"a fair measure of racist attaboys"

What does this mean? What is a "racist attaboy"?

That was an extremely thoughtful article written about a relevant and poignant subject. Well done Mr Lind and thank you Salon.

Is there anybody - Left or Right or Center that actually likes this bill?

Vote this bill down and start over. It'd be the right thing to do for the American people.

Pity the poor Slope Mommy: she has such a busy day of making sure Maria cleans the apartment correctly and buys the right kind of organic baby food, not to mention managing her and her husband's social calendar ALL BY HERSELF!

Won't somebody PLEASE think of the mommies!

2005 was a hot year in most wine regions and, in general, produced fantastic wines. Given that 2009 is going to go on record as a very cold year and most wines being produced are not considered as good as 2005, wouldn't it seem that wine producers would prefer hotter weather?

What happens if, after recanvassing,, Hoffman actually wins in NY-23. Would your entire argument fly out the window?

“The usual suspects are sinking into a deeper gloom than ever. Brad DeLong puts the chances of a new Great Depression at five percent, "and it now looks very much as if if such a shock hits the U.S. government will be unable to do a d----- thing about it." Paul Krugman is offering "roughly even odds" on a "Japanese-style lost decade."”

And once again we see, in action, further proof of the principle that there is absolutely no downside to being a permanent doomngloomer. If your predictions come true, you get to say “I toldya so” and if they don’t, everyone is so relieved that they forgive you.

Brad DeLong’s a smart enough guy, but Paul Krugman is wrong at least 75% of the time. Chalk that up to good news.

"Whatever "worse" means"

Pretty sure that'd be something like an STD. Sheesh, you'd think that somebody as obsessed as TCF is with teen pregnancy and STDs would understand that!

Oh, you did understand? You were just being deliberately obtuse to try to make a snarky point?

How droll.

What was said in that snippet that wasn't demonstrably true? Aren't all those things correct?

The fact that some letter writers are actually defending the ravings of a genocidal madman, Karl Marx, and his adherents in Mao, Stalin, Chavez, Castro, et al is truly terrifying.

*Literally* no different than defending the National Socialists aka Nazis.

And people are scared of the right-wing? Leftists have killed far, far more people than rightwingers could even dream of.

People don't like deficit spending for things they don't like. People like defense spending, they don't like welfare. You can try to convince them to think otherwise, but that's the reality.

And once again Democrats misinterpret the polls. People (Independents) aren’t worried about deficit spending per se – they’re worried about spending the money on stuff they don’t like.

The lesson to take from VA and NJ isn’t that people are upset about deficits because deficits are bad bad bad, it’s that they’re upset that a tone-deaf and uncaring permanent political class seems intent on using their power to run roughshod over the will of the people, and to spend the taxpayer’s money to actively make their lives worse.

Nobody likes this healthcare bill – nobody – and any politician that can’t understand that talk about “deficits” is just a catchall for anxiety about various redistributionary welfare policies isn’t worth a Chicago cow.

This unstable guy is obviously more at home on the Left. He's all yours, ladies.

The last open-minded Liberal.

For all the bashing conservatives take for supposedly being anti-intellectual, it always strikes me as odd that Liberals can't stand - can't STAND - a Liberal with an open mind. Which side is the anti-intellectual one again?

The character in the "Smack My Bitch Up" video turns out to be a woman. Is that still misogynist?

Why anyone would listen to a former Enron adviser like Paul Krugman is simply beyond me. The best you can do, as with the birthers and 9/11 Truthers, is mock mercilessly, and then move on.

"There are no Americans who don't have healthcare."

^ but this statement is unequivocally true.

My God. Is there anything more tedious than an Algore interview? Will that guy PLEASE just go away already?

Geez, why so much animosity toward frat dudes? I’m guessing that none of you really hung out with them much in high school or college, so exactly why do you hate them so much? The way they walked? The way they talked? Sounds like we’ve got a bunch of fratphobic bigots on this thread.

“That's so gay

is cool when it serves girlpower?”

^ this

“And if you socialize medicine, won't the top socialists have better lifespans and nutrition"? All you do when you create socialism is create a new proletariate to lord over, you think you would have learned that by now...”

Excellent point. And it’s proven true in every socialist hellhole from Cuba to the USSR. As they say…"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".