Carly to California: Drop Dead

We’re not trying to cop the Daily News in every post this week — we’re just having a hard time avoiding it:

The Riverside Press-Enterprise quoted Fiorina saying, “Whether that is the right approach now, I don’t know. I think bankruptcy, as a possibility, at the very least focuses the mind on what has to be done to salvage a situation.”

When asked by The Bee on Wednesday whether she knew states couldn’t declare bankruptcy, Fiorina answered, “Sure, I knew, but what cold comfort is that to all these California voters who may not know that technicality but who are sitting here knowing that by any common-sense definition, this state can’t pay its bills.”

Actually, the proper move for the disgraced ex-CEO of HP would be to overpay for Arizona and then declare bankruptcy.

Fiorina: California’s inability to declare bankruptcy a ‘technicality’ [SacBee, via TPM]
56 Comments

You forgot to add “kick out 20 million taxpayers from the merged states” but essentially you are correct.

She is the amazing byproduct of over reaching ambition, a philosophy degree and an MBA. She should have stuck to philosophy.

@ManchuCandidate: What? Carly has a philosophy degree? Dodger and I now have a dog in this fight.

AAUGH! You summoned her in the banner ad again! She has scarier teeth than the snorg girl!

Stupid fuck! Oh, fuck, we can’t declare bankruptcy? That’s right you twisted shithead. And, no, you can’t hire gunmen to rob people at the airport when they get off of planes, or replace funding to the university system by giving the schools casino licenses. Go find another company to blow up.

@FlyingChainSaw: Would you like to know how stupid Carly Fiorina is?

She’s running for Senator.

That’s right: The state budget crisis has nothing to do with the race she’s in. She’s caught up in an issue she could have avoided entirely.

@nojo: Maybe she thinks she’s Meg Whitman. I do.

@nojo: The Senate primary has become this weird alternate universe race for the Governor’s nomination, because you also have Tom C. is running on how he’s a rational fiscal person who doesn’t pander to the right on “no new taxes” pledges and pisses off the left by cutting services. Tom! That’s not what Senators do! You’re supposed to go to DC and shovel as much bacon home as you can!! What would Bobby Byrd do?! What would Uncle Ted Stevens do?

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: @SanFranLefty: Honestly, I’m getting all these billionaire candidates confused. I just hope it’s very expensive spa mud they’re flinging at each other.

@Tommmcatt Say Relax: If there’s a snorg girl calendar, I am so on board.

@Tommmcatt Say Relax:
Keep talking like that and JNOV might change her avatar just to yank your chain. Speaking of which, I love your new one. Wish I had thought of it before you.

Have fun at the El Ay Drinque-Up! So jealous…tell CassandraSaid to come by here more often.

@Tommmcatt Say Relax: You might already know this, but that’s a “New York crop”, named after New York magazine, which zoomed in real tight on faces in the Sixties.

Since I still do some magazine layout on the side, I can say that New York crops can be very effective. I can also say that you need a New York face, or things can go horribly wrong.

Like, say, the Carly ad.

Philosopher/legal eagle threadjack/query:

Would it be too obscure or smartypants or snarky if I used the phrase “Morton’s Fork”* in a demand letter? Should I say “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” instead?

*often mistakenly referred to as a Hobson’s Choice

@blogenfreude:
Right now I have “between a rock and a hard place” in there. And geek that I am loved the quote in Wiki from the Second Circuit case over copyright infringement of Tarzan that included “plaintiffs hoped to impale MGM with a Morton’s Fork.”

In her defense, many people here in Washington state were hoping that bankruptcy would be an option too, now that we’re facing another $2 bajillion dollar deficit on top of last year’s $8 bajillion dollar deficit.

So what happens when a state can’t pay its bills anyways? No one seems to know, but we’re all gonna find out.

@Original Andrew:
You could always raise taxes on the rich…

hahahahaha Just kidding. Rich people don’t need to pay TAXES.

@Benedick: Nor had I until a few hours ago.

I used the phrase “Hobson’s Choice” in the sense I thought it meant in a discussion with colleagues today and the young junior attorney from a fancy pants university/law school in Cambridge cocked his eyebrow at me but didn’t say anything while my senior attorneys said “Yes, that’s exactly what it is.” Something went off in the back of my head that I remembered that Hobson’s Choice didn’t mean what I thought it meant (a Sophie’s Choice between two equally shitty options) and after the meeting my friend Wikipedia set me straight on what Hobson’s Choice means (“this or nothing”) and that the term for which I was searching was Morton’s Fork. That’s too obscure though, so maybe I’ll use “Sophie’s Choice” instead…though I do like the idea of sending government attorneys scurrying to the tubez to look it up.

@SanFranLefty: ALWAYS use the more obscure and intellectual reference, if you are writing to an opponent, you should have no care in the world that the opponent may think you high-falutin’. Now, judges, on the other hand, with them, you want to stick to one-syllable words, when possible, and simple direct statemements followed by a citation, regardless of whether the citation supports you. No, the only place you ever want to pull your intellectual punches is with the judge, not opposing counsel.

@SanFranLefty: I like Morton’s Fork; sounds like a village along the Delaware canal in SE Pennsy, but far more forkish than “Hobson’s choice”.

Pretty useless when combined with Morton’s salt, however.

@Nabisco: Made me think of Grovers Mill.

@Promnight: You of course caught my reference to the Paul Bowles book “The Sheltering Sky” earlier this week. How did I come to read that book back in the early 80s with my mediocre education? King Crimson had a tune on their record Discipline called The Sheltering Sky and The Police had a song on Synchronicity called Tea in the Saraha, which is Book Two of The Sheltering Sky, so it came highly recommended. I turned my English teacher on to in in college and she thought it was the most horrifying book she ever read.

So . . . “West Coast” are you there? Come in West Coast!

@redmanlaw: I need to talk to you, email me, will ya? So I can respond, I don’t think I know your email now. Kinda urgent. Like, when you can, I sleep soon, not an emergency.

@Promnight: look for batsignal info on fb. I’m up and trying to reach west coasters at the stinqueup.

Whoa. Drunnk as shit.Yay! IPA! Yayy!

@JNOV: turkey 101, sonic youth and playing the guitar

Omg, Jessie Jackson is at Cokie’s hotel! He totally hit on my friend!

@redmanlaw: Hey, West Coast was drinking and talking too loud so missed your call. Despite the fact that evil Big Law held Cassandra hostage, Tommcatt, Dodger, Lux Mentis, and friends had a high old time in Hell Lay. I am as drunk as I wanna be right now.

@Mistress Cynica: @Tommmcatt Say Relax: Wow, you guys are up late enough to drunk dial me during my afternoon teacoffee!

@SanFranLefty: That’s not what I think hobson’s choice means. So far as I know it’s from the eponymous play made into a must-Netflix film by David Lean. I think it means the better of two bad options. In fact, I might just have to go and look it up right now.

And there, you see, I was wrong all these years.

Your fancy-pants friend is correct: it is the coice of what’s offered or nothing. So I guess that makes me a fucking retard. However, I strongly recommend the movie for what is perhaps Laughton’s best perf and the very young Sybil Fawlty being pert.

@Benedick:
i always thought hobsons choice and sophie’s choice were the same thing.
i even thought its how they came up with the title. i learn so much here!

@SanFranLefty:
i agree wholeheartedly with prommie. dazzle opposing council…make them look up every word. intimidate.
judges? write, and speak, like you’re addressing a toddler.

speaking of work…i mentioned last week i got a (volunteer) job at the brand new orphange here on the island.
she sounded as excited as i was when we spoke a week ago. she said, i’ll call you tueday, we’ll set up a meeting.
haven’t heard from her. i’m calling her today. point being:
I CAN’T EVEN GET A JOB WHERE THEY DONT PAY ME!!!!!!!!!!!!

@Tommmcatt Say Relax: If I were 20 years younger and single, I would have too.
@redmanlaw: Damn, sorry I missed your call. Phone was on mute. I stayed out way past my bedtime and had a great time with Catt, beautiful and witty friend of Catt (see above), Cynica, Lux Mentis and some of Cynica’s and Lux’s antiquarian book friends. Got straightened out on the difference between “incunabula” and “manuscript.” I’m going to check out their book fair tomorrow.

@Dodgerblue: None of us in real America give a rat’s ass about all the fun you had in LA (is that even possible?). I know of four people who still like me. Well, three actually. And one of them is so heavily sedated I’m not sure she knows what day it is. But yeah. We have fun. We be kickin’ it yo. For reals.

@baked: Maybe she heard about the gay thing?

@SanFranLefty: A lovely (and witty and intelligent) young woman.

@Dodgerblue: aka, effete. Have I ever denied it? Hope you all had a good time.

@Prommie: Thank you for that. Now I have to go and save musical theatre.

@Mistress Cynica:

He was in the lobby on the way out. It was kinda creepy.

@Benedick:

Ow my head.

But it was a hoot, guys, thanks.

@Tommmcatt Say Relax: The elder Jesse or the hot one? (I’m gonna guess based on the “creepy” comment that it was the former.)

@mellbell:

It was the elder, yes. He gave my friend Jen a look usually relegated to strip clubs. Chilling.

@SanFranLefty:

Thanks. I jumped on that as soon as I saw the ad.

I hope she does another lame one.

@Tommmcatt Say Relax: Carly’s quite proud of the coverage Demon Sheep has received, so I’m sure more will be on the way.

@Tommcatt: Ewwww. Like when Capt Kangaroo hit on a girlfriend of mine. Shudder
Ow my head indeed. The last Ginger mojito was a mistake. But it was sooo worth it! See you at the fair.

@Mistress Cynica: Hah, thats nuthin, the legendary New York rock and roll DJ Scott Muni, “Scottso,” slept with my girlfriend, the motherfucker, and he was like 100 years old at the time, and we (gf and I) were like 19. Then he goes and plays “Sandy” (Sprinsgteen song) and dedicates it to her, effusively, her name being Sandy, at the time, so gross, this all was to me.

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