Kipling's Politician

Recent Polls Demonstrate Why We Are So Fucked

Thu, 02 May 2013 14:20:05 -0500

Recent Polls Demonstrate Why We Are So Fucked:

A recent poll of 863 registered voters, conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson (which also happens to be one of the Rude Pundit’s nicknames for his penis) University’s Public Mind showed that 44% of Republicans believe “that an armed revolution in order to protect liberties might be necessary in the next few years…” [N]early half of Republicans think that they might have to take up their AR-15s of freedom in order to go to war with their government? Man, a bunch of people are living in the kind of fantasy land where their giant beer bellies are seen as sexy and that the greatest threat in the world comes from a black Kenyan in the White House…

We are so very fucked because Americans are so fucking dumb, especially the Americans belonging to one particular political party. When a large number of a nation’s citizens are more willing to entertain armed insurrection than providing health care for the poor, well, it’s pretty goddamn hard to make the case that we’re the Greatest Country in the History of Everything.

"As soon as you crack your knuckles and open up a comments page, you just canceled your subscription..."

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 22:49:29 -0500

“As soon as you crack your knuckles and open up a comments page, you just canceled your subscription to being a good person.”

- Louis C.K. (via nedhepburn)

"Mallory, education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don’t need little changes, we..."

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 15:14:25 -0600

“Mallory, education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don’t need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense. That’s my position. I just haven’t figured out how to do it yet.”

- Sam Seaborn - The West Wing (via fickenscheiss)

"In my life, I have never voted for a president with the expectation that he will selflessly serve..."

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 08:33:37 -0600

“In my life, I have never voted for a president with the expectation that he will selflessly serve the public interest, and that he never will take his own political viability into account, and that he will fulfill all my expectations, or even most of them, or even half of them. This is not because I am apathetic. This is not because I am stupid. This is because I am no longer seven-years old.”

- Charles Pierce, Esquire (via politicalprof)

Photo

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 17:48:07 -0600

Politicalprof: Crowd sourcing a revolution ...

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 09:29:01 -0600

Politicalprof: Crowd sourcing a revolution ... :

politicalprof:

So, at the risk of drawing the ire of the FBI, a question:

—can anyone name a single case in which a stable liberal democracy degenerated into an authoritarian dictatorship (the kind always invoked by the gun loonies when insisting that taking away assault rifles will make it easy for the…

Politicalprof: The difference between climate change skeptics and gun control skeptics (who are often the same people)

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:49:43 -0600

Politicalprof: The difference between climate change skeptics and gun control skeptics (who are often the same people):

politicalprof:

—Because climate change is slow and uneven, climate change skeptics can’t imagine a future in which climate change transforms our lives into dystopian forms despite vast amounts of evidence suggesting it’s coming.

—Meanwhile, gun control skeptics can’t see anything but an extremely improbable…

"We loved with a love that was more than love."

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:44:44 -0600

“We loved with a love that was more than love.”

- Edgar Allan Poe (via larmoyante)

fuckyeahcrossfit: It’s a commercial but it’s a good commercial....

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:44:08 -0600

fuckyeahcrossfit:

It’s a commercial but it’s a good commercial. Patrick Willis, NFL

An Online Converstion About Gun Control

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:41:53 -0600

Left-winger: We need to reinstate the assault weapons ban and ban these high-capacity magazines.
Right-winger: You can't ban all guns and repeal the 2nd Amendment libtard!
Left-winger: No one is talking about banning all guns or repealing the Second Amendment.
Right-winger: Cars kill more people than guns. Why aren't you LIEbruls talking about banning all cars, huh? Why the inconsistency?
Left-winger: Again, no one wants to ban all guns. As for cars: They are not designed solely to kill -- as guns are -- and they are necessary to society. Your analogy is flawed.
Right-winger: The Founder Fathers wrote the 2nd Amendment to protect America from communists like you!
Left-winger: 1) You mean the FOUNDING Fathers. 2) I'm not a communist. 3) Communism didn't exist at the time of America's founding. 4) The Second Amendment is not absolute. [Provides link to non-partisan scholarly article about the Second Amendment's history and limitations as established by the Supreme Court.]
Right-winger: OBUMMER is a dictator! We need our guns to protect us from his commie tranny you comunist.
Left-winger: I think you meant "commie TYRANNY," not tranny, and again: I'm not a communist. Neither is the President. Nor is he a dictator -- or did I miss the part where he canceled the election, declared himself President for life, had Mitt Romney executed, and started "disappearing" Republican members of Congress after shutting down Fox News? Further, do you really think a bunch of gun nuts like you stand a chance against a state-of-the-art trained, armed, and equipped military force supported by satellites, drones, and tanks? [Provides a link to an article quoting political scientist Azar Gat, who explains why even well-armed counter-insurgencies against tyrannies always fail.] Your reason for "needing" a gun to fight a tyranny is moot. It's also moot because no one is talking about taking your guns away from you.
Right-winger: [Copies and pastes an eight-paragraph rant, written by a right-winger that other right-wingers pass around to each other via email, about the Second Amendment. The rant heavily plagiarizes a Wikipedia article.] Hah! Refute that you communst gun-graber. You can't repeal th 2md Amedment!
Left-winger: Again: I'm not a communist, no one wants to repeal the Second Amendment, and your own plagiarized article actually proves that the Second Amendment is not absolute. So does my article: [Again provides link to non-partisan scholarly article about the Second Amendment's history and limitations as established by the Supreme Court.]
Right-winger: We need our guns to protect us from commies like you!
Left-winger: [Flags every single comment made by Right-winger as spam, then blocks him.]

Photo

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:32:18 -0600

ryanoshea: Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, first Congressperson to...

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 13:08:14 -0600

ryanoshea: Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, first Congressperson to officially describe her religion as “none,” is sworn in not on the Bible, but on the document she’s actually supposed to be protecting and upholding—the Constitution. Edit: She’s also the first openly bisexual Congressperson. (via eyesdriftskyward)

[Fun fact: James Madison remains the only president to take his oath of office on a book of laws, rather than the Bible.]

Letters To My Country: "My Little Girl"

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 13:05:31 -0600

Letters To My Country: "My Little Girl":

letterstomycountry:

Danielle Fishel (i.e. the actress who played Topanga on Boy Meets World, for those unaware), recently lost her dog Anna after 13.5 years of companionship. Anna struggled with kidney problems in the second half of her life, and eventually had a stroke and kidney failure that required Anna to be…

sayingimages: Five points to live happilyFollow this awesome...

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:39:24 -0600

sayingimages:

Five points to live happily
Follow this awesome Tumblr

milesandlaughter: Woof woof

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 13:32:14 -0600

milesandlaughter:

Woof woof

Politicalprof: A Year of Tumbls ...

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 19:42:08 -0600

Politicalprof: A Year of Tumbls ...:

politicalprof:

So, month by month, my most popular posts:

December: For all those who believe we can’t change the reality of gun massacres, three charts

November: Republican men really ought to stop talking about rape.

October: Albert Einstein has a thought (unless the quote isn’t his)

…

Just a reminder ...

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 19:55:20 -0600

politicalprof:

There is no fiscal cliff. There’s a human made crisis over a human made crisis that is defying solution for human caused reasons. It is not a fact of nature.

Photo

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 10:39:39 -0600

sickeninglyliberal: newyorker: Bill Clinton “doesn’t read from...

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 22:08:11 -0500

sickeninglyliberal:

newyorker:

Bill Clinton “doesn’t read from a Teleprompter: he converses with it. He talks back when it has omitted a crucial detail; he one-ups it when its rhetorical flourish is insufficient.”

“Conversations with a Teleprompter”: Nathaniel Stein on Clinton’s speech at the D.N.C.: http://nyr.kr/RtwcUq

Photograph by Peter Zay/Democratic National Convention.

He made love to the audience the other day, that much is for sure.

casual-isms: glittapants: codelens: Classic example of Racism...

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 10:00:01 -0500

casual-isms:

glittapants:

codelens:

Classic example of Racism (White Supremacy) in the so-called mainstream media. The photo and its associated caption were released during the Hurricane Katrina aftermath, which often portrayed Victims of Racism as criminals and people classified as “white” as heroic survivors.

Hurricane Katrina was a colossal storm that ravaged the area of the world known as New Orleans, Louisiana in late August of 2005.

words matter

Two pictures of Hurricane Katrina victims.
Picture one: A photograph of a black man wading through chest deep water with a bag of groceries. The caption says, “A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store.”
Picture two: A photograph of a white man and white woman wading through chest deep water and carrying groceries. The caption says, “Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store.”

Damn.