came for a small town that was built on Furniture Factories. Both of my parents dropped out of high school to work in those factories. My parents are divorced and I have three sisters, ages 18, 20, and 24. My father was laid off from a high supervising position when the factories in our town closed down. He took job opportunities when he could, but most were only temporary and he would be let go once the work was done. He is now unemployed. The job opportunities are very scarce in our town. My oldest sister dropped out of the UNC Chapel Hill, at the age of 18, and moved back home because she got pregnant. My younger sister, age 20, also got pregnant at the age of 18. I never considered anything but college because college was the only way for me. I have worked since I was 15 years old at various jobs, not because my parents told me to, but because I knew if I wanted anything I would be the one to pay for it. I do not feel entitled to anything that I have not earned. I pay my own bills, without any help from my parents even though they would do as much as they could to help me if I asked them. I consider myself an adult and feel that those are my responsibilities not my parents. Once I graduate I plan to take any job I can get with no complaints because in this economy you cannot be picky.

Once I graduate I will owe 18K in student loans.

I will be the first out of my family to finish college.

I am the 53%. “

Seriously, there’s enough material on the 53% site for a month’s worth of Shorters.

Why do I think the girl in Pryme’s quote above will soon be happily ensconced in the HR Dept. of Malice Aforethought Inc.?

Sorry, bbkf. I feel for ya.

My oldest sister dropped out of the UNC Chapel Hill, at the age of 18, and moved back home because she got pregnant. My younger sister, age 20, also got pregnant at the age of 18. I never considered anything but college because college was the only way for me. I have worked since I was 15 years old at various jobs, not because my parents told me to, but because I knew if I wanted anything I would be the one to pay for it.

I wonder. Do you think it’s possible the two older sisters are receiving some form of “public assistance”?

Once I graduate I plan to take any job I can get with no complaints because in this economy you cannot be picky.

Almost like someone planned it that way.

I do not feel entitled to anything that I have not earned.

Once I graduate I will owe 18K in student loans

Apparently you feel entitled to 18k worth of education which you have not yet “earned”.

Also….

The job opportunities are very scarce in our town… I have worked since I was 15 years old at various jobs, not because my parents told me to, but because I knew if I wanted anything I would be the one to pay for it.

Sounds to me as tho she’s taken all the available jobs for herself.

Hang on….it just hit me…UNC Chapel Hill?

Isn’t that where good ol’ Dr. Mr. Perfesser Mike Adams used to teach?

You know, the guy who used to create entire columns out of made up conversations he had with imaginary liberals and lesbians?

Hey, just because I don’t exist is no reason to ignore what I didn’t say.

i bet her family enjoyed her ‘regaling’ them with stories also…
I’m sure they did the first dozen times or so.

The first few times she was galing them.

Once I graduate I plan to take any job I can get with no complaints because in this economy you cannot be picky.

The irony, of course, will be when the only job she’s offered is the one she could have gotten with a high school diploma.

I am the 53%. “

Also, if she’s working minimum wage jobs in a depressed town it’s much more likely that she falls into the 47%. I demand to see her long form tax returns!!!

Well, rather than eating plain ol’ ramen tonight, I think I will go to Coco’s Italian Market and get a couple of meatballs ($1.25 — bargain!) and make spaghetti.
.

i really don’t think they will be happy until straight out feudalism reigns again…

Everybody’s gone serfin’…….serfin’ USA!

Well, rather than eating plain ol’ ramen tonight, I think I will go to Coco’s Italian Market and get a couple of meatballs ($1.25 — bargain!) and make spaghetti

A true 53%er would kill his own rats.

A true 53%er would kill his own rats.

I’ve been evading taxes for years, by cleverly not having a job!
.

I’ve been evading taxes for years, by cleverly not having a job!

Lazy 47%er. Eating “food” when rich people all around you have to settle for Ossetra instead of Beluga caviar…

A true 53%er would kill his own rats.

You have rats? What luxury. A true 53%er would make his own rats out of leaves and mulch.

You have rats? What luxury. A true 53%er would make his own rats out of leaves and mulch

You have leaves?

A true 53% would pray to the babby Jesus for leaves to make a rat out of

Why doesn’t Miss 53% UNC Chapel Hill just start being a job creator already?

Gosh, I wonder what entity might have backed those student loans for which an 18 year old kid and indebted parents living hand to mouth would never qualify or be able to repay? Hmmmmm, I wonder.

Don’t get sick, sweetheart.

Because if you get sick, those you’re supporting will enthusiastically shout at the stage to let you die.

Jeffraham Prestonian said,
October 24, 2011 at 21:17 (kill)

Well, rather than eating plain ol’ ramen tonight, I think I will go to Coco’s Italian Market and get a couple of meatballs ($1.25 — bargain!) and make spaghetti.

Show some ingenuity!

You have rats?

Mobile meatballs.

Why doesn’t Miss 53% UNC Chapel Hill just start being a job creator already?

Indeed! She could give jobs to both her sisters, baby sitting the other one’s baby

Don’t get sick, sweetheart.

A number of the wanna-be 53ers express a kind of grim pride in not having health insurance as it proves their willing-to-die-in-a-gutter-for-ideology bona fides. It really treads into masochism.

A number of the wanna-be 53ers express a kind of grim pride in not having health insurance as it proves their willing-to-die-in-a-gutter-for-ideology bona fides.

a) One of the big problems with health insurance in general is the belief that one is immortal, particularly when younger. Younger people being in the pool would have kept premiums lower from the get-go.

b) If you want to get a heaping helping of that wingnut welfare, you ought to be willing to die for the cause.

I am a Corporation. Hath not a Corporation eyes?

Perfect, Flip.

Chemical Bomb Used to Attack #OccupyMaine

All snark aside, these are the people liberals probably need to be better at reaching. Some of them are just outright lolbertarian ideologues, but many aren’t. They just haven’t grasped that the 1% (or really, the 0.1% and 0.01%) are actually lowering their quality of life even if they’re getting by. They’re so proud of having done whatever they’ve done “on my own” (often not really true but whatever) but forget that they could have done so much more without the weight of a couple tens of thousands of uber-wealthy skimmer and rent takers who are actually parasitic on the economy.

For every Steve Jobs who may actually contribute something useful to society despite being personally evil, there are a bunch of MBA hacks and quants looking at how to find newer forms of arbitrage (like high frequency trading) and not-illegal-but-should-be (and often actually is) profiting from insider information. They’re just unredeemed useless. They’re not even using unethical Chinese sweatshop labour to make things people want, they just suck wealth out of productive sectors of the economy.

Chemical Bomb Used to Attack #OccupyMaine

Countdown to accusations of liberal plant in 3…2…1.

Subby, since Pryme isnt as prolific, I’ll merely nudge you and point to 18:08…

And may I just say that when I read about how hard the 53 percenters work, that I just want to put my fist through the wall.

ATTENTION WAGE SLAVES: We’re all working hard. We’re all working our asses off. Except the very rich you’re doing your darndest to protect. Seriously, remove your heads from your asses!

I swear, the 53% are the Human Centipede of humanity. And guess who’s pooping up top?

All snark aside, these are the people liberals probably need to be better at reaching.

I agree. The trouble is, as young as this kid is, she’s not learned the harsh lessons of life yet. She believes she’s had it hard and in many ways she has.

But she hasn’t tried to raise her own family yet, or been fired from a job (I wonder how much of her earned income went back to her parents, like my part-time job income,) or faced a castastrophic health crisis.

We need to find the friends and family of this person and get some knowledge rained on her.

I doubt little Ms.Plucky workaholic is really in the 53%, and even if she is, does that mean the solution is to get her unemployed parents and siblings to pay taxes with money they don’t have?

ATTENTION WAGE SLAVES

Do you want to be wage slaves? No, of course not. But what d’ye think makes wage slaves? Wages! I don’t want you to be slaves, I want you to be free!

There were high school-aged kids with their parents, college students in their school sweatshirts, men in business suits, mothers with baby carriages, people with jobs, people who were unemployed, white-haired retirees, African drummers, rhythmic dancers, and one person who appeared to be wearing pajamas. (emphasis added)

My hero.

I’ll merely nudge you,,,

Hawt. Don’t foget to turn on teh webca,,, TOTES HETEROSEXUALLY!

Still waiting for Irky Irksome to tell us how badly teh EBUL IRS dinged him in federal income taxes last year. Or really, any year. ’cause I’m pretty sure it’s zero dollars and zero cents.

Let’s do a little math here:

Let’s say she works minimum wage (NC is $7.25), and works 30 hours (two 8 hour days on the weekend plus a few hours during the week) because she’s carrying a full class load.

Let’s also assume she’s at UNC Chapel Hill like her sister before her. Tuition is $7K, books and incidentals another $4K, so $11K per annum.

30 x $725 = 217.50. Let’s assume she has no taxes withheld (except SSI and medicare, about $14 a week) So her take home is about $200 a week. So she’s almost able to cover tuition with her salary, assuming 52 weeks a year at 30 hours per.

So she could do this and still only carry $18,000 in loans after 4 years. She “pays her own bills” which could suggest at least a car. Maybe even an apartment share.

But clearly she’s not living high off the hog. Indeed, her income, minus the Clinton-era education credits, suggest she’s getting a significant income tax refund, plus her parents are getting a nice tidy little dependent credit if she’s still living at home.

So she’s got a lot of government programs to thank for her ability to whine about her life, including, as someone mentioned upthread, Sallie Mae, in all probability, and likely she’s got a Pell grant or two to close the gap.

OT – Patrick Pexton, teh ombudsman at teh War Criminal Post, is upset that his paper hurt teh Koch brother’s feefees. Apparently, his paper should have pointed out that there’s a lot of Evil out there in this world and teh Koch’s are only responsible for some of it (see TBogg). LOL.

Anyways, I mention this because, there’s a guy in this LGM thread who is really, really offended that the column is well researched.

Attention walkers! (this includes YOU, zrm!)

You will soon be required to file travel plans with the Hull, Wisconsin in advance when you head out on a nomming session or any kind of walk that requires use of a town road.

Irky’s original 53% was of course the worst for claiming 3 jobs out of what really is his one job, being a right wing asshole in the media. Doing so on different mediums doesn’t make it multiple jobs. By his reckoning, Kos running his blog, writing for The Hill, appearing on Countdown and writing books is four jobs.

I can’t click through on the link because, you know, firewall, but is that this guy?

Oh, that makes my smacking hand itch. I am sorry, but getting 90% of your tuition paid for via scholarships, while awesome and whatnot, is not actually bootstrappy. See, someone is GIVING you money, you ignorant clod, so cut the piss and moan bullshit about how other people expect things to be handed to them.

How bad does it have to get before a conservative thinks some changes ought to be considered? Does the bank have to come after their own home instead of the neighbors? Do they have to get fired instead of their co-workers? does it have to be worse than that?

Yes

HM,
As long as the conservatard can blame the liberal politicians for the state of things, it won’t matter how sorry a state he’s in. The rightwing overlords are always quick with the bumpersticker message and shiny thing distractions to get their reptilian-brained subjects to do what is required.

Does the bank have to come after their own home instead of the neighbors?

Immediately, they’ll be labeled dirty fucking hippies and drummed out of the conservative corps.

Sorry, bbkf. I feel for ya.

thanks rww…

I can’t click through on the link because, you know, firewall, but is that this guy?

Oh, that makes my smacking hand itch. I am sorry, but getting 90% of your tuition paid for via scholarships, while awesome and whatnot, is not actually bootstrappy. See, someone is GIVING you money, you ignorant clod, so cut the piss and moan bullshit about how other people expect things to be handed to them.

i know…this one is really, really annoying…but it’s also pretty funny in a way…i think we need to post it on passive agressive notes…

Lex Luthor gets cock-blocked

I honestly don’t think anything could happen for them to go in for the head-assectectomy so long as they can feel superior to others.

We could have fun with this all day.

If the Mafia is an organization and not a person, how it be criminal?
If IG Farben was a corporation and not a person,. how could it have been complicit in the Holocaust?
If the National Review is a magazine and not a person, how could it be staffed with idiots?

If IG Farben was a corporation and not a person, how could it have been complicit in the Holocaust?

I think their lawyers tried to argue that at Nuremburg.

A true 53% would pray to the babby Jesus for leaves to make a rat out of

Or pray for Him to turn the leaves into rats Himself. The miracle of the loaves and fishes, updated for the 21st century.

Hey, just because I don’t exist is no reason to ignore what I didn’t say. – Imaginary Liberal Lesbian

Since you are imaginary, can I imagine you deciding to try out being with a man, namely myself, just for the heck of it?

Or pray for Him to turn the leaves into rats Himself. The miracle of the loaves and fishes, updated for the 21st century.

The whole loaves and fishes thing will certainly be written out of the Conservative Bible. I mean, talk about soshulism and freeloading! In fact, just about everything Jesus said or did will have to be written out of the Consevative bible.

Since you are imaginary, can I imagine you deciding to try out being with a man, namely myself, just for the heck of it?

Sure, except how can I be sure you exist?

ATTENTION WAGE SLAVES: We’re all working hard. We’re all working our asses off. Except the very rich you’re doing your darndest to protect. Seriously, remove your heads from your asses!

Yes. This is why I get pissed off at liberals who bitch about people who don’t go to protests because they’re “sitting on their asses.”

Old rant recycled and edited for you convenience:

World War III was very nearly started by a bunch of people sitting on their asses, so I think it’s an egregious error to believe that someone is not doing anything of any consequence while they “sit on their asses”. Bankers sit on their asses. Air traffic controllers often “sit on their asses” while they keep planes from crashing into one another. Air plane pilots sit on their asses. Passengers spend most of the time on their asses too. Ambulance drivers sit on their asses while they take people to the hospital. Judges sit on their asses as they hand down decisions. The FedEx guy sits on his ass while he’s driving. Most people, come to think of it, sit on their ass while they’re driving. A lot of people “sit on their ass” and get stuff done.

I suspect that OWS would not be holding up as well and as long as it has if the unemployment rate were very low. Make the most of it kids and all else who have nothing to lose camping in a park for extended periods of time.

Let’s all remember that we have no clue if anything on any of those fucking signs even remotely resembles the truth. I mean, I know it sounds farfetched that conservatives would make up bullshit to further their fascist agenda, but I’m telling you, they will do it.

Madame LaFarge sat on her ass next to the guillotine. You go girlfriend!

If it weren’t so late, & I gave a damn, I would AHEM T.B. at 1818 & actor 1823, but …

ot: derp…do not do illegal shit (stealing hunting shit and tree stands then filling up truck at gas station and driving off w/out paying) in a small town while driving a big ass pickup truck with personalized plates…also, wearing all the stolen hunting stuff inside the gas station might also be a give away…

“Time Warner Ordered Employee to Stop Administering CPR to Dying Co-Worker and Get Back to Work”

Chalk another one up for the death panel. WTG capitalism!

Sorry, that’s Defarge. (derp).

You will soon be required to file travel plans with the Hull, Wisconsin in advance when you head out on a nomming session or any kind of walk that requires use of a town road.

Reminds me of something I read just last night, in which a resident of a tony L.A. neighborhood advises visitors that the LAPD arrests anyone in the neighborhood who is not in a house or car.

I try not to defarge in an elevator.
.

In fact, just about everything Jesus said or did will have to be written out of the Consevative bible.

The ConservaBible is the Old Testament. I’m surprised all the droolers don’t just convert/regress to Ultra-Orthodox Judaism.

God hates anti-abortion fanatics and their fetuses.

Just add ???!??!?! .

Kortney Blythe Gordon, and her pre-born daughter Sophy

If the fetus was never born then it wasn’t pre-born was it? LOGIC PHAIL!

I might renounce atheism now!

BACHMANN 2012: rude, unprofessional, dishonest, and at times cruel!

Definitely a possible jimCo opening there –we just plain like the cut of her jib!

Yeah. It’s her CAMPAIGN that’s dysfunctional.

LOL UN1NT3NDED CONS3QU3NC3S

BACHMANN 2012: rude, unprofessional, dishonest, and at times cruel!

Quite a surprise that authoritarians (who nonetheless despise gov’t., oddly enough) don’t have clue one about administration or being responsible for anything, & manage to alienate even their true-believer followers.

As an actual America-hater, I just can’t wait until one of them is back in the Oval Office & administers the coup de grâce to these Benighted States.

If the fetus was never born then it wasn’t pre-born was it? LOGIC PHAIL!

ya know, if babbies were pre-born, more women might have them…talk about convenience and none of that awful baby weight gain! heck, men could even have babbies if they’re pre-born…why we didn’t think of this sooner i’ll never know…

OH MY FUCKING GOD

The McRib is back.

Cardiologists everywhere haz a HAPPY!

ya know, if babbies were pre-born, more women might have them…

Okay okay, so Catholics are a problem here, but they can also provide pre-born baby solutions.

something* iat least 50% of you will be interested in

*trigger for never nudes

OH MY FUCKING GOD

The McRib is back.

srsly?!?!? i was just thinking of these on saturday…

I honestly don’t think anything could happen for them to go in for the head-assectectomy so long as they can feel superior to others.

Methinks it is often an inverted inferiority complex. They are aware that most science-ey and academic stuff, and reflection that requires recognition of nuance and a tolerance for ambiguity is over their head. Much easier to internalize the paint-by-numbers Republican talking points because they make a lot of sense if you think that the logic they use is so true, simple, and self-evident that logical fallacies do not exist.

Let’s all remember that we have no clue if anything on any of those fucking signs even remotely resembles the truth. I mean, I know it sounds farfetched that conservatives would make up bullshit to further their fascist agenda, but I’m telling you, they will do it.

Also consider the possibility that some actually believe what they are saying, and are being the monkey-dos to the wingnut welfare pundit’s monkey-show.
I need to order another electronic book for my kindle for PC ((if it’s available in e-format) just bought “Good Omens” and haven’t started it yet)— Dr. Lillian Rubens, Worlds of Pain classifies and describes two kinds of working class families. One is the “hard settler”—they are families that have completely internalized the “boot strap” theory and such. They blame themselves for all their failures and dashed dreams. After reading this book, I understood my own hard-core, hard-working, working class childhood. The hard settlers like my parenting units, often have the greenest lawn and cleanest house in the neighborhood. Weekends exist for the purpose of repairing and maintaining all surface appearances of one’s rented home, up to and including paying for things that the landlord would pay for if the tenets had a lawyer. Working three jobs for more than 60 hours a week is just what you have to do if you don’t want to be ashamed of yourself.

I can’t remember the name for the other working class demographic—it’s the always a step away from skid row, if not on it types. Like the wingnut meth users who hates welfare even though they get it types.

It seemed that the working class was more self-aware in the seventies. We described ourselves with the term “working class”, were consciously striving for “middle class”, and intuitively understood some economics facts like when wages go up, the rent goes up

Okay okay, so Catholics are a problem here, but they can also provide pre-born baby solutions.

indeed! instead of the catholics, i think the invisible hand would be a better regulator of the pre-born babby market…damn, somebody is gonna make some bucks…i wish I would have thought of pre-borns!

pre-borns!

ewwww…now i have totally creepy and disturbing marketing images…bleeeeeeccccchhhhh…even creepier than hashmarks!

hashmarks!

or hashtags…hashmarks might be something you get after eating too many mcribs…

We described ourselves with the term “working class”, were consciously striving for “middle class”, and intuitively understood some economics facts like when wages go up, the rent goes up

would it be fair to say that in the seventies people who had jobs were mostly seen to be ‘working?’ unlike today, where the ones who have accumulated the most wealth have done so by playing with other people’s money and in some cases, playing with imaginary money?

something* iat least 50% of you will be interested in

Miss Columbia, short skirt, no underwear…

tsam approves.

Don’t let em make you do it, Miss Columbia! They’re not the boss of you!

zomg! the tintin/carl/actor/sasquatch/isreal thing is even bigger than previously thought! found this at the tail end of an article about the latest elvis movie:

Elwes’ recent credits include No Strings Attached and the upcoming The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.

tintin’s not only belgian…HE’S. A. FUCKING. UNICORN.

srsly?!?!? i was just thinking of these on saturday…

Yes, according to the commercial that is on an endless loop during the World Series and Monday Night Football.

Did a pile of dog poop remind of them?

Did a pile of dog poop remind of them?

that made me lol so loudly that i awoke hubbkf…

Deja WHOOPS!

pre-born baby solutions.
Isn’t that a fancy name for “stock”?

the pre-born babby market
I prefer to think of it as “fecundity redistribution”.
But it does not look so flash for the Catholic hierarchy in Spain, that they became so used to the income stream from the “Stealing-babies-&-selling-them-for-profit” side of their business that they kept it up for decades after the fall of the Franco regime and the end of the original rationale.

Acquisitions are a bitch, & she’s in heat.

Stealing-babies-&-selling-them-for-profit”

i don’t want to steal babbies…i just want to grow them for fun and profit…

⿇ !

One is the “hard settler”—they are families that have completely internalized the “boot strap” theory and such. They blame themselves for all their failures and dashed dreams. After reading this book, I understood my own hard-core, hard-working, working class childhood. The hard settlers like my parenting units, often have the greenest lawn and cleanest house in the neighborhood. Weekends exist for the purpose of repairing and maintaining all surface appearances of one’s rented home, up to and including paying for things that the landlord would pay for if the tenets had a lawyer. Working three jobs for more than 60 hours a week is just what you have to do if you don’t want to be ashamed of yourself.

And yet those guys were the backbone of the union movement, the New Deal and the old liberal coalition… so, what happened? In the old days, plenty more people could have that sort of pride and hard work ethic and still be okay with unions that represented them, regulations that ensured they got a fair shake and a welfare state that helped put them back on their feet and take care of them when they were too old.

𐌸 𐌰 𐍈 𐍇 𐍉 ……………… 𐌸 𐌰 𐍈 𐍇 𐍉 ………………… 𐌸 𐌰 𐍈 𐍇 𐍉 ………………….. 𐌸 𐌰 𐍈 𐍇 𐍉 …………………

Even this fails on more exotic characters:

http://mikezilla.com/exp0012.html

And yet those guys were the backbone of the union movement, the New Deal and the old liberal coalition… so, what happened?

I don’t know–the labor movement was always the guys who worked themselves to death, and the whole purpose was to put a stop to 80 hour work weeks, and an honest wage for an honest day’s work. The idea was to send their kids off to college so that they wouldn’t suffer the same fate, which was the underlying principle of the American Dream.

These were people who believed that a single income should support a family and that a retirement some time before you drop dead at your work station were a right for every worker. They also had radical ideas like not allowing children to perform labor and that a breadwinner should be able to spend some time with his/her children. They always believed in working hard, but demanded, and momentarily got some equity out of the system. I wasn’t around for most of those times, but I hear they weren’t too bad.

I think these bootstraps types are the people who were raised by wage slaves. They watched single mothers work themselves to death out of necessity and learned that working like a dog (do dogs really work that much?) is some sort of badge of honor. They don’t see the system as being rigged and let employers convince them that despite being treated like livestock, they’re lucky to have what they have and maybe someday…just maybe…if you keep up all this free overtime and be fiercely loyal despite being reminded constantly that you could be easily replaced, you might just make it to middle management. Sticks and carrots. Seems like only the boss’ kid is the only one who ever catches up to the fucking carrot.

I mean get paid an honest wage, of course.

Somewhere sometime in the 19th century wealth became conflated with virtue. Not wealth as we understand it now. Those who, through whatever circumstance, coud not provide for their families were seen as immoral, not worthy socisl acceptance. carry forward 150 years, and we getnthe class system, where people with money are virtuous _because_ they have money. Fuck. That. Noise.

There was an interesting post at another site I frequent from someone in Croatia. They said they were about to get a comp. sci. Degree after some 6 years. Total investment of $700. Another guy from Australia talked about how the livable minimum wage there enabled him to work his way through college with about $2K / month from a basic McJob.

Meanwhile we are thrashing*.

*Computer science term for doing a shitload of work but not getting anything done.

…would it be fair to say that in the seventies people who had jobs were mostly seen to be ‘working?’ unlike today, where the ones who have accumulated the most wealth have done so by playing with other people’s money and in some cases, playing with imaginary money?

Wanting to start your own business wasn’t totally pie-in-the-sky daydreaming for a talented, hard-working working class person. A college education could be payed for working full time in the summer. Spending a quarter of your income on housing was reasonable , even for the working class. (I remember my mother and I collecting coke bottles to help make the rent) Utilities were publicly regulated and electric bills didn’t come to as much as the rent for one person splitting the cost of a two bedroom house, etc.

There was simply a lot more mobility and slack. It just didn’t cost that much to stay off the streets, stay clean, stay cool or warm; and to have enough to eat, decent clothing, and a reliable car (don’t get me started on how much it costs to buy cars and keep in them in good repair—you used to be able to get a house for what the average car costs now, and wages haven’t gone up that much. Also gas was much cheaper than it really was and ought to have been.

Rich meant “millionaire.” And now millionaires are bitching about how tough it is, and you apparently have to be billionaire now in order to be rich. And now the fucking billionaires are complaining. Fucking wankers.

Good Times.
Any time you meet a payment.
Good Times.
Any time you need a friend.
Good Times.
Any time you’re out from under.

Not getting hastled, not getting hustled.
Keepin’ your head above water,
Making a wave when you can.

Temporary lay offs.
Good Times.
Easy credit rip offs.
Good Times.
Scratchin’ and surviving.
Good Times.
Hangin in a chow line
Good Times.
Ain’t we lucky we got ’em
Good Times.

tsam said,
October 25, 2011 at 5:26

So basically, the parents’ generation killed itself to provide a better future for its kids, and the kids decided to take a big dump on it.

Figures.

Yeah, it’s funny how no one these days notices this, but Rugged Salt Of The Earth People from the Good Old Days didn’t sit around talking or thinking or giving thanks for how Rugged and Salt Of The Earth they were. Instead they protested, fought and died for things like unions, living wages, decent working conditions, a government that didn’t abandon its own and all those other things. If the Good Old Days were all they were cracked up to be, people would’ve stayed in them in the first place, and the fact that they didn’t should be sort of a massive alarm bell.

ZOMG, have y’all seen the Herman Cain smoking video??? WTF?

Chris said,
October 25, 2011 at 6:30

Of course I’m just speculating. I’m just as baffled by all this shit as you are. It doesn’t take a Nobel laureate economist to figure out that this economic crash was a DIRECT result of deregulation. There are legions of people out there, entirely unconnected to the finance industry other than the fact that what retirement savings they have are in the hands of those fuckers, actively vote for people who disavow regulation of any kind. They would rather take their chances giving their 401k contributions to thieves and take their chances without any kind of government oversight. They’re convinced that in a regulation-free environment, that somehow market forces will encourage honesty and diligence. This shows a fucking baffling lack of understanding of human nature and the corrupting power of being in charge of billions of dollars of other peoples’ money. The power of a corporate owned media is really something spectacular. It has the power to take down a nation that came into being almost by dumb luck, survived a civil war, defeated the axis powers, healed itself in the midst of a crushing depression and found it’s way through the the dark times of the late 60s. (The loss of MLK and RFK, Vietnam, the culture clashes)…It feels like we’re watching a bloodless coup.

Yeah, it’s funny how no one these days notices this, but Rugged Salt Of The Earth People from the Good Old Days didn’t sit around talking or thinking or giving thanks for how Rugged and Salt Of The Earth they were. Instead they protested, fought and died for things like unions, living wages, decent working conditions, a government that didn’t abandon its own and all those other things. If the Good Old Days were all they were cracked up to be, people would’ve stayed in them in the first place, and the fact that they didn’t should be sort of a massive alarm bell.

Which reminds me, I had a beautiful post earlier that I lost because I blinked and my finger ticked while my frontal cortex was out, so the post was gone when my brain came back on-line. SOOOO, what I was saying is that a lot of those rugged working types voted for the Democratic party because the Democratic Party was the party of the white working class. I know this because my parenting units were staunch Democrats when I was a child. I knew they were racist, and I never really understood that (the cognitive dissonance my mother felt when she listened to MLK was palpable. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t just jettison the racism to stop feeling conflicted).

It shocked me many years later when I found out she voted for Reagan. Now, I get it. I always knew she was strangely and sappily patriotic (she told me in 1990 that biggest thing that Americans had to “get over” to “move on” was the Shuttle Disaster. (I could not help but to laugh out loud). The Democratic Party was the party of racists, at one time. The union workers and blue collar guys switched to Republican somewhere along the line, when the Democratic Party stopped being the Party of White People, and the Republican party stopped being the party of Lincoln.

The power of a corporate owned media is really something spectacular.

Didja notice how the press chose George Bush as president? They dogged Gore the whole campaign and told lies they knew were lies about Gore (you could tell they knew they were lies because a lot of journalists who had written truthful articles about him in the past, were now saying the polar opposite as if they didn’t have a clue about who he was before he started running for president. They also failed to notice a lot of red flags popping up around Bush during his campaign. It was quite clear that the man was pathological before the election.

Guess in order to make good bets on who is going to win the next presidency we should know who is doing the catering for the press and how comfy the seats are on the bus.

They’re convinced that in a regulation-free environment, that somehow market forces will encourage honesty and diligence.

Nah. They don’t give a fuck about that shit. At least, the leading lights of conservatism don’t. They’re Social Darwinists who fetishize power and wealth and are delusional enough to think that the big boys will let them play in the sandbox.

The 53% douchebags who think they’re living the American Dream? They are a sad product of a poor-ass education, propaganda, and a masochistic/defeatist relationship with economic hardship that seems to be a part of white working class life in more rural areas. (I have a blog post on this in my head, where it makes more sense).

Anyway, they prefer to believe narratives in which they’re only getting fucked over by people who actually have less power than they do. I think most of us know the reasons why.

Also, something about unionization not being that relevant to large areas of the country because industrialization wasn’t, like, a thing. I know people my parents’ age who grew up with outhouses.

I’m surprised all the droolers don’t just convert/regress to Ultra-Orthodox Judaism.

Well, there’s a variety of reasons why they won’t. Not least of which is the Hasidim, as infuriatingly backwards as they can be, are still Jews. So they have a whole bunch of shit you’re supposed to do, and you don’t get by by just saying Elijah is your personal savior. Which is fucking anathema to the wingnuts terrified of actual works. Especially when the entire goal is to make this world really nice, instead of burning it to the ground because you’re going to rise up on gilded clouds to the afterlife without dying, so who gives a shit?

Sure, except how can I be sure you exist?

The ultimate “Is it in yet?”

“People have been pretty upset by it; there have been photos and media appearances where she has completely had her crotch out.”

No fucking links?

What is the intarbutts coming to?

… so, what happened?

Fox fucking News happened.

Possibly the greatest force for evil since………………..fuck, I don’t even know. 1945, at least.

I’m surprised all the droolers don’t just convert/regress to Ultra-Orthodox Judaism.

That’s easy- bacon cheesebugers are great.

Herman Cain ad is unusual. Is it effective?
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2011/10/25/03620/740

What the fuckity fuck you crazy bread mutherfucker.

“There was a time in America when a man was a man, a horse was a horse, and a man on a horse was just a man on a horse…”

Is it effective?

He smokes=> pisses off Liberals=> Effective!!

John, did you watch the second Cain video? WTF!

Herman Cain brings da funk

“There was a time in America when a man was a man, a horse was a horse, and a man on a horse was just a man on a horse…”

That would work better as a Santorum ad.

I’m convinced that the whole Herman Cain “surge” is one extended “fuck you” to the GOP establishment. I can’t imagine he’ll keep his lead.

A lot of the youtube comments (yeah, I know) are from Paulbots calling Cain a corporate shill and a pawn of the Fed. If Ron Paul campaigned more aggressively, it would be an interesting development.

Okay. I couldn’t get through it the first time, but I went back………………..you’ve got to watch the whole thing, and then you REALLY go “WTF!!1!!!11??”

Somebody over there is nuts……………….or brilliant. Or something.

I know, right.

A bit late to the discussion, but on the 53% thing and the general whining about “poor people don’t pay taxes” bullshit, is this simple fact:

Is there a single poor person out there who wouldn’t kill to have to pay taxes, to make that much per year that they actually have to give some extra back to the state (because the state already deducts from each paycheck no matter how small)?

I know my unemployed for 16 months ass would kill just to be making 12,000 a year, so to actually make enough that taxes needed to be actually worried about is one of those fevered dreams. And I imagine that’d be the case for many other poor people.

I know when I was in Denmark, it actually was something of a thrill to pay taxes, because that meant I was considered to be making enough to sustain a relatively comfortable lifestyle and this being Denmark, the bar for that was much lower.

The “paying extra tax” barrier is kind of like the entry barrier into lower middle class and the beginning of bitching about middle class fake problems (having to pay taxes, which set of illegal immigrant gardeners to hire to blow the seven leaves of your suburban trees around the yard, whether or not your kids are going to the “good” school district, and of course “property values”) instead of actual “will I be able to pay the bills and eat” problems.

The anti-tax nutjobs always phrase this as laziness or some sort of sneak attack as if the poor are cackling in glee that they don’t make enough income to pay taxes (For awhile in college I deliberately overpaid my taxes by not filing income returns because I was surviving okay on what I did had and it didn’t really seem like a big deal, I always remember this and wonder how many people who don’t bother to file their earned returns and thus overpay their taxes get bitched out by people who hire accountants to find every loophole in the book to underpay theirs).

Yeah, fuckers, we would love to be in the 53% (based on your wingnut suspect math) too. And frankly, if your math was right and 47% of the populace is living in such severe poverty that they aren’t even eligible for taxation, that’s not a sign of “people getting away with something”, that’s a sign that we’re a first world nation with a third world populace.

But yeah, it is pretty obvious that this is all more posturing about the “good tribe” versus the “bad tribe” by all the people who think they are in the “53%”.

The “good tribe” pays all the taxes, the bad tribe takes the government handouts. Thus any handouts or unpaid taxes in the good tribe don’t matter because they are the “good tribe” and any overpaid taxes or non-handouts don’t matter because they are the “bad tribe”.

And thus you get people who can’t even follow the simple definition of “the 53% who pay taxes” defining themselves as such. Sure, they couldn’t possibly be earning enough to be in that position like the one chick, but it doesn’t matter, they want to state that they are “good tribe” members and that’s what it’s all about.

Until that bullshit ends or until we at least get them to stop hijacking real debates about real issues with their tribal truisms, we’ll always be dealing with shit like this where those who need the help most argue for their own execution, completely oblivious to who is holding the blade.

Irky’s original 53% was of course the worst for claiming 3 jobs out of what really is his one job, being a right wing asshole in the media. Doing so on different mediums doesn’t make it multiple jobs. By his reckoning, Kos running his blog, writing for The Hill, appearing on Countdown and writing books is four jobs.

By that logic, I’m working about 6 jobs and yet my income is still $0. So, despite working twice as hard as Erick, he’s worth infinitely more?

And yet those guys were the backbone of the union movement, the New Deal and the old liberal coalition… so, what happened?

Red scare and McCarthy.

McCarthy’s little stunt and the successful demonization of communism really was the gift that kept on giving for the overlords. Suddenly you had the working class bending over backwards showing how much they love being serfs just to avoid the terrible accusation by peers or politicians that they were “Unamerican” or otherwise bad people.

And a quick one stop means of demonizing anyone who tried to organize for worker’s rights, acknowledge abuses against the working class, or try and build self-awareness in the working class and remind them to vote for their own betterment.

Indeed the very concept of caring for the working class became something to fear, where many of the poor would gladly demand their own sacrifice just to demonstrate they weren’t part of “Team Evil” or otherwise a non-peer-supported person. And because pride is often a short supply among the poor, the ability to shore up personal pride in the nation by sacrificing the poor saps who care about you became a strong lure and trap for many.

Hell, most of the “I’m poor, but I support our corporate overlords right to impregnate our women on their wedding nights” types can be traced to how much we’ve internalized fear and resistance to the exact types of people who care about worker’s rights issues or how much the working class is being oppressed.

It’s pretty much why any of these “I demand to be a serf” are the way they are.

I’m hoping this will be something that will pass our system in a few decades as the number of people who even remember Communists as something to fear dwindle down, but even if it does, the sheer damage that successful demogaugery had on the lower classes’ ability to defend itself from what has become constant assault by the rich is really too much and may very well doom this country before we regain the ability to fix our mistake.

Somewhere sometime in the 19th century wealth became conflated with virtue. Not wealth as we understand it now. Those who, through whatever circumstance, coud not provide for their families were seen as immoral, not worthy socisl acceptance. carry forward 150 years, and we getnthe class system, where people with money are virtuous _because_ they have money.

Not exactly new, but it did take a while for America, who had never had a period of time of Direct Rule by King to really latch on to the idea of the Aristocracy as a direct thing, rather than an oblique thing symbolized by activities such as the ownership of imported slaves and the like.

But yeah, the idea of the Aristocracy, virtuous by virtue of their birthright and designated as such by their wealth, who should have their way in every way with the shitkicker sinners who might as well die in a gutter known as the poor is a much older idea.

And like the other things we’re still paying for, the whole Dark Ages, rise of feudalism is a doozy.

As Commander Vimes would say, “People have one unfortunate flaw, a tendency to bend at the knee”.

wiley-

Guess in order to make good bets on who is going to win the next presidency we should know who is doing the catering for the press and how comfy the seats are on the bus.

This is probably why the rich and their media lapdogs have been pulling all the stops to dog Obama and slyly ignore who is responsible for nothing real getting done and generally trying to topple the man.

Because Obama bucked that logic and bucked it hard.

The media was in the tank for McCain, possibly more than they’ve been in the tank for any candidate and that includes the original George Bush. They’d been singing his praises as Bush’s successor and laying the groundwork since 2000 and had all the tire swings and barbeques to show for it.

And yet, the black man with the funny name won.

I think that’s the second half of why the rich seem even more desperate than usual (the first half is he’s black), they’re not sure the old tactics of deliberate misinformation, smokescreens, and obvious voter fraud will work for much longer before a critical mass of people are hyper-aware of what is going on and refuse to fall for it anymore and actually use their democratic powers to address the actual issues they keep on being told they “can’t effect” because “congress is too corrupt and partisan”.

that’s a sign that we’re a first world nation with a third world populace.

“Banana Republic with Nukes” is the way I put it. “Pakistan West” would also be somewhat appropriate.

A bit late to the discussion, but on the 53% thing and the general whining about “poor people don’t pay taxes” bullshit, is this simple fact:

The weird thing about the “53% thing” is that those people don’t even seem to be in the “53%”, for the most part- they are poor people who just want to sneer at their “lessers” while carrying water for their oppressors.

They are the descendents of the poor hillbillies that charged Union cannon emplacements and died for the rights of the gentry to own slaves.

Also “what happened” in the Red Scare that keeps on serving as the gift that keeps giving in ready-made serfs?

The devil’s bargain religion made.

So scared of communist atheism or the abandonment of “trusting God” versus actually mobilizing for better treatment on Earth, they decided to go full in on using all their religious shortcuts to people’s tribal behaviors to reject Jesus’s teachings as “dangerous sedition” and openly start worshipping capitalism and jingoism their selves as Gods.

When people’s belonging to the “Good tribe” and the unearned social respect and protection that comes with it is directly tied with arguing against your own self-regard and furthermore, when that is tied with a whole mass of other beliefs you are to hold “without thinking for that is the way of faith”, it is easy to turn it into an unexamined mantra that you will angrily defend.

Even moreso when it is tied to the promise of eternal reward. Now, the worse things get, the more you want to rely on the promise of a better afterlife where things don’t suck. And if you’re risking that in order if you fight for your own rights, then it becomes possible, nay necessary to fight to the death for your right to a shittier life.

Also, why you get so many people who seem to think the economy works as like a vengeful God and if they demonstrate their faith loud enough by yelling about welfare queens and demanding tax cuts for billionaires then the good times must come. Also why you have new breeds of conservatives who really seem to believe that tax cuts and deregulations will genuinely solve things rather than being a scam they push for, because they think it works like a magic spell.

With this and the other red scare stuff, this also connects with racism. As the crazy conspirist from last thread reminds us, the fact that the Reds sided with the blacks and the Party of Economic Liberty decided to make a few Social Liberty decisions and the Party of Rich People who occasionally support social liberty decided to pursue the Southern Strategy into Hell made it a really easy sell to the frightened white people of the times.

Sure, it seems like a giant purge of those who care about said issues, but these commies care about wimmin, queers, and n*****s and want them to be equal to proper white men, possibly shoving those ideas down your throat, so jump on board Team Self Fail.

And how they did! And how they did!

B4:

Yeah, it’s a tribe thing.

And it’s almost amazing that something as spelled out and deliberate as “We are the 53% who pay taxes” was so quickly and obviously reduced to “We are the right tribe, you are the wrong tribe” in such obvious ways.

It really is about defining yourself as “not one of the Tribe who is bad because they care about other people and economic justice” and little else.

Which is why you get people so obviously not the 53% and so obviously in need of the changes argued for by the OWS movement and liberals in general seething in tribal hatred for the very people who would help them.

I really think the Red Scare was the great success in this. Getting the poor and middle class to literally attack those who ever tried to help them because of simple tribal resentment and the self-worth tied to it and justify those actions into adulthood and pass them on to their children by any means necessary was a great way to fuck up the entire country, but also a great way to set up the return of the Gilded Age after decades of hard reforms and class awakening.

I imagine to many of them, that’s the sum total of their thinking. They ain’t no commie america-hating pinko who believes in actually addressing the suffering of others, but damn wouldn’t it be nice if this shitty state of affairs that they are sure happened somehow by pinko ni**er-lover actions wasn’t occurring. Obviously, the only fix is a tax cut performed on the altar of the Great God Capitalism, to appease its angry spirit and bring back the harvest (hey, if these people are going to look down on “primitive times” and do the modern equivalent of those actions, I’m going to point that shit out).

“Banana Republic with Nukes” is the way I put it. “Pakistan West” would also be somewhat appropriate.”

We’re not their yet, but we’re trying our best.

Very good comments Cerberus.

The man behind the infamous “tout suite” ads of 2004-2006: Herman Cain.

Not exactly new, but it did take a while for America, who had never had a period of time of Direct Rule by King to really latch on to the idea of the Aristocracy as a direct thing, rather than an oblique thing symbolized by activities such as the ownership of imported slaves and the like.

I’m not sure I agree. I think we had an aristocracy from the get-go. Remember, Washington had to stop serving as president and reject calls for a monarchy. John Quincy Adams was President through no apparent fault of his own. And anyone of the founders could have done pretty much whatever they wanted, and who would have stopped them?

Even now, the descendants of Adams live on in the laps of luxury. I think what we did better than a monarchy was to hide the trappings.

Not exactly new, but it did take a while for America, who had never had a period of time of Direct Rule by King to really latch on to the idea of the Aristocracy as a direct thing, rather than an oblique thing symbolized by activities such as the ownership of imported slaves and the like.

But yeah, the idea of the Aristocracy, virtuous by virtue of their birthright and designated as such by their wealth, who should have their way in every way with the shitkicker sinners who might as well die in a gutter known as the poor is a much older idea.

Isn’t that basically what the original plantation owners, e.g. the elites in the original America, were? Rich people earning money from the profits of dozens of politically disenfranchised serfs while setting up a system in which only the right people could vote? I’d say aristocracy was an American thing from the start.

I really think the Red Scare was the great success in this. Getting the poor and middle class to literally attack those who ever tried to help them because of simple tribal resentment and the self-worth tied to it and justify those actions into adulthood and pass them on to their children by any means necessary was a great way to fuck up the entire country, but also a great way to set up the return of the Gilded Age after decades of hard reforms and class awakening.

I think the Red Scare and religion played a huge part, but I feel like Wiley was right to put racism at the top. The Red Scare was in the early fifties; it might’ve purged the unions of the elements farthest to the left, but the unions remained a power to be reckoned with for thirty more years, and the Red Scare didn’t cause the mass exodus of white working class voters from the party of the working class to the GOP the way desegregation did in the mid-sixties.

Even now, the descendants of Adams live on in the laps of luxury.

According to what I remember from Sunday school, I am a descendant of Adam. Where the hell is my lap of luxury?

Where the hell is my lap of luxury?

The cat’s on it.

I’d say aristocracy was an American thing from the start.

I knew Chris would recognize this and say it better than I could.

Precisely. The thing we were missing, still are, altho it’s coming, is an actual classist system, a la the UK, with lords and commons and such.

Precisely. The thing we were missing, still are, altho it’s coming, is an actual classist system, a la the UK, with lords and commons and such.

We already have a caste system in the US. Illegal immigrants, resident aliens, the prison population and even many former prisoners, have no vote in the US and have to take anything the ”job creators” toss their way.

We already have a caste system in the US. Illegal immigrants, resident aliens, the prison population and even many former prisoners, have no vote in the US and have to take anything the ”job creators” toss their way.

Yea, but it’s not a permanent class system. It’s becoming one, I don’t doubt that, but traditionally it’s not recognized as such. Immigrants have, in the past, gone from illegal and even criminal (the Kennedy clan were bootleggers) to rise to aristocracy.

That would be nearly unheard of in England.

Republicans really just don’t get it, do they?

And hey! For once, I’m actually ON TOPIC!

Well, for the thread, at any rate

Let the “ahemming” commence. I just noticed that story is from late last week.

“There was a time in America when a man was a man, a horse was a horse, and a man on a horse was just a man on a horse…”

Really? There was a time when horny farm lads didn’t know what “stump broke” meant? Because, you know, bullshit. Bestiality is mentioned in the Bible, it’s not a new invention, idiot.

I know people my parents’ age who grew up with outhouses.

I grew up with a tool shed. He’s now a Home Depot, with a couple of dozen little tool sheds running around.

I grew up with a tool shed. He’s now a Home Depot, with a couple of dozen little tool sheds running around.

Did you at least make him an honest tool shed?

There was a time when horny farm lads didn’t know what “stump broke” meant?

Y’know, not being a horny farm lad…well, a farm lad at any rate…I was unfamiliar with that term.

There are things that cannot be unlearned…

Has anybody ever asked Steve Forbes if, as his class always asserts, the Estate Tax is so onerous, then how did he inherit so much wealth?

Has anybody ever asked Steve Forbes…

Why bother? You’ll just get bug-eyed gibberish as a response.

Yea, but it’s not a permanent class system. It’s becoming one, I don’t doubt that, but traditionally it’s not recognized as such. Immigrants have, in the past, gone from illegal and even criminal (the Kennedy clan were bootleggers) to rise to aristocracy.

That would be nearly unheard of in England.

I dunno. It’s not liek Papa Joe was underclass or anything, despite being Irish. And it’s not liek criminal classes are barred from teh aristocracy, even in England – so “criminal” seems liek an irrelevant consideration.

Abu Ghraib Gonzales is a pretty good example of rising from illegal immigrant background to teh heights of power, but I suspect it’s a pretty rare thing.

Statistics-wise, it looks liek both countries rate pretty badly in terms of social mobility. I’m going to have to call it a wash.

I have corrupted Actor? ZOUNDS. It’ll take the rest of the day at least to absorb the enormity* of this.

*You betcha.

It’ll take the rest of the day at least to absorb the enormity* of this.

*You betcha.

Now I’m picturing you in an old-fashioned dress numbly muttering “You all be absorbed.”

Precisely. The thing we were missing, still are, altho it’s coming, is an actual classist system, a la the UK, with lords and commons and such.

I think there are a lot of so-called intellectual conservatives who salivate at the idea of having such a thing here. A lot of the older NRO-types. I’m pretty sure Willliam F. Buckley was pretty bummed we didn’t have actual royalty here.

I have corrupted Actor? ZOUNDS. It’ll take the rest of the day at least to absorb the enormity* of this.

I will never look at tigris’ etchings.

It’s not liek Papa Joe was underclass or anything, despite being Irish. And it’s not liek criminal classes are barred from teh aristocracy, even in England – so “criminal” seems liek an irrelevant consideration.

In the UK, an immigrant wouldn’t even be considered for peerage, until the recent practice of purchasing a title

Republicans really just don’t get it, do they?

The New GOP! Turning the American Dream into the American Nightmare. Heh, and just in time for Halloween.

Statistics-wise, it looks liek both countries rate pretty badly in terms of social mobility. I’m going to have to call it a wash.

Like I said earlier, in America this is a relatvely new phenomenon. It was much easier for a poor immigrant to rise into the ranks of the middle class if he followed the Horatio Alger example: work hard, save money, then work even harder. That mobility has nearly frozen since the dismantling of the economic safety net which saw poor people who were thrown out of work be able to bounce back more quickly.

I have corrupted Actor? ZOUNDS. It’ll take the rest of the day at least to absorb the enormity* of this.

I’ve always believed I was jaded and shopworn.

I’m pretty sure Willliam F. Buckley was pretty bummed we didn’t have actual royalty here.

I think you’ll find he didn’t think much about it, apart from believing he WAS American royalty.

Yea, but it’s not a permanent class system. It’s becoming one, I don’t doubt that, but traditionally it’s not recognized as such. Immigrants have, in the past, gone from illegal and even criminal (the Kennedy clan were bootleggers) to rise to aristocracy.

Is the “permanent class system” really all that it’s cracked up to be? In the old days, rich people could buy their way into the nobility, others could earn it on the battlefield. Maybe that wasn’t all that common, but who are we kidding, neither is the Horatio Alger crap we spoon-feed people here. The upper class is never completely impermeable, even though a lot of its members wish it were or like to pretend it is.

Either way, I don’t think that’s our biggest concern. The problem isn’t whether or not it’s possible to become part of the top 1%, it’s that the vast majority of the people will never be part of it, and they deserve some protection from the elites regardless of whether those elites “earned” their way there or not.

“I think you’ll find he didn’t think much about it, apart from believing he WAS American royalty.”

Yeah, that’s kinda my point.

I bet Peggy Noonan and George Will are pretty butthurt about the lack of a true aristocracy here.

Is the “permanent class system” really all that it’s cracked up to be?

Hell, no, and in fact, the way it used to be here, where people would regularly fall from the graces of the top to live a miserable existence in the middle or even working classes, is a far more preferable system.

the Horatio Alger crap we spoon-feed people here.

Horatio Alger, as written, is true, however.

The Alger books (mostly) highlight someone who obtains a modest middle-class existence through hard work and thrift. He has his own home (or apartment), marries and has children, while advancing up the ranks at his job.

That’s a very obtainable goal and did help lead to the rise of the middle class in America (along with unionization and the GI Bill)

OT- I would like to cheer on the Texas Rangers in the World Series, but knowing that a Texas win would make GW happy completely ruins it for for me. That bastard ruined my country, now he’s ruining my sports..

OT- I would like to cheer on the Texas Rangers in the World Series, but knowing that a Texas win would make GW happy completely ruins it for for me. That bastard ruined my country, now he’s ruining my sports..

If it helps, google “Tony La Russa politics”

Also, Albert Pujols. Too.

Whoa.
Being owned by a major PR firm?
Chanting Gothic gibberish?

Looks like I picked a hell of a week to quit collecting Japanese schoolgirl vending-machine underpants.

Being a canuck, I’ve noticed the American political elite are much more concerned with being addressed by their title, former or current – “Governor” this, and “Senator” that, even long after they’ve retired.

My understanding is this is one of the bigger reasons to buy yourself an Ambassadorship. A year or two in Micronesia or the Maldives making business connections with good tax-avoidance scheme pros, and for the rest of your life you get introduced as “The Honorable Mr. Ambassador so-and-so.”

The constitution forbids inherited titles, but that’s the next step.

Republicans really just don’t get it, do they?

Funny. Paul Ryan is the absolute epitome of a snobby, silver-spooned elitist that has no clue what life outside of his bubble is like. Despite the fact that he makes no attempt to hide that fact, the teabaggers are clamoring to lick his butthole. Just further evidence that the whole Tea Party thing is as stupid as a football bat.

I love it when I go back and read one of my sentences and just cringe with embarassement.

Wait, no, I don’t love it, actually. I rather dislike it, if you want to know the truth.

as stupid as a football bat

The addition of football bats could only have helped the football team when I was in college. And anyway football bats are way less stupid than water polo ponies.

Just further evidence that the whole Tea Party thing is as stupid as a football bat.

Don’t knock the football bat. I’ve gained many a QB sack that way. Quick shillelagh to the noggin….

And anyway football bats are way less stupid than water polo ponies.

Or caber catching.

Or caber catching.

I tried out for Javelin catching, but I didn’t have the reflexes so I switched to shot get and had much better success.

The latest sex outrage?

Canadian money

I tried out for Javelin catching, but I didn’t have the reflexes so I switched to shot get and had much better success.

Nicely played sir.

I’d offer a martini but you left off the “discthem”

I’d offer a martini but you left off the “discthem”

We didn’t have enough support staff for me to do the discthem. I had to put out nails for the hammer toss.

In the UK, an immigrant wouldn’t even be considered for peerage, until the recent practice of purchasing a title

Wait. What? Purchasing titles is a long standing tradition. Heck, that’s basically how it all started – teh peerages are remaindered from teh feudal system.

There are a lot of life peers, and figuring out if any of them are immigrants is kinda tough. A quick search turned up Baroness Warsi, who is first generation. Her parents are Pakistani immigrants – a sizable population in teh UK.

Purchasing titles is a long standing tradition.

Yes, but not on an open market

We didn’t have enough support staff for me to do the discthem. I had to put out nails for the hammer toss.

Luxury!

I had to take down churche spires for the steeplechase.

I had to take down churche spires for the steeplechase.

I don’t know what we were doing wrong, but we could never get our steeples to go. It got so bad we gave up on steeples entirely and chased mailboxes. they didn’t got either, but we got a lot less crap for ‘acquiring’ a half dozen or so mailboxes for a for a track meet. People got mighty testy when we brought the steeples.

Telegraphy is so much moar difficult with a 100 yard dash.

“There was a time in America when a man was a man, a horse was a horse, and a man on a horse was just a man on a horse…”

but what about that time there was a guy on a buffalo?

I had to put out nails for the hammer toss.

If you are putting out nails when you toss your hammer, seek medical attention immediately.

People got mighty testy when we brought the steeples.

We had to improvise once or twice and go grab a village full of Republicans for the sheeplechase.

If you are putting out nails when you toss your hammer, seek medical attention immediately.*

* unless your name is Lenny Dykstra, or as he’ll be known in Leavenworth, “Celebrity Showertoy”.

,,,and a man on a horse was just a man on a horse,,,

Obligatory Neal Horsley comment.

but what about that time there was a guy on a buffalo?

What are you, some kinda PR flack or something?

Being a canuck, I’ve noticed the American political elite are much more concerned with being addressed by their title, former or current – “Governor” this, and “Senator” that, even long after they’ve retired.

Can you imagine some Hairstyle Delivery System on TeeVee announcing that he’ll be right back after this important message from Summer’s Eve to bring you an in-depth interview with The Right Honourable John Boehner?

Can you imagine some Hairstyle Delivery System on TeeVee announcing that he’ll be right back after this important message from Summer’s Eve to bring you an in-depth interview with The Right Honourable John Boehner?

Well, they’d get the Right bit right.

And wrong.

Po’ boy been stump broke

There are things that cannot be unlearned…

indeed…but imma using that phrase the first chance i get!

The irony is we’re actually a monarchy with a real live foreign genetic lottery winner as our Head of State for life. She has oodles of titles and special bowing and scraping required to speak to her or her family members. But we generally call our highest political leaders (Prime Minister and Premiers) “Mr.” (“Madam” for the too rare female government leaders) if we give them any title at all.

Of course that would NEVER happen! You’d leave the “u” out of Honourable.

You’d leave the “u” out of Honourable

Also a great way to insult Boener after he was given the title.

And a man on a bull was just a Mongo.

What are you, some kinda PR flack or something?

well, guy on a buffalo should be seen by as many people as possible…i made the young ‘uns watch the entire saga at our hallowthanksmas celebration on saturday…there were lulz…

Following the links there’s a long and interesting story about abortion-law enforcement in Kansas, although from the maniac’s point of view only.

Phil Kline is a hack and a zealot who couldn’t do his fucking job. He lost his re-election by, like, 20 points.I actually have more respect for Lila Rose–she isn’t an elected official with a salary funded by taxpayers.

Excuse me, that should be “Phill Kline.”

And routinely, deliberately violating HIPAA laws is enough to get anyone disbarred, whether they’re “investigating” abortions performed on minors or gall bladder surgeries. The fact that he’s in trouble in a state full of conservatives and carpet bagging Operation Rescue assholes is enough to show that that shit was egregious.

I actually have more respect for Lila Rose–she isn’t an elected official with a salary funded by taxpayers.

She’s a bugfuck crazy whackjob though.

The fact that he’s in trouble in a state full of conservatives and carpet bagging Operation Rescue assholes is enough to show that that shit was egregious.

Exactly. But terrorism in suppression of abortion is okay, so the NRO is for it.

ZRM–Yeah, but so is Phill Kline.

Don’t get me wrong–I totally despise her,but at least she wasn’t entrusted with the legal affairs of an entire state.

It wasn’t enough to destroy his good name, drive him out of office, and kill the case against Planned Parenthood — they even want to take away his law license

WRONG! Phill is a terrible name. Unattractive.

Following the links there’s a long and interesting story about abortion-law enforcement in Kansas, although from the maniac’s point of view only.

It’s K-Lo. Anything other than her suicide note is tl;dr

Florida fucks Democrats once more

It’s K-Lo. Anything other than her suicide note is tl;dr

as self appointed thread ref I say that is too harsh. Your penalty is to say 3 nice things (true things, nothing made up) about K-Lo.

Your penalty is to say 3 nice things (true things, nothing made up) about K-Lo.

Can’t I just get the lethal injection and be done with it?

Your penalty is to say 3 nice things (true things, nothing made up) about K-Lo.

Can I try?

1. K-Lo is making a terrific effort to learn English.
2. K-Lo has managed to hold down a steady job for quite some time.
3. K-Lo is patient enough to wait for just the right man to come along and never settle for anything less.

1. K-Lo is making a terrific effort to learn English.
2. K-Lo has managed to hold down a steady job for quite some time.
3. K-Lo is patient enough to wait for just the right man to come along and never settle for anything less.

Well done. I would also have accepted:
K-Lo exhales carbon dioxide, which plants need to breathe.
K-Lo has never been convicted of shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die

Sheesh. OK, I’ll give it a shot:

1) K-Lo is working hard to try to promote the self-image of tubby little shits everywhere.

2) K-Lo has mastered the relatively complex skill of alveolar gas exchange.

3) K-Lo can make change.

There. Happy now?

Without her editing, it’s quite possible Jonah’s writing would be worse.

K-Lo exhales carbon dioxide, which plants need to breathe.

DAMN YOU!

NOW I have to come up with ANOTHER nice thing to say about her!

Um….um…..um….

Hm.

Sure I can’t just take the lethal injection?

I GOT IT!

K-Lo can hold her liquor.

NOW I have to come up with ANOTHER nice thing to say about her!

No you don’t. I don’t think there is anything else. You get a gold star for putting 3 times as much effort into your reply than K-Lo does in her job.

You get a gold star for putting 3 times as much effort into your reply than K-Lo does in her job.

Good.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to see my therapist.

“Substance McGravitas said,
October 25, 2011 at 20:24

Your penalty is to say 3 nice things (true things, nothing made up) about K-Lo.

Can I try?

1. K-Lo is making a terrific effort to learn English.
2. K-Lo has managed to hold down a steady job for quite some time.
3. K-Lo is patient enough to wait for just the right man to come along and never settle for anything less.”

😀

Do more, Subby!!

1) K-Lo is an excellent spokesperson for declaring apostasy from teh Catholic Church.

2) K-Lo is much nicer than the rest of the Children of the Corner.

3) K-Lo has not leaked any sex tapes.

“You get a gold star for putting 3 times as much effort into your reply than K-Lo does in her job.”

That’s bullshit and you know it. Do you know HARD it is to work abortion into every column? And you try blaming abortion for gas emissions. Go on–try!

“3) K-Lo has not leaked any sex tapes.”

THAT WE KNOW OF.

K-Lo is not letting the voices get to her.

Meghan McCain reports on her visit to OWS.

Oddly, she blows smoke up your ass. Literally.

1. k-lo has hair…on her head where it belongs.
2. k-lo is nice to co-workers because she wears clothes to the office.
3. dumb people’s self esteem soar daily when they read her column and realize they are just as smart as she is.

And you try blaming abortion for gas emissions. Go on–try!

All those decomposing pre-babbies create a methane bubble.

That wasn’t so hard.

K-Lo is doing her fair share for “Just Say No…to EVERYthing!”

K-Lo has a connoisseur’s appreciation for masturbation euphemisms.

Ok here goes, We totally would have licked greenhouse gas emissions years ago if the liberal baby killers hadn’t aborted the next super-scientist who would totally have invented reverse entropy or something.

Crap.

K-Lo persuaded D-KW’s mom to abstinence.

K-Lo has sturdy knees.

K-Lo is fighting the “hot Latina” stereotype as best she can.

K-Lo encourages parents to teach their children copy-editing.

K-Lo provides the wounded-puppy look to go with the NRO’s begging.

Substance McGravitas said,
October 25, 2011 at 20:35

K-Lo is not letting the voices get to her.

It’s easy when the volume is turned down on the giggle module.

K-Lo persuaded D-KW’s mom to abstinence.

Sure she did. For like a half hour.

Oddly, she blows smoke up your ass. Literally.

what the hell? i was surprized to read this reaction from her…so surprised in fact, i was compelled to only mildly chastise her mentally for her grammar fails..

“K-Lo is fighting the “hot Latina” stereotype as best she can.”

The feminist in me finds this looksist. The rest of me finds it hilarious.

“K-Lo is fighting the “hot Latina” stereotype as best she can.”

i don’t know…i think she always looks hot…and uncomfortable…

“Substance McGravitas said,
October 25, 2011 at 20:45

K-Lo has sturdy knees.
”

Ok, how can she not know…?

K-Lo inspires excellent writing.

K-Lo can keep a secret.

K-Lo is not afraid to say what she wants.

*vomits*

In fact K-Lo is adamant about what she wants.

K-Lo is fighting the “hot Latina” stereotype as best she can.

She is also a perfect refutation of the “wise Latina” stereotype.

The feminist in me finds this looksist. The rest of me finds it hilarious.

Hilarious and looksist are not mutual exclusive. Certainly the people who point at me and laugh think so.

“Substance McGravitas said,
October 25, 2011 at 20:53

In fact K-Lo is adamant about what she wants.”

I actually LOLed. There’s a babby sleeping.

Not cool, Substance. Not cool.

Yet K-Lo knows that all appetites can be satisfied.

K-Lo has made many men reconsider heterosexuality.

“K-Lo is fighting the “hot Latina” stereotype as best she can.”

The feminist in me finds this looksist.

Why is it looksist to rebut* a sexual stereotype regarding looks?

*VB-SR

K-Lo knows what is appropriate in the workplace and what is not.

So–turns out that the scruffy douchebag with the bad ‘stache seen tempting me to smoke and shilling for Herman Cain is a fucking sleazebag who was actually kicked out of Wisconsin and fined for a voter suppression scheme he ran back in 1997.

I’m SO surprised.

K-Lo knows that children are the future.

Doesn’t this:
K-Lo knows that children are the future.

refute this?
K-Lo knows what is appropriate in the workplace and what is not.

Doesn’t this:

refute this?

It’s on SCHOOL grounds. So it’s okay. Every Catholic knows that.

K-Lo knows that children are the future for dinner.

FTFY

k-lo fantasizes a lot…

K-Lo observes things getting longer and then frothier.

From Actor’s link: Hooker ‘turns into donkey’, court hears

The opportunity to use the “Apuleius Defense” does not come up very often in contemporary courtrooms.

In fact K-Lo is adamant about what she wants.

She is a New Romantic singer? Now I am imagining her wearing an ornate Napoleonic uniform, with facepaint. NEW PHOTOSHOP PROJECT.

K-Lo knows that children are the future.

I was expecting something different from a link to “klorally.jpg”.
It appears from the content of the Twitter that she spends a lot of time hanging around boys’ schools looking at 15-year-olds.

The opportunity to use the “Apuleius Defense” does not come up very often in contemporary courtrooms.

The “horse’s ass” defense is quite popular, however.

In fact K-Lo is adamant about what she wants.

She is a New Romantic singer?

I thought it meant WOLVERINETTE!!!!!!!!

Speaking of, and you can blame Substance for prompting me to discover this – Rule 34 knows no bounds*.

*Well actually, there’s a lot of Rule 34 related to bondage, but you know what I mean.

In fact K-Lo is adamant about what she wants.

She is a New Romantic singer?

On the other hand, she don’t drink, she don’t smoke…subtle innuendo, I know. Must be something inside.

“Substance McGravitas said,
October 25, 2011 at 20:45

Ok, how can she not know…?

If you fuckers start doing K-Lo quotes at my Filthbot thread, I will lock that sumbitch right the hell down.

What the hell is a filthbot? or is this one of those things that can’t be unlearned?

K-Lo would immeasurably improve that thread.

K-Lo can hold her liquor.

By the ears?

K-Lo would immeasurably improve that thread.

i think at this point in the game, k-lo can just go ahead and eat the mayo…

Ok, how can she not know…?

oooooh…what if she does know and she’s just a sarcastic left leaning bitch stuck working with a bunch of conservative a-holes?

K-Lo has nice things to say about an abortion

“Substance McGravitas said,
October 25, 2011 at 21:43

K-Lo would immeasurably improve that thread.”

Sadly true!

And K-Lo’s commenters are loose-lipped about a friend of K-Lo’s

So what zrm is saying is that he really wants us to post about k-lo & sexytime as much as possible on his blog.

Can do!

K-Lo has nice things to say about an abortion

I kinda feel bad about making fun of K-Lo. After she wrote that piece, she tweeted it six separate times and re-tweeted for a seventh. The article is dated yesterday.

She’s kinda young for early onset Alzheimer’s. It’s kinda sad for her and her loved ones whomever is charged with her long-term care that they’ll being dealing with dementia for so very long.

I kinda feel bad about making fun of K-Lo.

Oh great! Are you about to tell me she’s a transvestite now, and I’m going to get spanked again, then have Dennis chide me at some other blog about it all over?????

It’s kinda sad for her and her loved ones whomever is charged with her long-term care that they’ll being dealing with dementia for so very long.

Oh.

Well, stake her out for the vultures, I say.

Nothing like a fat vulture at Thanksgiving.

DK-W’s mom has been in Bolivia?

K-Lo would immeasurably improve that thread.”

Sadly true!

I know you all hate me.

DK-W’s mom has been in Bolivia?

Hey actor, speaking of CSI:Geology, remember when your mom went down to teh Bahamas?

I know you all hate me.

Not you, but the Kevlar body condoms we have to wear around you chafe.

Hey actor, speaking of CSI:Geology, remember when your mom went down to teh Bahamas?

Your mom’s is deeper and colder

Actual headline:

Santorum Touts Support For Criminalizing Sodomy

That ought to stir things up and make them frothy.

Oakland gasses the hippies.

That ought to stir things up and make them frothy.

And lubricate the political discourse.

Rick “Santorum” Santorum. Dumb, evil or both? I gotta go with both.

LESS TRIBALISM, MORE TRIBADISM!!!

DK-W’s mom has been in Bolivia?
remember when your mom went down to teh Bahamas?
Your mom’s is deeper and colder

yer mom…

I dread the day Rick gets outed. He’s dumb enough to try and switch teams and continue in politics as an out of the-closet, leather-daddy liberal democrat flaming gay man. And he will be no better at it than he is now.

What we should do is orient our laws to make sure they’re in conformity with the natural law. In conformity with God’s law

didn’t god make some d00d dash his child’s brains out on a rock?

didn’t god make some d00d dash his child’s brains out on a rock?

It was a sacrifice, on an altar, with a sword. According to ritual. And I didn’t even make him go through with it.

Damn liberal media.

Most horrifying K-Lo comment of all time was made by someone here (you are fortunate that I do not remember who it was, whoever you are) and speculated on the possibility that K-Lo and Jonah meet up in one of their respective hotel rooms while at an out-of-town conservative gathering or NRO event.

Comment was something about “two brillo pads fighting over a hot dog…and not just fighting, but fighting to the death.”

I’ve never recovered.

didn’t god make some d00d dash his child’s brains out on a rock?

He had to distract the zombies.

It was a sacrifice, on an altar, with a sword. According to ritual. And I didn’t even make him go through with it.

hmmmm…thanks, god for the clarification…sacrifices and rituals DO sound like natural law…

I’ve never recovered.

Oh surrrrrrrrre, but you’ll share that horrifying image with the rest of us!

I’ve never recovered.

OK, Jen, just to get you back…what if they both shave down there?

OK, Jen, just to get you back…what if they both shave down there?

WHY DO THE REST OF US HAVE TO SUFFER?!?!?!?

what if they both shave down there?

although i suppose this would make it easier for jonah to find the cheetos he’s dropped in his lap…

There are some things so horrifying that they must be shared if we are to have to live with the knowledge of them. You know it’s true. You shared the grossest most horrible joke you ever heard with someone, guiltily, just so you wouldn’t have to be the only one dealing with it. Everyone has done this.

Shave? Jonah probably gets his mom to wax him, and K-Lo doesn’t even acknowledge that there is a “down there.” Which in her case, is a good thing.

Everyone has done this.

I really have not. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go find a melon baller so I can remove my mind’s eye.

and K-Lo doesn’t even acknowledge that there is a “down there.”

She’ll have to acknowledge it when Jonah sells those tapes.

She’ll have to acknowledge it when Jonah sells those tapes.

no she won’t…she would go full-blown agnes of god instead…

I really have not. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go find a melon baller so I can remove my mind’s eye.

I know what you mean. The first time I heard it, I think I compared it to, you know that feeling you get when there’s a hair stuck at the back of your throat? This is like that hair being stuck at the back of your brain.

Shit List

Substance
bbfk
Jennifer
actor

Shit List

*squeals & claps*

is there a prize?!?!?

*squeals & claps*

is there a prize?!?!?

It’s called a shit list. I would not be too excited about any prizes.

I would not be too excited about any prizes.

A brand-new baby!

It’s called a shit list. I would not be too excited about any prizes.

*kicks ground*

POOP

SO WRONG

Shit List.

“bbfk”

bbkf narrowly escapes the list.

Fuck. I had somehow wiped that from my brain. Thanks, Jennifer.

Fuck. I had somehow wiped that from my brain. Thanks, Jennifer.

if you ever figure out how you did that, please to let me know…

I’m not even going to try catching up. Does this belong to one of you? You know who i’m looking at.

The economy is so bad this poor old guy can’t even find work. It breaks my heart, it does.

Shit List.

That’s a great song. No, I didn’t know it. Is anyone surprised?

Here’s another good rage-thrash tune.

But yeah, L7 rocked hard; they had lots of great songs.

Here’s another good rage-thrash tune.

I like my rage-thrash tunes to have more Rage and Bad Religion…

bbkf said,

October 25, 2011 at 23:49

Fuck. I had somehow wiped that from my brain. Thanks, Jennifer.

if you ever figure out how you did that, please to let me know…

Start drinking heavily right now, that’d be a start.

L7 was one of those groups who was always on the periphery of my musical bubble that I’d always meant to listen to but for whatever reason never got around to it. I guess I missed out.

L7 was one of those groups who was always on the periphery of my musical bubble that I’d always meant to listen to but for whatever reason never got around to it. I guess I missed out.

I liked the Babes more. Thumbs up to playing slide guitar with a butter knife.

It’s sometimes hard to keep apace with you guys when the thread moves on.

What you write is vindicating, Cerebrus. Rail on.

The anti-tax nutjobs always phrase this as laziness or some sort of sneak attack as if the poor are cackling in glee that they don’t make enough income to pay taxes (For awhile in college I deliberately overpaid my taxes by not filing income returns because I was surviving okay on what I did had and it didn’t really seem like a big deal, I always remember this and wonder how many people who don’t bother to file their earned returns and thus overpay their taxes get bitched out by people who hire accountants to find every loophole in the book to underpay theirs).

I put myself through art school working underground, living cheaply, and spending about a third of my income on art supplies. I was pretty much in the boat you describe here, too. And I am happy ass a clam to paying taxes, when somebody else is doing most of the paperwork. I’ll still get a rebate when I file, but dam it would feel good to be in that 53% tax bracket. I could live even better than I do now and could afford to help me former charge out more and could afford to send more money to good causes like Doctors without Borders, the DAV, and OWS (I just ordered some checks so I can send them one every month and will probably die with most of those checks being unused).

Thanks, Substance. Actually I’ve been meaning to do a blog entry on artists I never listened to because of…whatever. A lot of them are, like, iconic. Huge. At least they seem to be huge in a lot of real music-lovers’ estimations. And for the life of me I don’t know why I never really introduced myself to some of these folks. It’s a whole big thing. Sometimes it’s like with cinema…I feel like I need to go back and educate myself about the classics. Even the new classics.

Marvin usually has good stuff.

Y’know, not being a horny farm lad…well, a farm lad at any rate…I was unfamiliar with that term.

I lost the final round of a Poetry Slam to a frat-rat who brought all his frat-friends and who beat me with a haiku about stump-training. It was what it was, but it was disheartening and I had really looked forward to getting twenty dollars for my efforts, which were considerable. The next day, when I went to the kitchen to start my day as usual, the wonderful elderly woman I lived with (room for forty bucks a month plus help around the house) said, “Hey, hey, hey, hey!” in a tone that indicated I had something to be very proud of. I said, “What?” She said, “Look at the paper there on the table”. So, I looked. The paper was opened to a story about the poetry slam. I had no idea a reporter was there. He compared my poetry to Satie’s Gymnopedae (sp?) or a Miles Davis trumpet solo. That was better than twenty dollars by a long shot. I asked her who Satie was and mispronounced it. She pronounced his name properly then said she had that album in her record cabinet. I pulled out the album, put it on, and listened. THAT’ IT!!! He nailed it.

I finally got a Satie cd about five years ago, and I tipped my hat to him in one of the very few poems I’ve written this century.

I finally got a Satie cd about five years ago

Neil Young stole his endings.

Les Six don’t get a lot of ink ’round here.

L-7 are nice people. Easter Sunday ’88 or ’89 (Maybe ’90, even?) there was a BBQ at my house,during which I got so drunk I blacked out (Don’t usually black out, but early arrivals had lotsa booze & I never got around to eating …) The next day I was informed I’d been chasing bassist Suzi (the blonde in the lower left in the picture in the vid) all over the house telling her I loved her, yet she still spoke to me after that.

Here Be Monsters, & you can place voices w/ typing.

Wow. BBQing with rocker chicks is pretty cool. Possibly cooler than when I saw Marvin Hamlisch do a one man show in a church.

POSSIBLY.

(and, yes, that really happened when I was a tween? Teen? Oh, who knows. The important thing is that you’re jealous. )

Aurora Borealis shining down in Dallas
can you picture that?

can you picture that?

BRAVO.

Aurora Borealis

Damned good stripper name.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

HAHAHAHHA

Bachmann may have an intellectual equal in Congress. The building, not the, ya know, sex stuff.

That Anonymouse was me

500th comment!!!!

Do I win anything?

Bachmann may have an intellectual equal in Congress. The building, not the, ya know, sex stuff.

This guy wastes 10 minutes of Obama’s time in 2008 asking inane questions about taxes he would never have had to pay on money he would never earn, and that qualifies him to serve in Congress?

We are so fucked.

You win a glass of red, red wine.
~

Joe the fake plumber has no chance of being elected.

Thanks to the 2010 elections, the Republicans have ridiculously gerrymandered the state.

A couple districts (including mine, the OH-15) have been carved up to contain all the D votes.

So that many other (former) swing districts will now remain Republican, in spite of their hideous record.
~

although i suppose this would make it easier for jonah to find the cheetos he’s dropped in his lap…

“Hey!!! This one’s not orange!!! Ow… ohhhhhhhhh….”

You win a glass of red, red wine.

Which wine goes well with keyboards?

I appreciate the fact that this is one of the few online comment sections into which I can readily lurch semi-drunkenly no matter how archaic the original post may be.

–So what remains unsaid on this one? No time to reed much rite now.

When shredding these anal ballistics,
We just employ basic heuristics.
But sure as we’re gloatin’,
The goalposts are floatin’…
And soon they’ll be lost in the mistics.

So anyone else looking forward to the authoritarian jerkoff fest that’s bound to ensue when the rightwing commentariat wake up and realize that their fellow Americans have been assaulted by the police for peacefully assembling?

Yeah. Me, neither.

Start drinking heavily right now, that’d be a start.

Worked for me. I’ve already started to purge my mind again.

Not that it’s any different than any other Tuesday night, of course.

Tuesday is my designated night of moderation, which is why I’m sentient enough to post anything whatsoever at the moment.

— but yore deffunishun of “moddurashun” may verry…

So anyone else looking forward to the authoritarian jerkoff fest that’s bound to ensue when the rightwing commentariat wake up and realize that their fellow Americans have been assaulted by the police for peacefully assembling?

They’d refuse to acknowledge the Occupy Oaklanders as their fellow Americans.

Your daily tin foil
http://osamaobamabidenbinladen.blogspot.com/

I can’t follow the point but it is very silly

Gocart seems to have located onandonandanon.

If you have a legal issue with this site take it up with the blog owner JR. You can always call the Pentagon or FBI if you want as well. I’m sure they’d love to here from you. I’d call them, but they won’t listen to me, they just torture me using everyone around me for the last 3 years. I’ve learned more about psychological harassment, mobbing, street theater, and psychological warfare in the last 3 years than I ever learned about internet marketing.

Evidently both Sarah Palin and Fidel Castro BOTH wear hats, so QED, Al Quaida runs America through their Capitalist stooge, Obama.

GCMZ, that’s some site:

I’m not a journalist or a literary genius so please keep this in mind while I try and explain the most devious plot to overthrow America.

Heh, indeed…

I’m not a journalist or a literary genius so please keep this in mind while I try and explain the most devious plot to overthrow America.

Well, it’s nearly Bloganovel November…

Shit Moat

Good morning, everyone. Pookietronic is being a little angel. I feel like something’s off. When is the other shoe going to drop?

Shit Moat

Wow, the xenophyophore is a good metaphor for the entire NRO staff:

The new xenophyophore species Shinkaiya lindsayi. In the long section, the central white strands are the xenophyophore’s cytoplasm, while the black strands are strings of faecal pellets

Stringing along poop, definitely a natural for “The Corner”.

When is the other shoe going to drop?

Obviously, at the most inopportune time.

Substance McGravitas bait at my place.

I wish I had something witty and provocative to say so that we could get some chatter going nice and early today. Sadly I do not. Could all of you just pretend I had said something worth replying to and start from there? It looks to be a long day here at the putty knife factory and I need all the distraction I can get

Putty knife factory? I’m going to pretend you said “novelty dildo factory.” NOW the kookiness should ensue.

Shorter Scott Johnson, Power Line:

Yesterday I taught you all how to be a brilliant writer on the order of George Orwell and myself. The dictionary disagrees with everything I said, which only confirms my superiority. Today, I want to complain about Jim Leach, whom I am obsessed with. I think he is pretentious writer. In conclusion, I am so fucking tired of having a nigger for a president.

Bonus Shorter John HInderaker:

Barack Obama is a faggot. Here’s a sexy picture of a real macho man in boxing shorts.

Eh. it’s just a thing my dad used to say when he would go to work. “I’m off to the putty knife factory” He actually was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, and I am pretty sure none of his duties involved making putty knives.

I too, do not actually work at a putty knife factory.

Barack Obama is a faggot. Here’s a sexy picture of a real macho man in boxing shorts.

I skimmed. The premise of his whole argument depends on the idea of most liberals being completely in favor of Barack Obama’s foreign policy. In fact, I believe most liberals are conflicted if not downright disappointed. Unless he means establishment Democrats. In which case, when were they these wimpy doves?

When conservatives talk about liberal hypocrisy, I really do feel as if my head might explode.

I too, do not actually work at a putty knife factory.

Still, I bet more kookiness ensues at a putty knife factory than at an army base. Assuming life does not imitate Beetle Bailey.

It’s also premised on the idea that Obama campaigned against fighting terrorists, and based on the lie that “killing any Muslim bad guy” exactly equals “continuing Bush’s policies.”

It’s also premised on the idea that Obama campaigned against fighting terrorists, and based on the lie that “killing any Muslim bad guy” exactly equals “continuing Bush’s policies.”

Which seems odd, since Bush couldn’t seem to get that done. The gnashing of teeth must cause in the wing-o-sphere!

Assuming life does not imitate Beetle Bailey.

Oh, I bet the Army has lots of mid-level officers who are embarrassing suck-ups no one can stand.

If you’re in need of a little morning chuckle, B^4’s place.

Oh, I bet the Army has lots of mid-level officers who are embarrassing suck-ups no one can stand.

Luckily the chasing the secretary around the desk thing is quite verboten these days,though.

If you’re in need of a little morning chuckle, B^4?s place.

Apparently, I felt, that sentence needed no ending. But if you wanted one, “has some.”

To my egg-bearing friends on Sadly, No!

Better find them in the effluent and stuff ’em back in their, or you’ll be accused of murder

It’s also premised on the idea that Obama campaigned against fighting terrorists, and based on the lie that “killing any Muslim bad guy” exactly equals “continuing Bush’s policies.”

Continuing Bush policies would have involved funneling trillions more to Xe and Carlyle as they sat around on their fat asses and pretended to look for hunted Osama bin Laden and Muamar Qaddafy

Better find them in the effluent and stuff ‘em back in their, or you’ll be accused of murder

*sigh*

Women are such bitches, wanting autonomy over their own bodies and such as…

Women are such bitches, wanting autonomy over their own bodies and such as…

Right?

Now get me a beer!

Ah that Scott Johnson is a clever one! He quotes a piece from Orwell to distinguish good writing from bad and “puffed up”. Then he proclaims what Jim Leach produces as bad and by extension Obummer must be bad for appointing him to some position 99.9% of the population doesn’t know or care about and which has zero impact on our lives. Then he links to a Daily Standard piece by Andrew Furguson as the supposed epitome of non-puffedupedness in which Ferguson does an oh-so-puffed-up and inpenetrable attempted take down of a pitifully small number of Obummer appointees, who are you know, Hollywood types and EJ Dione as opposed to 2 Bush appointees who are, trust Ferguson here because you’re sure never to have heard of these people, imminently qualified academics who’s only purpose was to dog whistle us all into Americanism. Oh yeah, and this same Ferguson piece even praises, you guessed it, SCOTT FUCKING JOHNSON as some brilliant conservatard stalwart or something. No, Ferguson didn’t mention that thoroughbred horse guy Bush appointed to FEMA and compare him to who Clinton or Obama had in place. No, didn’t do that. Who heads up the National Endowment for the Humanities is much more important than life and death.

*tap tap*

Testing. Testing. 1. 2. 3.

I think a condom would have been more effective contraception, but that’s just me being testes.

See, that is just one more thing i didn’t need to know.

I’ve been quietly pondering…with my legs tightly crossed…the bite strength necessary to perform that particular feat.

Orwell’s translation “into modern English of the worst sort” is bad writing that is considerably beyond the abilities of emeinences[sic and HAHA] including Chairman Jim Leach of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Leach reaches a new depth in the worst sort of modern English; he needs to work to attain the comprehensibility of Orwell’s “modern English of the worst sort.”

According to wikipedia, Jim Leach is a life-long Republican, former congressman, and was in the running to replace John Bolton – so pretty fucking conservative, and a man the PowerWhiners would fellate to a nub in any other circumstance eg if Bush had placed him in the exact same position. Probably, as a Republican and former politician, he IS a crappy writer, but that’s at least partially because HE’S NOT A WRITER YOU FUCKING MORON. Don’t know why Obama continues to try placating these assholes by nominating their own shit heads to positions.

Conservative blogger tries to punk OWS. Gets punked back

Yea, that Jim Leach. What a low-life illiterate. Probably a newly minted Messican-American

James A. Leach is the ninth chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Prior to being nominated by President Obama for the post, Leach was a Professor at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and Interim Director of the Institute of Politics and Lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Leach’s brief stint in academia was preceded by 30 years of service as a representative in Congress where he chaired the Banking and Financial Services Committee, the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

Leach attended Princeton University, the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins, and the London School of Economics.

He holds eleven honorary degrees, has received decorations from two foreign governments, and is the recipient of the Wayne Morse Integrity in Politics Award, the Adlai Stevenson Award from the United Nations Association, the Edger Wayburn Award from the Sierra Club, the Norman Borlaug Public Service Award, and the Woodrow Wilson Medal from Princeton.

The chairman served on the board of several public companies and a series of non-profit organizations, including the Century Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Social Sciences Research Council, Pro Publica and Common Cause, which he chaired.

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Council on Foreign Relations, and formerly served as a trustee of Princeton University.

Wait, what?

said James Bopp Jr.,

heh…his name is bopp…

said James Bopp Jr.,

heh…his name is bopp…

Dad’s name: Mmm

Mom’s name: She

Separate bedrooms, apparently.

*LULZ DETECTED*

re: jim leach, et al…why are they bitching about who was appointed at all? aren’t these the kind of bullshit agencies they’re always bitching about with their big government and a bunch of perverts and whatnot? you would think they would feel better having a econ and law guy in there to make sure the money was spent to their approval…god, they’re dumb!

and really?!?!? i’m gonna catch some flack for this, but imma say it anyways: from here on out i will be militantly opposed to d00ds whacking off!!! those sperm are really unborn children, so y’all better quit your murderous masturbating RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!!!

i assume the silence is derived from the shock of my inflammatory statement…how’s it feel, boys?

Huh what? sorry I nodded off there for a sec. Where were we?

from here on out i will be militantly opposed to d00ds whacking off!!!

*hiding tube sock*

how’s it feel, boys?

*GASP*

You have NO idea….

No slacking at the dido factory!

Didn’t Jesus’ General urge us, tugging and pulling us, to store our spermatozoan Americans in a Mason jar?

Jesus Christ, actor. Slow the fingers. You’re stepping on my jokes.

You’re stepping on my jokes.

I know breast feeding makes them sag, but I wouldn’t call those “jokes”.

No slacking at the dido factory!

Is that why she hasn’t had a hit since 2000?

I didn’t know I was a mass-murderer. Really, I didn’t.

On second thought, they end up in the toilet and they ARE little swimmers, so I think I am just freeing them into the sewers WHERE THEY WILL MEET COUNTLESS FLUSHED BABY ALLIGATORS……….SHIT. I am so going to hell.

I know breast feeding makes them sag, but I wouldn’t call those “jokes”.

Yikes.

[…] Just because rockets shoot out of his butt doesn’t make him a launching pad (via Sadly, No! which eviscerates  post from the Pwoer Line blog entitled “IF CORPORATIONS AREN’T PEOPLE, HOW CAN THEY BE GREEDY?”) Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. […]

from here on out i will be militantly opposed to d00ds whacking off!!!

Well, there are guys who’ve done it more times than me – but they’re older than me.

how’s it feel, boys?

Wait. Didn’t you just tell us not to?

Now that I’m not whacking off I can comment Comment COMMENT!

Yikes.

Killfiles are swell.

Wait. Didn’t you just tell us not to?

NO! i meant how does it feel to be told what u can and cannot do with your body in regards to potential children…

Now that I’m not whacking off I can comment Comment COMMENT!

heh…yes, now you should only have spare time on your hands…

NO! i meant how does it feel to be told what u can and cannot do with your body in regards to potential children,,,

Well if you would just yell in that stern voice a bit moar. Also, tell us we’ve been very very naughty.

Well if you would just yell in that stern voice a bit moar. Also, tell us we’ve been very very naughty.

hold on a sec…let me get into my leathers…and where did i leave my whip?

School teacher or nun both work for me.

hold on a sec…let me get into my leathers…and where did i leave my whip?

the school teachers where you went to school and nuns where you went to church didn’t dress in leather and use whips?

On second thought, they end up in the toilet and they ARE little swimmers, so I think I am just freeing them into the sewers WHERE THEY WILL MEET COUNTLESS FLUSHED BABY ALLIGATORS……….SHIT. I am so going to hell.

Next on the SciFi channel – Reptiloids from the Sewer.

Not only is this thread getting shopworn, it’s got three day old stubble, and god knows, I don’t want to floss my teeth with this thread.

Well, there are guys who’ve done it more times than me – but they’re older than me.

Which is why you’re a lowly major and we’re generals.

Killfiles are swell.

Subby has me on kill?

SWEET!

*subby is a fucking little shit whose mommy fucks DK-W for teh welfare check*

Methinks the thread is spent…………………………………………………………………………………………………like so many, oh, nevermind.

Methinks the thread is spent

I can rub a few more out, but I’ll need some lotion

He was so traumatised by his wounds, which required 19 stitches, that emergency services struggled to understand him when he called for help.

Now that’s a 911 tape I want to hear.

Also, in other dildo news…

that emergency services struggled to understand him when he called for help.

“I’m sorry sir…you said you were beaten by Balzac?”

This thread is shopworn, threadbare, brokedown, busted, clapped-out, worn down, tattered, mangy and ragged.

Here, I’ll liven it up: Blue Öyster Cult’s “Joan Crawford” isn’t an awful song.

Also, in other dildo news…

Nothing like relaxing after a good massacree with a dildo up your ass watching TS porn. I’m surprised he had no wetsuits.

That Wonkette article got bonus points for using the great word “accoutrements” but then lost all of them by misspelling it.

Also, in other dildo news…

Now that’s what freedom’s all about. Unless someone else has the controller on the remote-controlled vibe.

Here, I’ll liven it up: Blue Öyster Cult’s “Joan Crawford” isn’t an awful song.

Nodding in agreement…or cuz we’re drunk slugs…is supposed to liven the place up?

That Wonkette article got bonus points for using the great word “accoutrements” but then lost all of them by misspelling it.

Maybe it was sly nod to the fact he was an accountant?

is supposed to liven the place up?

Not as much as a wingnut with a remote-controlled pink dildo, obviously.

“I’m sorry sir…you said you were beaten by Balzac?”

I’m picturing an already unintelligibly deep Auzzy accent turned into a Pythonian-Scottish parody by the shock and pain, with “motherfucker” being pretty much the only word you could make out.

Not as much as a wingnut with a remote-controlled pink dildo, obviously.

Clearly, he thought it was for her television

Shorter Jonah Goldberg:

Keep fucking that chicken!

Better find them in the effluent and stuff ‘em back in their, or you’ll be accused of murder

Actor’s link is to a Fox news-item, which in a side-panel offered this further reading:
EXCLUSIVE: ACORN Playing Behind Scenes Role in ‘Occupy’ Movement

I stayed on the boat.

In my magical happy world, in 20 years when the reactionary right has been defeated for good, no one will admit to having been a teabagger back in the day. It will be as shameful a thing to have been as an informer for the stasi, or a racist skinhead.

Jeezus. I never understood the raging boner rightards have for demonizing ACORN, other than it was an organization that dared to provide aid to those frightening “others”.

OT – and likely of interest to thundra,

So Patrick Pexton’s gotten talked about again with his lament about how mean teh Post was to teh Koch brothers. Yup, a well researched and balanced article brings stinging rebuke from teh Ombudsman for being totally accurate.

Anyways, looking forward to see if he has anything to say about this.

ACORN is a sinister plot by liberals, atheists, Jews, women, college students, homosexuals, and racial minorities to remake America into the land of godless gay hippy abortions.

This will fix EVERYTHING:

So why then are we shedding our pajamas and becoming PJ Media?

I would be dishonest not to confess to a certain ambivalence, not to mention nostalgia.

But we do have reasons:

For one, the Dan Rather affair is a long time ago now. It’s getting increasingly complicated (and distracting) to explain our name, so that people realize we’re a media company, not a sleepwear outfit flogging Valentine’s Day gifts.

More seriously, choosing a kooky Internet name like Pajamas worked for a time, but we are part of the larger media. We rely on credibility for our opinions and reporting and can no longer afford the luxury of our name being too casual and jocular.

PJ Media! TOTALLY DIFFERENT you guys!

Ahh, I see he’s already commented on teh Wonkette post.

More seriously, choosing a kooky Internet name like Pajamas worked for a time, but we are part of the larger media.

Um, how, precisely?

I comment at Roger Hell Simon’s piece

Ahh, I see he’s already commented on teh Wonkette post.

Pexton? I’m not seeing it. Did he comment at WaPo?

They would likely get more hits if they called themselves naughtyfrenchnightymedia.

Pexton? I’m not seeing it. Did he comment at WaPo?

No, thundra. Who always seems one step ahead of me in following teh atrocities of teh War Criminal Post.

They would likely get more hits if they called themselves naughtyfrenchnightymedia.

splitcrotchhosierymedia.org

No, thundra

Ah

“PJs” will always mean pajamas to those of us in the know

“PJs” will always mean pajamas to those of us in the know”

And here I thought it meant “pancreas jobs”

When you’re pants are on fire, do you call 911, and hope they believe you?