Open Thread.
That is all.
(H/T Yutsano!)
[via The Reid Report]
Reader Interactions
99Comments
Comments are closed.
by Imani Gandy (ABL)| 99 Comments
This post is in: An Unexamined Scandal, Open Threads
Open Thread.
That is all.
(H/T Yutsano!)
[via The Reid Report]
Comments are closed.
baldheadeddork
This is why the only three words I’d like to say to Anthony Weiner are, “You fucking moron.”
Mike Kay (Team America)
All the people who said Weiner shouldn’t resign — still feel the same way??
Gretchen
Just like Elliott Spitzer – somebody going hard against the people who really need to be gone after, and they do something stupid in private life, so the Breitbarts can neutralize them! If only our knights in shining armor were pure of heart, or if there were enought of them that we could afford to have a few drop off.
sukabi
Thank you ABL… shared on FB, so hopefully will get more traction…
@baldheadeddork … if you think the “media” was going to take the lead on this from Weiner before his freak flag flew, you haven’t been paying attention for the last 15 years.
@Gretchen…. there are no “knights in shining armor” there are men with flaws like everyone else. Quit looking for some one to “save you” and start saving yourself.
ABL
@Mike Kay (Team America): yes. next question.
Comrade Javamanphil
I repeat: the Villagers do not do numbers. Therefore, the Clarence Thomas story will have no traction. We are doomed. QED.
Violet
@baldheadeddork:
Yep. What an idiot. And worst of all, it legitimizes that clown Breitbart.
BTW, is anyone looking into any skeleton’s in Breitbart’s closet? He creeps me out when I see him on TV. I’ve even tried muting it and just watching body language and I get the same feeling. Something is off with him. And he’s hiding something. I have no idea what it is, though.
virag
the lesson everyone must learn: don’t twit your wiener, especially if you have a big mouth and love to talk on the tee vee.
Mike Kay (Team America)
What I don’t get is why didn’t Weiner stop the sexting after Chris Lee was exposed by Gawker?
He had to have known any of the strangers he was sexting could have dropped a dime/tweet on him.
arguingwithsignposts
Kay posts at 2:03; ABL posts at 2:06. There’s a way to schedule these posts out farther apart. Maybe refresh the front page before posting so everyone’s not bigfootin’ all over each other’s posts. Both very important topics, both now splitting attention.
Just sayin’ – carry on.
baldheadeddork
@subaki – I don’t expect shit from the media. Weiner was the only person in authority saying anything about this. The media wasn’t going to take his lead, but he could push it into the news as he had been doing because he was a US Congressman. Even that is gone now. Because Weiner and his cock couldn’t get beyond the relationship they had when they were twelve, Thomas and anyone else on the court has a free pass.
Fucking. Moron.
Citizen_X
@Violet:
What would you find out? That he’s an angry, stalking-prone drunk? As you suggested, one can figure that out after five seconds of watching him with the sound off.
Jay in Oregon
@virag:
Or, we stop listening to the moral scolds on the right, especially when so many of them have flying flags that are at least as freaky as Weiner’s.
Sending lewd pics of yourself to consenting adults? None of my effin’ business.
Sending lewd pics of yourself to consenting adults that aren’t your spouse? None of my effin’ business, but your spouse might have a right to know.
Sending lewd pics of yourself to consenting adults that aren’t your spouse and then lying about it when you get caught? None of my effin’ business, but your spouse might have a right to know. Oh, and you’re a fucking idiot.
RGuy
OK, so Weiner fucked up. Can’t someone else in the house pick this up and run with it?
Tim, Interrupted
@Violet:
My very reliable GAYDAR has always gone to 11 when Breitfart is on the tube. He is a closet case.
sukabi
@baldheadeddork: Thomas only has a free pass if other people are too stupid / scared to pick up the ball and run with it… his conflict of interest doesn’t disappear because of Weiner’s weiner.
rikyrah
you rock ABL.
YOU ROCK
David Hunt
@RGuy:
To some degree, but Weiner is the one that paid in all the sweat-equity to get it this far. There’s a large amount of momentum that would be lost. Plus the subject has Weiner-cooties all over it now. That sufficiently poisons the metaphorical well that no one’s likely to touch it.
Morbo
@Violet: Ask Wonkette emeritus Riley Waggaman; he might have some.
NaveenM
What’s done is done. Unless there are new bombs that will drop, the best thing for Weiner to do is…do nothing.
What he did is mild in comparison to the above mentioned Clarence Thomas, but also David Vitter, Larry Craig, Barney Frank, etc.
He should learn from these guys. Ride it out. The ADD-prone Villagers and public will move on the moment a new scandal comes along.
He did the apology. Now try and patch things up with the wife, be a good Congressman, and keep your head down for a while. Worse comes to worse, he gets voted out of office, but once things blow over, I doubt it.
Tim, Interrupted
baldheadeddork almost seems to pushing a meme, an…agenda…if you will.
Thomas and Ginny are still just as vulnerable as ever; nothing changes necessarily because of Weiner’s rather ample weiner, unless you know, enough people push it as established CW, kind of like baldheadeddork is doing.
Fred
@Mike Kay (Team America): Why should he resign? Because he likes to jerk off to stuff he does on the internet. Congress would be empty if that was considered unacceptable.
On a scale of 1 to 10 of adultery scandals this is about a 1. Maybe 1.5
Benen pretty much nails it.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_06/weiner_comes_clean030070.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+washingtonmonthly%2Frss+%28Political+Animal+at+Washington+Monthly%29&utm_content=Google+International
Arclite
THIS.
Bender
Clearly, Thomas should receive some sort of punishment for his tax inaccuracies. Perhaps he should be made Treasury Secretary.
Jennifer
@Jay in Oregon: I have to object.
Since when is a photo of underwear a “lewd pic”?
That photo was no more titillating than the men’s underwear section in the Penney’s/Sears/old Montgomery Ward catalog. Are we truly so fucking childish as a nation that now we can’t even handle a photo of underwear without getting the vapors, for the simple reason that we know there’s a PENIS lurking within the underwear? Apparently so, according to our media who can’t work up a sweat over a guy who likes to dress in diapers around hookers.
Sweet christ this is the dumbest shit ever. This country doesn’t deserve to survive.
Arclite
@Gretchen:
Fixed.
Brachiator
Weiner is roasted. And he is certainly not the only … member … of Congress who can initiate an investigation of Justice Thomas. If they have the non-Twitter cojones for it.
Non-issue. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Arclite
@Gretchen:
Fixed.
scav
Listening to the Beeb radio, heard a phrase that might prove generally useful: Bonfire of the Sanities.
Fred
@Brachiator: How much you want to bet that not only will Weiner survive, he will be re-elected?
That is assuming he doesn’t pussy out and quit.
Arclite
@Tim, Interrupted:
That’s not really a skeleton anymore. Now, if he beats his boyfriend…
WyldPirate
You Obot fawners and fellaters better get your mind off of Clarence Thomas and Weiner.
The Washington Post Poll slaughtered Obama today. He is going to be in deep shit if he doesn’t act like the economy fucking matters.
The Senate is gone in 2012 as well.
Keep on whistling past the fucking graveyard and telling yourself those sweet little lies….he ain’t gettin’ it done.
MattR
Just saw this piece at cnn.com about Kirk Murphy, who was one of George Rekers poster boys for converting people away from homosexuality and who committed suicide at age 38 despite outwardly appearing to live a normal life. I don’t have the right words to describe my reaction.
Arclite
@Fred:
CW: It’s okay to do it, but it’s not okay to get caught doing it.
Amanda in the South Bay
@MattR:
That piece made me even more upset at the parents than Rekers.
Brachiator
@WyldPirate:
First of all, not an Obot fawner.
Second of all, polls, especially early polls don’t mean squat to real human beings. Polls ain’t votes. Now, I know the pundits and the Beltway yobs and the political strategist eat this stuff up, I don’t care.
But I’m curious, what should Obama do to show that the economy “matters” to him?
Fred
@WyldPirate: Ha….within the margin of error and it’s a ‘slaughter’ lol….
You wish.
stuckinred
@Brachiator: Since what WP is talking about is the whisper campaign that Obama is anti-business there is not one fucking thing he can do to change it. At noon Boortz was railing that what needs to be be done is to sacrifice the well being of the people in order to save the country. That’s what the “business community” think and nothing is going to change it, nothing.
Tim, Interrupted
@Arclite:
It is still a skeleton if one is married with kids as is Breitfart, and is a right wing shill to boot.
Fred
@Arclite: Show me the broken law. Show me the ethics violation. Hell, you would be hard pressed to show it was even hypocrisy!
Bender
Q: Is being proven to be a complete fucking idiot a valid reason for a Democrat Congressperson to resign?
A: Not as long as Sheila Jackass Lee, Hank “Guam Will Sink!” Johnson, Phil Hare, Raúl Grijalva, etc.are still there!
stuckinred
@Bender: Fuck off moron.
Brachiator
@MattR:
This is sad on so many levels.
One thing that stands out for me is how so many people in America, liberals and conservatives alike, are so willing to make therapists into a secular priesthood to whom we must all bow down to and obey.
We are still so primitive. We tried lobotomies to change behavior. Some therapists still use electro shock treatments. And then there is the chamber of horrors noted here.
Goddammit. The first principle is still, DO NO HARM.
Cliff in NH
@Jennifer:
I can’t at all see how this is different than a random photo from a beach full of people in bikinis
cckids
@Violet:
I’ve always felt the same way. I know I wouldn’t leave my daughter (16) or any of my pets alone with him. Not for a minute. In her verbiage, he’s a creeper.
Arclite
@Fred: I was citing Beltway Conventional Wisdom, not any law. I agree with John, it’s not my concern what a politician does with their free time, as long as it’s not illegal or a conflict of interest with their job.
Sentient Puddle
So in the spirit of Open Thread, how about that Wii U? WTF?
WyldPirate
@Brachiator:
Bullshit…..
riiiighhht…Keep telling yourself that sweet, sweet, little lie, Brachiator. Romney is in the margin of error already with the bunch of toads and dweebs they have in the GOP field. Palin has NO CHANCE at the Rethug nomination. The American people are suffering–at least a whole hell of a lot of them are and they are going to be in a “throw the bums out” mood unless things improve drastically.
The “wrong track” number is 69%. People are pissed. You are fucking crazy if you thing the Fundies in the JeebusFirst wing of the GOP won’t bite their tongue and vote for a Mormon to get rid of the “Black Muslim Usurper who stole the Presidency” (TM)
First, he needs to quit blaming Bush. That turd isn’t going to flush anymore. Second, he needs to come up with some proposed solutions barnstorm the country with them and hang the Rethug obstructionism around their neck–I don’t give a good gooddamn if he has to do it every other day. How the fuck do you think the Rethugs sell their lies? I’ll tell you how..constant repetition. Lastly he needs to quit the goddamned “too cool for school” act and adopt some “I feel your pain” Clinton approach. And, I’ll repeat myself again— he and his advisors need to quit making fucking excuses.
Arclite
@Tim, Interrupted: That dude is married???
MattR
@Amanda in the South Bay: Yeah. I am not sure if the fact the parents were doing it out of love makes it better or worse.
@Brachiator:
I agree with this. Part of me wants to give the parents a benefit of the doubt for trusting a supposed expert and part of me wants to beat the snot out of them for blindly following that “expert”
Tim, Interrupted
@MattR:
Minus the violence and the poker chips, that was my life as a gay boy in the early 60s. The everyday, unending message was more subtle but never changing: YOU ARE A BAD PERSON. BE SOMEONE ELSE. I tried until I was 37, when I finally came out of my own closet after a ten year marriage and three kids. If I hadn’t done so, I believe I’d be hanging from a belt loop myself.
Jennifer
@Cliff in NH: That makes at least two of us.
What’s next, people start getting offended of pictures of men in suits because they have penises inside their pants? Or photos of women in skirts become off-limits because we know they have vaginas up under them?
This country is too damned childish to continue. We can’t handle knowing that people have naughty bits. We should go the hell extinct.
baldheadeddork
@Tim, Interrupted: This must be why the comments section on this site blows.
Your “hey kids, let’s put on a show!” attitude is cute, but delusional. No one in Congress is going to pick up the push against Thomas because a) they weren’t doing it in the first place and b) no one will pick up the flag after Weiner fell because they won’t risk being associated with him. That leaves the usual cast of dirty fucking hippies – and good luck with that.
And if you think a comment on a blog is creating a “meme”, you really need to check yourself. Drop your shitty attitude while you’re at it.
Brachiator
@stuckinred:
This is hardly a whisper campaign. This has been part of the right wing gospel since Day One.
My question still stands. I don’t give a rat’s ass about Obama’s reaction to the media or his supposed “failure” to change the narrative.
What do you expect him to do?
What is this supposed to mean? Is there any GOP candidate stupid enough to sign on for something so suicidal?
The “business community” isn’t just the fat cats who can ride out a recession. Obama and the Democrats have more room to move than people give them credit for.
Tim, Interrupted
@MattR:
NOBODY beats their kid with a belt until they have welts up and down their body OUT OF LOVE.
That is misdirected rage and hatred, pure and simple.
I’m guessing on a substantial level the dad actually HATED his son for not being what he wanted him to be and for being an embarrassment to him which he surely was.
My dad never beat me like that but I picked up a great deal of uneasiness and shame.
Tim, Interrupted
@baldheadeddork:
go fuck yourself, rat fucker. this is hilarious, seeing as you are the one preaching doom and gloom re Thomas, and I am the one with the attitude problem?
again I say: go fuck yourself
Chyron HR
@WyldPirate:
Is lionizing George W. Bush another thing that Real True Progressives do now? Guess so.
stuckinred
@Brachiator:
“Is there any GOP candidate stupid enough to sign on for something so suicidal?”
Are you serious?
Jay in Oregon
@Jennifer:
I don’t have any better way to describe the pic; I don’t think it was obscene or pornographic, and it was apparently sent with the intent to titillate. What word would you use?
bemused
I had to laugh reading Mahablog when she said every time a male politician is brought down by a sex scandal, she thinks of when the arguments were that women shouldn’t hold any high positions because they are too hormonal.
Ash Can
I get it now. WildPirate is Bender after he’s been laid off and denied health insurance coverage.
trollhattan
@Arclite:
A-yep. Chilling thought that there’s a Frau Breitbart, but not without its own comic possibilities.
http://www.rumproast.com/index.php/site/comments/72_hours_in_palm_springs_with_your_family_is_excruciating/
MattR
@Tim, Interrupted: Good point. I would like to clarify that I was referring mostly to the mother based on the comments in the interview (though she was definitely as culpable in allowing the beating to occur). She seemed like she wanted to do the right thing but had no clue what that was. Having said that, as a straight male, I don’t feel entirely comfortable debating this issue but I don’t think we can know for sure what motivated either parent – whether it is hate, frustration, confusion, anger or a completely misguided attempt to do a little harm now to prevent greater suffering in the future.
Steve
@WyldPirate: “He needs to come up with some solutions.” Too precious for words.
sukabi
@Jay in Oregon: vulgar, crude, smutty,
dirty,filthy,obscene,p0rnographic, coarse, off-color, unseemly, indecent, salacious, rude, racy, risque, naughty, bawdy, ribald, raunchy, blue…those are perfectly acceptable descriptions of the photos in question… and lewd isn’t how I’d describe it… you see more offensive junk in speedos and thongs at your local beach…
MattR
@sukabi:
And more offensive bellies as well.
BTW – Was that a Carlin reference?
Pooh
Ooh shit, Clarence Thomas?
David Hunt
@WyldPirate:
I’ll just say one thing about this whole thing. Polls seventeen months out can’t predict squat as far as election results go. The electorate’s memory is far too short. Twenty years ago in ’91, G.H.W. Bush was considered unbeatable in the upcoming election in ’92. We all know how that turned out. Polls can be useful for showing how people feel about something now if they’re done properly. They don’t mean squat for predicting an election this far out.
sukabi
@MattR: no, but I LOVED Carlin…
Brachiator
@WyldPirate:
We could trade sweet nothings all day and it will get us nowhere. But at bottom, while I have some interest in responding to any reasonable poster’s comments, it is a waste of your time trying to pigeonhole me in terms of ideology or affection for Obama. But since we last went back and forth over the Bush tax cuts, where I clearly had issues with Obama and the Democrats, any notion that I blindly support Obama is obviously a figment of your imagination. That said…
RE: Second of all, polls, especially early polls don’t mean squat to real human beings.
Math and numbers are my business, bumpkin. Polls ain’t votes. And your harping about the supposed “margin of error” is bizarre and wrong headed. You might as well talk about how Rudy 911 was ahead in the polls before the GOP voters decided they didn’t love him half as much as they were saying back in 2007 and 2008.
Polls have some value to political strategists. They don’t mean squat to anybody else.
If these were the only people voting, I might be worried. But they are not the only people voting.
I agree with you that Obama needs to stop blaming Bush. I’m not too sure about the barnstorming and the whining about GOP obstructionism. This is campaigning, not governing.
You got something more concrete in mind? You know, like some actual economic policy proposals? I mean, surely, if you are so unhappy, there must be some tangible proposal that would demonstrate that Obama was working to turn the economy around.
I loved me some Bill Clinton. And so it is easy for me to say “Fuck Bill Clinton.” That “feel your pain” shit would not work for Obama, and was getting old when Clinton was spending more time feeling up Monica Lewinsky than he was feeling for the people.
It’s funny. People cry and whine and moan about Obama’s supposed aloofness. And yet the money wing of the GOP think that they can win with Mittens Romney, who is not only absolutely robotic, but absolutely inauthentic.
Oooh, but the polls. The polls. While I might have concerns that the Democrats will throw away opportunities, and Deity knows they are good at that, the last thing I am concerned about is the polls.
As an aside, polling firms are shaking in their boots that the increasing use of cell phones is making it more difficult for them to construct adequate random samples. And this is on top of the inherent problem early in the election cycle that the people that you talk to are representative of people who will actually vote in the upcoming election. The supposed “margin of error” actually comprises a number of factors which are much more volatile than in prior years of polling.
boss bitch
@WyldPirate:
you’re getting very desperate. salivating over a poll?
Fred
@boss bitch: Gallup has Obama’s job approval up +1 today. So yawn…whatever. Another day another poll.
MattR
@sukabi: sounds kinds like one of his bits about how we have more ways to describe dirty words than we have actual dirty words. (I think that was the premise)
sukabi
@MattR: 30+ years ago his 7 words you can’t say on television was hilarious… still is…
OzoneR
@WyldPirate: Polls a year and a half our really do tell us something, just as President Dole.
mattski
you all need to check out this video that weiner sent
Brachiator
@stuckinred: RE: “Is there any GOP candidate stupid enough to sign on for something so suicidal?”
As I noted before, we have the presidential debates coming up. Let’s see what the candidates actually say.
Hell, you might even get a situation like we had in the last California gubernatorial election. The more GOP candidate tried to appeal to the hard core GOP base in California, the more she alienated all other voters, particularly independents.
Tim, Interrupted
For the “Victorian Pearl Clutchers of Balloon Juice.”
As per usual, GG nails it (this goes for all the self righteous commenters here too:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/06/07/weiner/index.html
beth
Tweet it a picture of his penis?
Tim, Interrupted
@MattR:
I don’t deny for a second that hate and love really are kissing cousins, opposite sides of the same coin, etc. and other cliches. Loving people can do hateful things.
Fred
@Tim, Interrupted:
Yawn…..DAVID VITTER! Full stop.
A senator, caught with a hooker. The guy got re-elected. This is not even close to that and Weiner is just a congressman.
Tim, Interrupted
@Fred:
Fred, why do you hate America and God?
sukabi
@Tim, Interrupted: yep, he spells it out beautifully…
Brachiator
@Fred:
Don’t know. Some politico this morning claimed that as a result of the census, New York will lose two congressional seats, and speculated that Weiner might get … squeezed out.
You can’t get re-elected if you got no district in which to run.
WyldPirate
@<a href="#com@Steve:
Sorry, dumbfuck, but that’s what leaders and leadership is about.
Barack Obama is the elected leader of the United States. He is looked to to propose policies that make America a better place not to blame George Bush for the bad economy he inherited.
Gromitt Gunn (formerly JMC_in_the_ATL)
Oh, fuck. It’s only the 7th of the month and WP has already worked through all of his meds.
trollhattan
@sukabi:
“And ‘tits’ doesn’t even belong on the list!”
Yup, Carlin gold.
Citizen_X
@WyldPirate:
Goddam it, it IS Bush’s recession, and it’s the Republicans who’re dragging us into possible double-dip recession territory because they’re playing Sink the Kenyan, plus carrying out their usual cut-all-taxes programing. Did Obama get my state 30 billion in the hole, requiring us to lay off teachers and anyone else collecting a paycheck? No. Rick fucking Perry did, along with the idiot Texas Republican legislators. Same in every other state.
Edit: OK, it’s worse in my state, because blah blah Texas blah blah. Sigh.
OzoneR
@WyldPirate:
He is looked to do both.
Fred
@WyldPirate: blah blah yada yada. Go back to troll school and try again when you are better at it.
Fred
@Brachiator: This is nothing and will be forgotten as soon as the next shiny object comes along.
Redistricting is a WHOLE other issue.
Fred
@Tim, Interrupted: There is no god so there is nothing to hate.
Yea, I know it was a snark comment.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
I will not respond to this low-brow lynching by resigning, unless that little Weiner resigns first. I may sodomize my wife – which is not a crime, may I remind the Court of Public Opinion – but I never over-share on the Twitters, which heaven forfend is far worse. Case closed!
.
.
mellowjohn
nice clarence carter reference, abl.
(if it was.)
John Weiss
@Mike Kay (Team America): Yes. He’s a sleaze, but he’s our sleaze.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@John Weiss: I could care less if he is a sleaze.
but it’s already been 11 days, do we have to spend another 30 days hearing about Weiner, as one woman after another cashes in? http://tinyurl.com/3z7q5kv
He wasn’t gonna be around much longer anyways. he planned on leaving congress and running for Mayor in 18 months.
virag
@Jay in Oregon:
dee bag.
gene108
@Brachiator:
The GOP media machine can easily insulate a candidate from any serious scrutiny. Bush, Jr. could barely talk coherently in 2000, but no one but him on the spot to give more than a rehearsed sound-bite answer, so the fact he didn’t know anything that wasn’t scripted never came out.
Also, too they spent so much time bashing Al Gore that people in the media quit worrying about Bush, Jr.’s idiocy and focused on what right-wingers were pointing out to them.
If anything right-wing control over the media has only gotten stronger, with CNN turning into Fox News-lite and the gutting of actual print reporters around the country, which paves the way for the sort of infotainment that benefits right-wingers.
Finally, if Romney were McCain’s V.P., McCain may have won in 2008. After the conventions, Obama and McCain were tied in most polls. The economic collapse under a Republican President and Sarah Palin helped Obama solidly beat out McCain.
Graham
Strokin for the rich
Strokin the IRS
Strokin for the people that he likes best
Also, too, what more dirt is ever needed on Breitbart? Sherrod not enough to discredit him? ACORN? Going after the least powerful people in the country…how fucking low do we go in this country as we all careen toward cat food futures?