Monday, January 05, 2015

...UNTIL GOLDBERG WRITES SOMETHING ELSE.

Oh Christ, Jonah Goldberg again:
There’s an old joke in the newspaper business, now immortal on the Internet: 
“The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country..."
Yeah, we've all heard that one, it's pretty good. Now what --
"...USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don’t really understand the New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie-chart format. . . . The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country, and they did a far superior job of it, thank you very much..."
My guess: Goldberg, after years of telling his own terrible jokes or overexplaining them, has moved on to ruining the classics.
But the joke is on us. You see, no one is running the country. 
I don’t mean that as a knock on President Obama. No president “runs” America because the government doesn’t run America — and the president barely runs the government. He can scarcely tell his own employees what to do. Civil-service laws and union rules make it darn near impossible to fire even grossly incompetent employees for anything short of pederasty or murder. 
I don’t have the space to rehash the Federalist Papers, but at the federal level there are three branches of government and each one monkey-wrenches the other, all the time. Meanwhile, do you know how many local governments there are in the United States?
Despite this chaos, some people think we're being run by Liberal Fascism. How'd that happen?

Cutting to the chase: People think the country is run by rich people but Goldberg says it isn't -- he knows because they told him:
In recent years, I’ve had the good fortune to get to know some famous .001-percenters. Guess what? Not only do they not run the country, but they’re often desperate to find out who does.
"Yes, very interesting question, Mr. Goldberg. When you find out, tell me! Now if you'll excuse me, my harem of Guatemalan toddlers awaits; Rolf will see you out."

But this thinking is ancient, says Goldberg:
The notion that there’s a class or group of people secretly running things is ancient. It was old when the Roman consul Lucius Cassius famously asked, “Cui bono?” (“To whose benefit?”)
I suppose if you pointed out that this conflates conspiracy thinking with simple causality, Goldberg's grammar intern would explain that "old when" doesn't have to mean the two things have something to do with one another. Saved by sloppy writing once more!

Naturally, though conspiracy thinking is universal, it's worser with the Left because they believe in nonsense like "systemic racism or sexism or white privilege" -- As if! -- whereas conservatives only believe in sensible things like media bias.

Toward the end Goldberg grows philosophical, by which I mean less coherent:
I think some people are scared of the idea that nobody is in charge, in part because they want someone to blame for their problems. Others don’t like this notion because they have an outsize faith in the power of human will. If villains aren’t to blame for our ills, then some problems cease to be problems and simply become facts of life.
Just when you're puzzling out how an outsize faith in the power of human will makes a person less inclined to fix problems, Goldberg pops his button:
Me? I like knowing no one is running things because, for starters, it means I’m free.
He could have just started with that and skipped the column. But then how would people know he's an intellectual?

226 comments:

  1. Giant Monster Gamera1:16 PM

    In other words, Jonah sees the US as that week back in 1986 when his parents figured he was old enough to take care of himself and left him "in charge" of the house while they took a vacation. They returned to find that he'd eaten nothing but Cheetos, raided the liquor cabinet, plugged up the toilets, and forgot to let the cat back in.

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  2. Formerly_Nom_De_Plume1:16 PM

    You see, no one is running the country.



    Economy improving, consumer confidence up, Obama's approval on the rise. This talking point is right on schedule.

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  3. Me? I like knowing no one is running things because, for starters, it means I’m free.

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  4. Giant Monster Gamera1:21 PM

    I'm flashing back to the talking point in the summer of 2000, when the chattering class assured us that everything was going just great, and what possible harm could that likable Dubya possibly do.


    Oh, and did you know that Algore thinks he invented the Internet?

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  5. Okay, if "nobody's running anything, much less the President" there's a lot of right-wing fiddle-faddle about both Obama and the previous guy that needs to get explained...

    BTW, when the hell did he figure out that there's three Federal branches, and can he name them? Because there's also a whole load of skreeing about "executive overreach" and "activist judges" that would need to get explained as well.

    I would ask if he thinks at all about what he's writing, but I'm sure we all know the answer to that.

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  6. DN Nation1:31 PM

    Doughbob was one of those many, many wingnut fartknockers who were blaming Obama for the DJIA hitting the skids in 2009. You can set your watch to the way these buffoons change their tune.

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  7. DN Nation1:32 PM

    "Me? I like knowing no one is running things because, for starters, it means I’m free."


    What is this- a Jonah Goldberg column or Tumblr?

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  8. Giant Monster Gamera1:33 PM

    "Turn it off! Turn it off!"

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  9. But the joke is on us. You see, no one is running the country...No president “runs” America because the government doesn’t run America — and the president barely runs the government.

    Having milked postmodernism for all its worth, Jonah grows bored and moves on to legal hokum. I eagerly await the name change to "Jonah: Goldberg" and the inevitable courtroom video of him arguing his "no one runs things" theory to the judge.

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  10. Giant Monster Gamera1:40 PM

    Jonah "Colon" Goldberg. I see what you did there.

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  11. There are a few thousand bright-but-naïve teenagers who are going to be upset that Jonah plagiarized their blogs.

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  12. and at the end of the deposition, the camera pulls back to reveal...the courtoom is empty!

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  13. Fucking pundits, how do they work?

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  14. Megalon1:42 PM

    It may seem that me saying nobody is running things seems to be incompatible with me saying totalitarian Liberal Fascists though police run things with an iron fist. I do not deny this, for it's centrality to my point cannot be overstated! (FARRRRRTTTT)

    He really does somehow manage to get worse every time, doesn't he?

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  15. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person1:43 PM

    Me? I like knowing no one is running things because, for starters, it means I’m free.

    And safe as houses in the middle of the stampeding flash mob of Anarchy America...

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  16. Hot Jazz Murder Music1:44 PM

    Flag on the moon; how did it get there?

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  17. That's assuming a lot of planning on Jonah's behalf. Applying Occam's Razor, I believe that he read the jacket copy on a book of anarchist thought and decided to do the same thing he did in school when the book report came due.

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  18. Wasn't that kind of the point of that stupid book? That okay, no one's trying to force you to do anything, but they sigh when you light up a smoke, and that's fascism too. I mean, not really, but if you think about it...

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  19. He really is an onion of shart.

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  20. mgmonklewis1:48 PM

    Oh for Christ's sake. Only the most clueless, diaper-wearing authoritarian could write the following

    I think some people are scared of the idea that nobody is in charge, in
    part because they want someone to blame for their problems.



    and not have even the teeniest, tiniest glimmer of self-awareness, and drop the subject like a hot potato.


    Yet Jonah manages to pull it off. Well played. FAAAAARRRT

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  21. tigrismus1:49 PM

    I don’t have the space to rehash the Federalist Papers

    tee hee!

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  22. Ah, the Sovrun Peanut Gallery squeaks! These are the folks who think your "person" (i.e. all-captials name) is different from you, and who think that there's a massive bank account kept somewhere linked to your birth certificate that, if you know The Magic Words, you can pay all you bills from.

    Morons, in other words.

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  23. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person2:12 PM

    Needs more Illuminati...

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  24. "Black People Dance Like This, But Liberals Are The Real Racists"

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  25. Gromet2:16 PM

    Because for starters, I'm free to try only as hard as a 15-year-old who knows as long as he maintains a C average, he gets a car on his 16th birthday.


    Anyway, great, he's free. We all are, he says. So what the hell has he spent his whole career complaining about??

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  26. The Chutney Love Boat2:16 PM

    Goldberg obsession here is bizarre.

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  27. tigrismus2:17 PM

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kJZ80-bC6I

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  28. Megalon2:22 PM

    Yeah, he had a vision of fugly dudes drinking coffee and then getting shot by cops with rifles riding in light aircraft in front the ugliest landscapes in America. Still a lot prettier than any of Jonah's excretions.

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  29. Gromet2:23 PM

    direct election of senators, wresting the last vestige of State government influence on Federal elections



    Uh... what? The will of a State is... thwarted... because its people directly elect their senators... instead of electing a governor to appoint them? You can make a case against direct election of senators, I am sure, but this ain't it.


    Sometimes in political discussions I feel like King Arthur outside Castle Augh. "Is there anyone else we can talk to?"

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  30. Just when you think you've mastered the technique he takes his game to a whole new level.

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  31. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person2:25 PM

    "I'm free"

    I'd much rather you were "available for a limited time only", but that's life, I guess...

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  32. LookWhosInTheFreezer2:28 PM

    Why won't Jonah at least give The Free Market ™ some credit?

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  33. Kurt Barlow2:30 PM

    The question remains: who is the 'Manos' of wingnuttery? My money's on one of the Renew America crowd; are Warrior and Pastor Swank still writing?

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  34. GeniusLemur2:35 PM

    "The notion that there’s a class or group of people secretly running
    things is ancient. It was old when the Roman consul Lucius Cassius
    famously asked, “Cui bono?” (“To whose benefit?”)"
    Yes, and the modern version is "Follow the money." It has jack shit to do with secret cabals running things and everything to do with, "Who is pushing this bad policy and why?"

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  35. PersonaAuGratin2:37 PM

    Apparently he's upset that control of the money supply was ceded to "private interests" but not everything else.

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  36. GeniusLemur2:38 PM

    "Civil-service laws and union rules make it darn near impossible to fire even grossly incompetent employees"
    That's right folks, JONAH GOLDBERG is complaining that gross incompetents don't get fired. I wonder if he'll ever figure out that his magic window into corrupt, lazy government workers' offices is actually a mirror?

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  37. GeniusLemur2:40 PM

    That's the first time I've ever seen direct election of senators portrayed as a bad thing.

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  38. It all began when the Mole People put fluoride in our water.

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  39. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person2:41 PM

    And also explain why they sound so dizzy all the time...

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  40. Giant Monster Gamera2:43 PM

    There is actually a push on the right to do away with the practice. I suppose they figure that since they control a majority of the state legislatures, they could also use that to maintain control over the Senate.

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  41. Hot Jazz Murder Music2:45 PM

    Jonah Goldberg: Noted pantload. Recently escaped from behind the Liberal Fascist curtain. Runs his mouth off on subjects he doesn't know. Man's idiocity to man.

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  42. tigrismus2:47 PM

    Holy crap, that is a giant platter of fresh, hot awesome.

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  43. GeniusLemur2:47 PM

    “Cui bono?” Answer: the Republican party. Is it a good policy if it's just so Republicans can hold on to power?
    See, that's Cui bono is supposed to be used.

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  44. Ah, that's where "pledge of the US population labor" comes from.


    Morons is too generous.

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  45. The Warrior, I'm sorry to inform you, is w/ the immortals; I b'leeve Swank has ret'd.

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  46. Conservatives drive like this (dodedodo) and liberals drive like this (Wait, they don't drive, they ride bikes because liberal fascism global warming white privilege FART! pass the Cheetos what was I saying?)

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  47. coozledad3:01 PM

    Civil-service laws and union rules make it darn near impossible to fire even grossly incompetent employees for anything short of pederasty or murder.

    Says shill for the party of kissing Margaret Thatcher's dead cooch.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11323146/Thatcher-confidant-raped-boy-and-police-covered-crime-up.html

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  48. ... at the exact moment the T-pubs are taking over congress! Now its "their turn" to not run the country!


    I'd bet a thousand quatloos that Loadpants got his daily talking points from the rich people running the country, prob on Jan 1.

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  49. coozledad3:08 PM

    Does the plastic keep the juices from seeping out?

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  50. The mysterious tide?

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  51. right up there with Arglebargle claiming no one can really know anything.

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  52. I don’t have the space to rehash the Federalist Papers...


    I stare at this, and keep staring as it confounds me on twin levels. One, dude is writing on the internets with nearly infinite space to rehash anything.

    Two: The only way in hell that he could begin to" rehash the Federalist Papers" would be to run them through a paper shredder and add them to some fried potatoes and corned beef.

    ...

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  53. glennisw3:12 PM

    But wait, I thought the President was a tyrant?

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  54. coozledad3:12 PM

    ...abolition of slavery, denying the will of a free people to establish its own currency, Ray Stevens without a song on the charts since Guitarzan...

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  55. Doughy isn't free, he is highly paid to belch out his twaddle.

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  56. Yes, "no one is running the country" and "didja know there are lots of little, sub state, organizations and governments out there?" go right along with Boehner and McConnel's "oh shit, now what" the morning after the election. And, for Jonah, came right after "Obama is a fascist Dictator who has willed even his Republican opposition and Cliven Bundy into existence."

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  57. I thought I detected a resemblance there. Well spotted. Though the entire piece was kind of a patented slo-mo written shrug.

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  58. Loadpants is waaaay out of his depth, but fortunately, he floats. All conservative pundits float.

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  59. Bizarro Mike3:18 PM

    They evacuated when they were tipped off about a pending poison gas attack.

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  60. Jayson Alan Grigsby3:19 PM

    It does rather sound like it should be rendering in a pseudo-handwritten typeface against an idyllic nature photo and posted to Facebook.

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  61. Also: value sized.

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  62. Jayson Alan Grigsby3:20 PM

    Looking forward to it--once the Goldberg Event Horizon forms no more "information" will be able to escape.

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  63. Oh, sure, if you want to know what the Romans thought ask a lemur.

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  64. So is he for or against the police right now?

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  65. when the hell did he figure out that there's three Federal branches? I'd say it was at a conservative-pundit New Year's Eve party- he overheard a drunken conversation between ________ & _________ and thought "Wow! I'm gonna use that, make it mine!"

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  66. OR free to run away (hopefully dodge to the side, don't run in front of the thing). The choice is YOURS.

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  67. Yeah, that's why people believe in god!

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  68. I'm waiting for "The margins are too small" hopefully to be followed by his death in a duel.

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  69. Jayson Alan Grigsby3:24 PM

    That "problems...simply become facts of life" bit has a particularly noxious whiff of abdicating any obligation to try to do anything about it. Not surprising of course, that Goldberg would find laziness the most appealing aspect of faux-cynicism.

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  70. When that brain cell shuts down we will all disappear! YES, we're all figments of Jonah's imagination. Burp.

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  71. RepubAnon3:27 PM

    Sounds like another edition of why the Republican Party need not take personal responsibility for anything that doesn't turn out well.

    Let's ask him whether he's saying that Ronald Reagan wasn't really responsible for the Soviet Union's collapse.

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  72. Ah, you beat me to it.

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  73. "They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie-chart format. . . .

    You know he sent an intern out to get pies after he wrote that.

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  74. Helmut Monotreme3:31 PM

    No one is running things. Jonah just says that because 'things' aren't headed the way he wants, despite the fact that Jonah's chosen party is as close to running things as our system of government allows. The Republicans control both houses of the legislature, and yet, Jonah still has to pay taxes, Obama's still in the White House and liberals still openly mock everything that is published under Jonah's byline.

    I think Jonah is filled with giddy enthusiasm for the freedom of crumbling and decadent empire. Regardless of the millions of more competent and better informed Americans working every day to keep taxes collected and invoices paid, Jonah sees millions of people on a fools errand, toiling away despite an inevitable and looming doomsday. At home, he wears a loincloth and a hockey mask, in his garage, he's got a carefully tended* jet buggy, and he already makes his wife and kids refer to him as the Humongous.

    He's given up on America, because his team can't win by just showing up.

    *Or parts for a jet buggy hopelessly and uselessly wadded into a ball with JB-weld and Elmers glue.

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  75. Jayson Alan Grigsby3:31 PM

    Oh, there's still plenty of overreach and activism...it's just no one is actually in charge. You can't trip up this Pantload!

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  76. Dr. Hunky Jimpjorps3:31 PM

    And by private interests, they mean "the Jews".

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  77. Bigby3:35 PM

    The newly minted GOP Congress gets credit for the current DJIA upswings because of Anticipatory Awesomeness, except today's 3% drop, that's all on the Kenyan Muslim Usurper.

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  78. Jayson Alan Grigsby3:37 PM

    But who I ask you WHO started the bulldozer's ignition? Who threw it into forward gear?! Where's the accountability? Quis Custodiet ipsos Caterpillar D9es??

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  79. Also leads to: It's just SCIENCE that Group X is not as smart as Group W; they can't be helped, so let's lower taxes!

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  80. If by "duel" you mean, "shirttails caught in a running wood chipper," then it's a deal. An actual duel would offer too much chance for Jonah to go full Lord Bullingdon.

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  81. I want to take this comment for a spin.

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  82. Uh, uh, uh! These days we say "international elitists" or just "banksters"! Ix-nay on the Ooos-Jay.

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  83. "Pies.... aaaaaaaarughlugh...." /Homer Simpson

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  84. Oh, hey, I assume I can bill you for the brain bleach I'm going to need for the rest of my life, correct?

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  85. Dunno, who've they killed recently?

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  86. "shirttails caught in a running wood chipper,"

    Interest, newsletter.

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  87. montag24:25 PM

    Hmm. Der Pantload claims intimate knowledge of some of the 0.001% (is he being coy? Does he mean he beat Pete Peterson to the dessert cart at CPAC and Peterson talked while he stuffed his face?);. If they really did say no one runs the country, did Doughy have the presence of mind to then ask why all the 0.001 percenters are spending all their pocket money on politicians these days? I would guess he did not.

    I suspect they do indeed know who runs the country, but they have the good sense not to tell a stupid blabbermouth with cream filling on his chin.

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  88. What do you expect from people who view history as merely a script to be rewritten so as to convenience whatever their current preferred storyline might be?

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  89. Mr. Wonderful4:46 PM

    But I thought we were supposed to run the gummint like a family! And use a balanced budget like a family does! Does that mean that no one "runs" a family, too? Oh God, never mind. Snarking Jonah Goldberg is like accurately shooting BBs at the Hoover Dam.

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  90. According to his argument the police, like the government, can't get anything done so any deaths are more like a crowd sourced accident produced by a squad of three stooges like clowns. Which, come to think of it...

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  91. No because feminism killed the fathers. That I doknow.

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  92. Mr. Wonderful4:48 PM

    --while supplies last. Which they will, unto eternity.

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  93. montag24:50 PM

    This is one of the marvels of Doughy's columns. As preposterously stupid as the man can be and almost always is, he still manages to attract followers that are probably in the negative IQ range, people that are forever orbiting in some cloud of neuronal drain cleaner. If stupidity were like gravity, Pantload would be a massive black hole.

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  94. Mr. Wonderful4:50 PM

    Reminds me of when, in the 70s, Robert Fripp post-post-everythingly referred to himself as "This Fripp."

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  95. Mr. Wonderful4:50 PM

    "It was old when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor..."

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  96. PLUS: PATCO, a nation turns its lonely eyes to your dessicated corpse:

    http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25393-the-consequences-of-reagan-breaking-the-1981-air-traffic-controllers-strike

    JOSEPH MCCARTIN, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: Labor was a prominent power in 1981. When the air traffic controllers went out on strike 33 years ago yesterday, on August 3, 1981, the labor movement was still seen as a central force in American government and politics. Both parties, Republican and Democrat, saw labor that way.
    ---------------
    Now neither the Republicans nor the Republican wing of the Democratic party see it that way.
    ~

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  97. coozledad4:56 PM

    The Thatcher pedophilia/murder story reminds me that Republicans and Tories are always humping the dead. Both Ronald and Margaret looked fucking dead while they were in power. Now we know what kind of grotesques Margaret was covering for and using intelligence resources to do it.


    I hope they find all the bodies and parade them every time anyone talks about "the special relationship". They could be the aborted fetus pictures of the left.

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  98. coozledad4:59 PM

    I still think DeBlasio should cut the police union's legs off. He could invoke PATCO as a precedent.


    It's not like he wouldn't get a lot of support from the MTA or firefighters. Or just about any sentient being these days.

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  99. Mr. Wonderful4:59 PM

    Don't look now, but what comes after "starters," genius?

    KOCH THUG: Stand there and wait in line.
    JONAH: But I don't want a gray jumpsuit and to have my head shaven!
    K.T.: Stand there and wait in line.
    J: But I don't want to work in the potassium mines!
    K.T.: Stand there and wait in line.
    J: But I'm free!
    K.T.: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
    (SFX: Taser crackle)

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  100. Same guy who put all those watches you see hanging in the woods?

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  101. Assuming that IS "creme filling".

    eeeww. grossed myself out.

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  102. coozledad5:12 PM

    Like this?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_jtsfMU90w

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  103. ColBatGuano5:18 PM

    Pretty simple Sherlock.


    That's easy for him to say.

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  104. Gromet5:31 PM

    But but but foreign policy is different! Reagan looked TOUGH and the USSR collapsed! Obama looks WEAK and dictatorships all across the Middle East... uh... collapsed, which is, um, bad, see, because... Look over there! #Benghazi!

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  105. TGuerrant5:44 PM

    ...cac

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  106. ken_lov5:52 PM

    Telling that Goldberg believes the only thing that motivates people at work is fear of the sack.

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  107. Please: I think Jonah already has too much fiber in his diet.

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  108. Obama's an OUT OF CONTROL tyrant. See? He doesn't control anything, just like they've said all along.

    Except, of course, when they were saying the exact opposite.

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  109. ken_lov6:00 PM

    Consistent with the move for 'tort reform', AKA stop holding rich people and their corporations responsible for the consequences of their negligence. Negligence is just a fact of life, deal with it.

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  110. All conservative pundits float.

    Which is remarkable given their density.

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  111. Latte-sipping, Volvo-driving, etc. etc.

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  112. Ah! The tyranny of freedom!

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  113. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person6:13 PM

    Then I suppose a rewrite of War And Peace is right out...

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  114. ken_lov6:15 PM

    Goldberg's whole *cough* thesis *cough* is that the USA isn't a totalitarian dictatorship, therefore he's free. And he likes it!


    In next week's column, Jonah will write 5,000 words explaining that the USA isn't over-run by wild animals, therefore he can go outside without getting eaten. And he likes it!


    To think people pay good money to get locked up on a cruise ship for a week with this doofus.

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  115. J Neo Marvin6:43 PM

    Large stupid mobile unit.

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  116. smut clyde7:00 PM

    This was a popular Republican argument at about the same point in the presidential-election cycle 4 years ago... it doesn't really matter if Republican candidates are unelectable because the real power lies outside the presidency.

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/the-new-spin-the-white-house-would-be-a-step-em-down-em-for-sarah-palin

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  117. coozledad7:01 PM

    It could be a line from Lord of the Flies. We know what happens to Jonah in that scenario.

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  118. Well, gravity IS just a theory!

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  119. ken_lov7:17 PM

    The comments thread on Goldberg's post makes for interesting reading. Putting the sad attempts at wit or cleverness to one side, the 'serious' responses are an insane mess of contradictions and incoherence about how American society functions. Once you get past the inchoate rage at change and diversity that drives conservatives, it's obvious they have no shared intellectual precepts or philosophical principles whatsoever.

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  120. smut clyde7:21 PM

    the Roman consul Lucius Cassius famously asked

    The Gazoogle found 13 occurrences of "famously" within "Liberal Fascism" alone -- "Vanderbilt famously quipped", "Lee Billinger famously declared", "Robert Putman famously found", "Sharyl Crow famously proposed", and so on and so on. Someone seems to have installed the adverb as a macro on his word-processor to see if he'll notice.

    In the broader interlattice we find "Meryl Streep once testified famously before Congress", "Victor Hugo even more famously declared", "Clinton political guru James Carville famously insisted", Brecht famously quipping, and so on some more.

    It is as if he does not trust his readers to have enough intelligence to recognise the fame of each quotation by themselves. In most of the examples, the sentence also spells out who is being quoted -- as in "Roman consul Lucius Cassius" -- for nor does Jonah trust his readers to recognise the names by themselves.

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  121. bekabot7:22 PM

    Yeah, just ask VDH.

    (Prepare for several scrolls' worth of answers, though.)

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  122. Giant Monster Gamera7:23 PM

    It's a famously simple way of keeping your word count up in order to meet the minimum requirements.

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  123. bekabot7:24 PM

    "'Vanderbilt famously quipped', 'Lee Billinger famously declared', 'Robert Putman famously found', 'Sharyl Crow famously proposed', and so on and so on. Someone seems to have installed the adverb as a macro on his word-processor to see if he'll notice."

    Of course they're famous...Jonah wrote about 'em, didn't he?

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  124. smut clyde7:30 PM

    He found them in a book of quotations, didn't he?

    Call me old-fashioned, but if someone felt obliged to tell me the source of each of the quotations larding his text -- and to remind me of its fame -- I would get bored and go looking for some other author whose quotations are less familiar.

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  125. smut clyde7:34 PM

    "The margins are too small"
    -- They leave too much area to fill in the middle of the page.
    Pedantry obliges me to point out that the small-margin mathematician was Fermat, while Galois the duelling casualty had plenty of paper but not enough time.

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  126. smut clyde7:54 PM

    "Civil-service laws and union rules make it darn near impossible to fire even grossly incompetent employees"

    Wait, are we discussing Congress?

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  127. coozledad8:12 PM

    As Jonah Goldberg himself famously, Amosly, stated in his theces, "People never ask me how I do what I do, but if they did, I'd tell them my readership does the work for me. All the rest is farrrt".

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  128. tigrismus8:14 PM

    Are there coloring books of quotations?

    ReplyDelete
  129. M. Krebs8:29 PM

    I wish I understood any of this. I think.

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  130. M. Krebs8:31 PM

    "Me? I like knowing no one is running things because, for starters, it means I’m free."


    Sounds an awful lot like something an acid head from 1968 would say.

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  131. M. Krebs8:33 PM

    Or a shart of an onion. Take your pick.

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  132. Giant Monster Gamera8:34 PM

    Fartlett's Familiar Quotations?

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  133. M. Krebs8:35 PM

    Damn you tigrismus! You beat me to that dingleberry.

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  134. M. Krebs8:39 PM

    What, you mean Fermat was the Pantload of his day? I love the idea actually.

    ReplyDelete
  135. There are already enough flies involved with Jonah as it is.

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  136. M. Krebs8:43 PM

    They're almost there already.

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  137. CROW: "I'd be indignant, if I knew what was going on!"

    ReplyDelete
  138. M. Krebs8:48 PM

    ...of kissing Margaret Thatcher's dead cooch.


    AW JESUS, COOZLEDAD.

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  139. bekabot8:51 PM

    You know, I'd like to think so, but I don't. Jonah Goldberg strikes me as a man so ignorant that he doesn't know about quotation-books and is unacquainted with their use. Thesauri and books of quotations are the cheat-sheets of otherwise literate people, and "literate" is a description which doesn't seem (to me) to apply to Jonah Goldberg. (This is strictly a subjective reaction on my part, though, and I wouldn't vouch for its complete accuracy.)


    My impression is that it's Victor Davis Hanson who mines Bartlett's, while Jonah just asks his Mom.

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  140. M. Krebs8:54 PM

    ... "Sharyl Crow famously proposed", ...


    Say what? I guess every day is a winding road.

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  141. Giant Monster Gamera9:00 PM

    Snausages!

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  142. smut clyde9:12 PM

    The Gazoogle found 13 occurrences of "famously" within "Liberal Fascism" alone
    Oops, I perjured myself... those 13 repetitions of the familiar structure were in "The Tyranny of Cliches", in which Goldberg followed the precept of "show, don't tell". Searching "Liberal Fascism" reveals 24 'famously's.

    To be fair, that's including a couple of twofers such as "Huey Lane famously said -- or allegedly famously said -- that if fascism ever came to America it would be called 'Americanism'."

    Allegedly famously said. I'm just going to sit and stare at that for a while.

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  143. M. Krebs9:12 PM

    Yes, they are.

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  144. I'll order extra brain bleach...

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  145. M. Krebs9:19 PM

    I think I saw the Shartingvishnu Orchestra at the old Municipal Auditorium in Atlanta back in '73.

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  146. M. Krebs9:23 PM

    I want to die in this comment's arms.

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  147. billcinsd9:27 PM

    I would say using a collection of quotes is way to much work for Jonah. I think he asked his fanboiz

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  148. I'm going to stare at that sentence while it thinks about what it's done wrong.

    God knows Jonah didn't.

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  149. cleter9:55 PM

    If the president isn't running things why are they always bitching about the way he runs things?

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  150. cleter9:58 PM

    Who the hell cares what Luscius Cassius thinks of Sonny Bono, anyhow?

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  151. petesh10:05 PM

    Richard M. Nixon (who never let me, or Hunter Thompson, down) taught me about society by proclaiming while he was President that "they" were out to get him. I mean, if the Prez isn't "they" who the fvck is, right?

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  152. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:21 PM

    It was a D7, I believe. "Daisietta"...

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  153. The Watcher in the Woods?

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  154. How can people that rich be so fucking stupid that they don't know who runs the country? Ffs.

    ReplyDelete
  155. Actually, there is a very limited supply of electrons over at the ol'
    nro.

    ReplyDelete
  156. Tehanu1:46 AM

    "I mean in history, Patty, before they changed the water."

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  157. DocAmazing2:19 AM

    ...for starters, it means I'm free.
    No, Jonah, but you are very reasonably proced.

    ReplyDelete
  158. Wrangler2:19 AM

    I think you mean "neurons".

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  159. DocAmazing2:21 AM

    The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

    National Review is read by people who want to run others out of the country.

    ReplyDelete
  160. RHWombat5:28 AM

    Sure, but it would be neat if we could skip to Pantload's last theorem.

    ReplyDelete
  161. Damn you smut clyde.

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  162. Jonah's Pas des Fesses will bring tears to your eyes. And a burn to your sinuses. May also cause grey hairs and ridges on your finger nails.

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  163. Me? I like knowing no one is running things because, for starters, it means I’m free.


    Dear God,

    I try not to bother you, and I appreciate you returning the favor. But if you could please, please, please see your way to making the Right Wing stop futzing around with libertarianism and embrace anarchy, I'd be really grateful.
    xo
    -S

    ReplyDelete
  164. And freedom tastes of reality ...
    Aak! No! [splutter, spit, gag]

    It buuuuuurrnsss...

    ReplyDelete
  165. mileslarboy7:42 AM

    Or the time to read them, frankly.

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  166. Like the rest of Jonah's works, it will be disproved. Which will be central to his point.

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  167. My town is going through the whole fluoride fight right now. I'm always amazed at the number of Birchers who come down from the hills to warn us about how fluoride is the centerpiece of communist mind-control.

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  168. montag28:21 AM

    Y'know, I think I've found the article that prompted this remark. Obviously, the intern ran across it and pointed it out to Doughy, and thus stirred from his lethargy, he penned his rebuttal. "Rich people run the country? No, no, no, that cannot be left to sit as asserted fact. How to rebut? I know! No one runs the country!"

    And someone at the NRO offices once again reported a gas leak.

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  169. coozledad8:31 AM

    Plus, he's got three times the ass of Serge Lifar.

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  170. coozledad8:39 AM

    Lardass supreme, supreme
    let me fulfill mom's will
    let me fulfill mom's will.

    ReplyDelete
  171. Smarter than Your Average Bear9:14 AM

    National Review is read by people who want to run every country. :)

    ReplyDelete
  172. Ain't THAT the truth.

    What always surprises me is the willingness of the conservative rank 'n' file to accept the new talking points, even if they contradict the ones they were asked to believe a short while ago.

    The new "information" neatly replaces the old, and the talk radio listeners nod their heads in unison at the radio (that's not a metaphor or even an exaggeration, but something I've personally witnessed, by the way.)

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  173. I honestly can't tell if you are quoting someone verbatim or not.

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  174. Thanks for the link. That's a pretty good article (kinda short though.)

    I can see why Goldberg would react to it so vehemently. Someone points out that the rich are powerful, and he MUST react with "No, they're not!"

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  175. Government employees can't get fired?

    Every once in awhile someone in Washington stands up and voluntarily resigns, saying that he (or she) suddenly decided that it's time to "spend more time with the family." It happens all the time.

    Silly me, I always thought such people were being pressured to resign. Who knew that they actually DO want to spend more time with their families? I guess it must not be euphemistic speech after all, since according to Goldberg, it's "darn near impossible" to get fired if you work for the government.

    Somebody should tell Shirley Sherrod at least.

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  176. Helmut Monotreme9:55 AM

    I'm a little suspicious of this scandal. I always assumed that the tories were nasty people, all too willing to use their wealth and power to insulate them from the consequences of their actions. But situations like this which seem to confirm every dark suspicion I have about the rich and powerful conservatives of the UK deserve a lot of scrutiny. Confirmation bias probably distorts my interpretation of these news stories. That said, the allegations are serious, and should be seriously investigated, and if people are found guilty of the crimes alleged, neither time elapsed nor status of the offenders should mitigate the severity of the penalty.

    ReplyDelete
  177. BigHank5310:01 AM

    Now there's a race I've no desire to observe.

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  178. BigHank5310:14 AM

    The Birchers are the original model for the woe-is-me, O America, that you have been brought so low! lonely wingnut, sipping whiskey and weeping as he cleans his revolver. Six decades and they've been right about exactly nothing...you'd think that after the sixties, seventies, and eighties people would be grown up enough to say, "Hey, I like to feel morose and drink and fondle my guns, so I'm going to skip poker night this week." but no, they've got to drum up some bullshit political excuse.

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  179. BigHank5310:23 AM

    just going to sit and stare at that

    Careful--that looks mighty abyss-like to me.

    ReplyDelete
  180. Mr. Wonderful10:30 AM

    Permission to steal?

    ReplyDelete
  181. M. Krebs10:45 AM

    ... the people who ruin the country.

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  182. Beware lest the shart gaze into thee.

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  183. A tyrant who doesn't control anything... that's a concept that makes me stop and think.


    How could one recognize such a tyrant, if he isn't exerting tyrannical control over anything? It's kind of like that tree that famously fell in the forest with no one to hear it.

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  184. The 0.001% spends all that money for no reason... advertising really doesn't influence people... money doesn't corrupt politics...


    It doesn't surprise me to hear people say such things. It surprises me that anyone is stupid enough to believe them.

    ReplyDelete
  185. dstatton11:14 AM

    "And someone at the NRO offices once again reported a gas leak."



    Winner!

    ReplyDelete
  186. dstatton11:15 AM

    Did he read it far enough to see that 52 of the top 100 donors were Democrats?

    ReplyDelete
  187. dstatton11:17 AM

    Classic Jonah, although the usual excuse is "I'm on deadline and don't have the time..."

    ReplyDelete
  188. montag211:47 AM

    "... money doesn't corrupt politics..."


    It's especially fucking annoying when coming from the lips of a Supreme Court justice....

    ReplyDelete
  189. Jayson Alan Grigsby11:47 AM

    If a watchman farts in the woods, does anyone regret hearing it?

    ReplyDelete
  190. StringOnAStick12:12 PM

    He's the vanguard of the Turning the Talking Points requirement; the economy is improving, so the credit must be assigned to the rethug congressional majority, and just in time for the next presidential election too! Why, it's almost as if the last 30-40 years has been a constant dance of rethug presidents destroying the economy just in time to hand it off to a democratic president, who then fixes it up while taking all the blame for the mess, who then relinquishes a recovering economy to the newly elected rethug president, who then takes the credit. Jonah's just doing his part to start the turning of the TP.

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  191. StringOnAStick12:17 PM

    "It is as if he does not trust his readers to have enough intelligence to recognise the fame of each quotation by themselves."
    It's a goddamn miracle; the first provable instance of intelligent thought from Doughberg!

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  192. Lurking Canadian12:18 PM

    You mean to tell me that "The Tyranny of Cliches" is full of ... um...aw never mind, it's too easy.

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  193. StringOnAStick12:21 PM

    Ok, now that'sthe comment I was hoping for. Make sure it gets an extra dessert tonight.

    ReplyDelete
  194. StringOnAStick12:22 PM

    With a huge (what else?) side order of narcissism.

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  195. It's the cirrrrrrcle of liiiiiifeee...

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  196. That's gotta be the answer.

    ReplyDelete