Josh Marshall over at TPM picked this up, but I can’t stop myself from echoing his thoughts here.
The only actual pleasure I’m taking out of our current circumstances — in which one major political party has decided to refight 1861-5 via the legislative process* — is the degree to which or Republican friends are exposing their political id ever more unmistakably. Instance(n)** for your delectation:
Like my grandmum would have said, if she said such things: should the FSM feel moved to give you enemies, oh, please, dear Noodly one, make them stupid.
R’amen.
*Really, this is more like the late stages of the 1840-ish to 1860 maneuvering of the Southern rebels, attempting to achieve their aims by procedure as the gateway drug to armed treason.
**where (n) is an arbitrarily large number.
ant
where is Nate Silver blogging at these days?
agrippa
Yes. Please proceed GOP.
I expect that there will be a default because the GOP wants a default. I think that the GOP will achieve their aim.
The GOP may not be aware that it wants a default; the GOp has very little self awareness.
Chyron HR
The GOP’s gonna party like it’s nineteen ninety-six. How did that election work out for them, anyway?
TS
@ant:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
Except he doesn’t seem to be blogging there yet
Keith P.
Party of Stupid
Schlemizel
I have been saying that the GOP is recreating the antebellum American period since the 90s. So much of what they are saying and doing is exactly identical to the slave owning minority’s attempt to dictate to the majority. What I don’t know is how it will end, I hope its not a shooting war but I don’t see these morons giving up any more easily than that old group did.
Schlemizel
@TS:
He has gone back to sports stats, I forget where but he is not blogging politics at this time.
Punchy
@Schlemizel: Pretty sure he went to ESPN. Cant confirm tho.
agrippa
@Schlemizel:
I agree.
The GOP is not the party of Lincoln.
It has become the party of Jefferson Davis.
debbie
Can’t wait to see the thighs of the button-wearers.
debbie
@Schlemizel:
ESPN?
Schlemizel
@Punchy:
@debbie:
I googled him, yeah ESPN
aimai
They can’t help themselves but an acephalous, plankton like organism that goes where the water pushes it is simply not going to be able to steer clear of something like default.
El Cid
Why won’t Harry Reid be willing to negotiate and accept the compromise of 1850?
Baud
Today Show this morning was nice enough to point out that a clean CR would pass if Boehner would put it on the floor. For balance, they also said they didn’t think Obama could keep up his no-negotiations stance.
In the end, I think what passes won’t be completely clean, but will probably set up some process that will be meaningless but will allow Republicans to go on Fox and claim a victory.
c u n d gulag
Let’s not laugh too hard.
Thus far, the “TEH STOOOOOPID” ones, have been winning “The Cold Civil War” they’ve been waging, since Goldwater lost, and the CRA’s got passed.
If you’re as old as I am, you don’t recognize this as the same country your grew up in.
The Conservatives, have trashed the joint ever since Nixon walked into the White House as President.
I will say this, though, and it gives me hope – I’m in shock at how quickly gay marriage became acceptable with over 50% of Americans.
It took around 30 years for inter-racial marriage to break through that 50% line.
And even 20 years ago, gay marriage wasn’t on most people’s radar screens, let alone 50% deeming it acceptable.
And change like that, gives me hope.
Schlemizel
@agrippa:
I see then more as Preston Brooks descendants. They are not interested in running a government but are more than happy to catch an invalid unawares & beat them savagely over some perceived insult.
“We’re not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.”
Baud
@c u n d gulag:
No, they’re actually losing badly. But they’re losing by siege rather than by blitzkrieg, so it’s frustratingly slow.
beltane
I had seen the contents of that Hillary button in the form of lawn signs in New Hampshire during the run-up to the ’08 primary (all on the lawns of people supporting various Republican candidates). I always wondered if shit like this helped Hillary win that primary, because even I, a hysterical Obot at the time, was really pissed off at those signs. If you are trying to develop a strategy to make women avoid your party like the plague, signs like that are a very good starting point.
TS
@Schlemizel:
Some quotes – aug -sept 2013 at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
“FiveThirtyEight will be relaunched at this address in the impending months in partnership with ESPN. The new version of FiveThirtyEight will continue to provide data-driven coverage of politics and elections, while expanding its reach into other topics including sports, economics, technology and culture. ”
“FiveThirtyEight’s expansion in partnership with ESPN is beginning in earnest. In the coming weeks and months, we will be looking to hire a variety of journalists, including editors, writers, developers and designers. Notice of new job listings will be posted at this site, and at ESPNcareers.com.”
“FiveThirtyEight is conducting a search for lead writers in three of our most important content verticals: sports, politics and economics. “
Comrade Dread
Ah, there’s my California GOP showing the good sense that has made them completely irrelevant to politics in our state.
piratedan
kinda of brings a whole new twist with identity politics… the GOP, The Asshole Party.
scav
Can everyone else feel the outreach from where they are? They must really believe that their bitter white old men (and hangers on) are the only ones needed on board to win this thing. Sort of the Reverse Titanic situation there, only they’re loudly running about the ship tossing the immigrants, workers, ladies and children over the side without lifeboats, screaming “Bootstraps! Bootstraps!”
Valdivia
Ha ha Ms Miley Cyrus pretty cutting send up of the republicans on SNL with a parody of her Can’t Stop video. Probably the only funny thing in the whole show.
PaulW
@Chyron HR:
The GOP’s gonna party like it’s eighteen fifty-five. And they’re the Southern Democrats then, trying to use Dred Scott to kill all citizenship rights for freed blacks and spread slavery everywhere they want.
By rule or ruin. The Modern GOP way.
handsmile
The “fat thighs” etc. to describe a female political candidate was first served up against former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard last spring at an opposition (Liberal Party) fundraising dinner. In the case of Gillard, the full description was even more disgusting. After an outcry, the restaurant owner eventually claimed to have written the sexist menu entry.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/12/gillard-menu-sexist-liberal-dinner
I’m sure the CALGOP button-wearers found it hilarious. Being offensive is always a joke to such like.
(and btw, the Liberal Party’s loathsome, far-right candidate Tony Abbott won the federal election last month to become prime minister.)
PaulW
@Schlemizel:
If we had a way to vote Thumbs Up to a comment, I would do this. You are correct sir. And I do fear this does not end well for the nation: either the House GOP wingnuts will rule (forcing their agenda on a nation that rejected their platform in 2012, which will be disastrous) or ruin (breaking government altogether, which for them is a sweet alternative for their libertarian fantasies but a nightmare for the rest of us).
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@piratedan:
The problem is just how many people identify with and revere assholes.
shelly
Remember the Purple Heart bandaid people were wearing at the 2004 Republican convention? Oh, so funny.
Schlemizel
@TS:
I do hope they stick to that ‘data-driven’ part. I also hope his early predictions about next fall are wrong.
Matt McIrvin
I’m thinking what we’re actually reenacting is the disintegration of the USSR. Obama is clearly Gorbachev: the liberal-in-a-relative-sense, with an initially glowing international reputation, trying to save the system with incremental reforms. Obamacare is his New Union Treaty.
And we’re now in the middle of the August Putsch.
If the timetable holds, the US breaks up in February or March.
PaulW
We are bearing witness once again to The Politics Of Personal Destruction. If you can’t attack your opponent on the merits, you attack the opponent.
Win at all costs. Even when it costs your own dignity. To the Preston Brooks Party, they honestly don’t have any dignity worth trading to begin with. Just their wounded pride.
The rage they’ll keep and use to disastrous effect.
PaulW
@Matt McIrvin:
If Cruz tries pulling off a coup, any wagers on how quickly he’ll shoot his own foot?
Emily68
@handsmile: I wonder what the button in the bottom row says. “A womans…” And I wonder why there’s no apostrophe.
Baud
@Valdivia:
Funny. And disturbing.
El Cid
@Baud: I have learned that the average person I talk to does not understand that this is about the Republicans blocking a vote in the House, rather than thinking that it’s about a vote that Democrats would lose.
People genuinely have been confused by GOP bullshit. They think that the House would vote the Republican way so it’s about Democrats using their control of the Senate & Presidency to get ‘their’ way.
Partly it’s because the House doesn’t have a lingo like ‘filibuster’.
I think people really need to get the clear message out that this is about GOP refusing to allow a vote in the House that they would lose.
Kay
@Schlemizel:
I wish he was around. There will be tons of polling on the shutdown coming out and they’ll all do what they do, which is report on each poll individually and no one will add it up or look into it further. It’s just useless. The healthcare polling is the same way. I don’t know what they’re asking them, who they’re asking -we can’t even agree on a consistent name for this law- do they even know what they’re opining on?
Schlemizel
@PaulW:
I’m not the right guy to ask, I have a dark nature & always expect the worst so that I am never disappointed. I think the destruction of the US will be just a minor note played out against the backdrop of the end of life as we know it on earth. Because of climate change and resource depletion from over population we are a dead species walking. Nobody will be around to remember what we once were or how it was brought down.
Roger Moore
@scav:
They certainly seem to think that they need to get rid of all the defeatists, i.e. the people with enough residual connection to reality to tell them their plan won’t work.
Baud
@El Cid:
aimai
@shelly: The problem that they are going to face is that you can get only so far if your messaging is all signaling to people with the same code book. An election is like a war in this: that you start out with a certain number of troops. But the goal in an election is to increase the number of your troops (voters) relative to the numbers of your enemies. If you speak only in coded language, and merely try to destroy the other soldiers rather than convert them and re-enlist them, you decrease your chances of ending up the war with more soldiers (voters) than you started out with.
People were very angry with Obama for always continuing to talk peace and talk across the divide to the imaginary centrists/independents but what other choice does a reasonable politician have? You have to keep the lines of communication open with the other side and try to flip as many of their voters as you can. And you can’t let your political language degenerate into in jokes–especially not in jokes that smear the other side–its just not worth it.
Valdivia
@Baud:
I know right? The best part is that the original song fits pretty nicely to the situation and with the changes to the lyrics even more. Kids at a party would be more serious than the idiots in the House.
MattF
@Comrade Dread: This, I think, is the takeaway. You can always find idiots, but the California GOP was home base for St. Ronnie, Howard Jarvis, etc. Something happened… and now all that’s left is the idiots.
aimai
@El Cid:
I think Obama and the dems have to stop talking inside baseball. You have to start every single discussion of what is going on with a huge dollop of background information:
Obama:
You can’t underestimate the depths of the ignorance of the US people. They have no idea what is going on.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Schlemizel: I have a hard time finding today’s youth willing to fight and die for the 101st Hoverround’s literal war on Obamacare. There may be teahadis envisioning General Lee, without realizing they’d be more Roscoe and Cletus.
PaulW
This is not the party of Eisenhower. There are times I wonder if it ever was…
You don’t see anybody going around with bracelets saying “What Would Ike Do?”
sparrow
@Schlemizel: I’m a relentless optimist in my daily life (sometimes driving my boyfriend nuts), but I am also a scientist and student of human nature, and I agree with you. We’re fucked because we’re just too damn stupid and impulsive and selfish as a species. I imagine the earth will make a nice archaeological exhibit for aliens some day. So there’s that.
El Cid
@piratedan: They have decided that the juvenile asshole way College Republican organizations always behave was the best new model for a national party. They looked at their record and decided that one problem Republicans faced was that they were too mature, and too accepting of responsibility for their actions, and they sure as hell fixed that.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@aimai: I’m not entirely sure what the administration and the Dems are doing is not working. The polls are in their favor and the GOP apparently is busy trying to keep their own flanks secure, i.e. all the whining about the national parks to keep the NRA and sportsmen lobbies appeased.
MattF
@sparrow: See Iain M. Banks ‘Consider Phlebas’ where the remains of a stupid civilization are used as a sort of toy-train set.
Schlemizel
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
I work in IT and am constantly in contact with young guys who have bought into the Paultard nightmare. They believe they got where they are totally on their own with no help from the government and all government is bad. Many of them are fully on board with the “They are stealing from young people to pay old people” BS on ACA.
dmsilev
(looks at those Hillary buttons). But remember folks, the ‘Republican war on women’ is a myth.
Roger Moore
@MattF:
I don’t think it’s so much that all that’s left is idiots as that long-term irrelevance has weakened the CA GOP’s tether to reality. Life as a perpetual opposition party whose only relevance comes from their ability to interfere with the other guys has eliminated the need to talk about serious policy. Sadly, this has come at a time when the national party is taking pretty much the same path, so they haven’t even had national politics to force them to think about problem solving.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Schlemizel: Ron Paul was a footnote in every primary he ran, and his followers never went beyond a bunch of over-privileged and over-coddled white kids who will be busy finding other convenient things to do when they’re asked to upgrade their combatant status from Internet Tough Guy.
piratedan
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: I don’t know about revere, but I think that people can and do confuse being passionate about something with being a dick… I’ll give the GOP this, thy’re certainly passionate about how muuch they dislike the President and his policies nor do they have a problem being assholes about it. I could even buy the passion if they could comprise a plan that wasn’t a steaming pile of dogshit, they haven’t been able to, which just reinforces the effects of their assholishness because nothing breeds bad behavior than watching someone else succeed with an idea that you abandoned.
@El Cid: I agree, their game plan seems to think that all of the biggest winners also happen to be assholes, and it’s not to say that there aren’t enough examples of that, but as a whole I really hate this inferiority complex that these people project, not only do they have to win everything, all the time, they want for us to be rooting for them to win too, WHILE being assholes about it. Talk about myopic narcissistic behavior syndrome… and they can’t fathom why we’re NOT rooting for them.
Regnad Kcin
@Schlemizel: Preston Sturges?
Schlemizel
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
True enough but they are reliable Republican voters when the chips are down. Many of them keep saying they want to form their own party and I encourage them greatly (hell I’d donate $20 if I thought it would get them going). I believe our best hope is if the Paulites and the baggers each split from the GOP. If they pulled 10-15% of the GOP vote away we could replace a heck of a lot of the current batch of crackpots.
Mustang Bobby
It’s like running against an entire party of sixth-graders.
(Apologies to my former students who were once sixth-graders.)
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@c u n d gulag:
I keep coming back to this. Last summer here in MN, I was shocked at all the sturm and drang during the debate over SSM. Now that it’ shtetl laew here, people are like, “meh”.
The only time I hear about it is when my friends get engaged or married, and when people say they like my shirt.
IowaOldLady
@Schlemizel: Apparently, these guys believe they will never be old one day, never be the ones needing health care. Paying it forward is not a concept they believe in.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@piratedan:
I might agree with you, but it honest to god seems like people are infinitely more receptive to right-wing assholery than left-wing passion. Both will be offputting in the end, but the former seems to get ages more patience than the former.
Case in point: Study on Evironmentalists, Feminists, and general “activism” finds the more passionate and pushing you are, the more people hate you and your cause by extension. The problem with this seems to be the lack of right-wing activism pushed. And judging by how much the Tea Party assholes, even with their stark decline these days, are still taken like serious forces in politics while people can’t run the fuck away fast enough from left-wing activism these days tells me that the country STILL loves right-wing assholes enough to forgive them their sins, only until they become heretics to the ’cause’.
Cermet
There is no such thing as “How low can they go!” Amazing; just as they belittled the troops by their attacks on Kerry and his numerous purple hearts and other ribbions, these asswipes attack woman as if they are stil cattle to be evaluated on their sexual aspects – just beyond sick; these animals called thugs need to be cleaned off from the US. Damn Grant for not hanging all leaders; I am not suggesting the stupid soldiers that like today’s thug voter, is far too stupid to develop an idea not given to them by their ‘betters’ (i.e. the 0.01%)
Jeremy
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: The democrats and the president have been on message and according to the polls they are winning. The republican message has been a mess and right now based on surveys the house majority is in jeapordy.
amk
Hopefully at least now the gop women voters will change their mind and their vote?
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
Seriously? “It’s the law”
Baud
@amk:
Magic 8-ball says “no.”
Schlemizel
@IowaOldLady:
I have tried explaining that to them but they seriously believe they are bullet proof. That and they are all about ME, all the time.
Kay
It’s really hard to work with them, even the moderates. I’m helping with a school bond issue here. They specifically asked me to help to apply what we did here in 2008 and 2012 as far as organizing to this local issue. Last week, realizing that I was meeting a lot of resistance which makes me impatient and cranky, I asked the young woman (volunteer) who coordinated the 2012 GOTV to help. It was really generous of her to agree. I asked her Wednesday and she gave us her Saturday yesterday. She’s a single mother with a full-time job. She’s busy.
We did our first canvass beginning at 11 AM Saturday and they were a pain in the ass. The people running the committee wouldn’t take direction from her and contradicted her a lot. It took her from 11 to 12:30 to get them out canvassing and she’s really good at this. I ended up apologizing to her for getting her involved.
We go again at 2 today and she’s’ coming back to help but unfortunately I think we’re going to have to make it clear that she is running this, because they can’t seem to work without clear lines of authority. This is the moderates. The Chamber of Commerce Republicans. It’s exhausting.
Punchy
Im sure KFC is quite proud that that their name is being used to promote such wanton misogyny.
Jeremy
@Jeremy: correction :jeopardy
Cervantes
@aimai: You can’t underestimate the depths of the ignorance of the US people.
Over-estimate, I think, is what you mean.
lockewasright
@beltane: Only women that they find physically attractive count as women. None of them count as full humans with value beyond attractiveness. These RWNJs can’t comprehend that they are hurting their own cause with women because they don’t really see those women that they’re pushing away.
Baud
@Kay:
That’s usually the case with most organizations. Maybe the problem is lack of respect because she’s a Democrat, a woman, young, etc.
piratedan
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: I feel the same way, I’m much more likely to give someone passionate about something a pass because I know that you can become obsessive about things that matter to you that allow yourself to be blinded to some less than optimal portions of what you’re passionate about yet boorish, petty, nasty behavior is given more latitude… It’s like the disdain that’s heaped upon the folks that believe in “mother Earth” and how we’re all interconnected, which we are because we all share the same biosphere and yet the invisible sky buddy crowd get a pass because it’s incredibly plausible that a holy man walked amongst us multiple centuries ago, spoke to people and asked that they emulate him and his teachings and that they’ve been flawlessly translated from the Hebrew/Aramaic into Greek and Latin and then German and finally English and that’s our current rules to live by.
burnspbesq
@Schlemizel:
Don’t just hope they’re wrong. Put in the work needed to ensure they’re wrong.
Victory in 2014 is there for the taking, but it has to be taken. It’s not going to just happen.
Higgs Boson's Mate
If they’re so damn’ dumb why are they in control of the House? If they’re so dumb why are the 1% still paying the lowest marginal income tax rates in decades? If they’re so dumb then why is the sequester in place when the government should be spending tons of money on domestic programs to get the economy moving again?
Having a bunch of very smart people pull off these things at our expense would be bad but understandable. Having a bunch of dumb guys do it seems to call for a re-examination of our methods.
aimai
@Cervantes: Yeah, you are right! Wrong cliche, definitely!
amk
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Simple. They whine & vote while the left just whines.
Elizabelle
Is that a tinfoil hat that all the buttons are on?
@Kay: Good on you and the GOTV specialist. You’re getting a unique view into the GOP.
Keith P.
PPP’s showing that the GOP actually has a chance at losing the House in 2014. I’m not really wired in to the numbers and have generally read that gerrymandering makes it all but impossible, but what if they lose the House? Seems to me that after that, they’re absolutely fucked (and a million times double fucked if they don’t have the House by the time the next district lines get drawn). They’re leveraged to the hilt on their House control, but once that is gone the blowback is gonna be extra heavy given how they’ve acted while in control. Maybe it’s a pipe dream (although even if they just lose more seats, I’m happy), but what a dream it is.
Suffern ACE
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: hav the Democrats ever done anything in the past 30 years that hasn’t been used by the Republicans as “an insult to our emotionally fragile republican veterans?”
Matt McIrvin
@El Cid: Well, Republicans figure this is really about Obamacare, and Obamacare would never pass Congress if it were up for a vote today, which is why they think it’s legit for the House Republicans to try to nullify it. (See Brett Bellmore’s comments on Obsidian Wings, for instance.)
Elizabelle
So, you ask, how did last night’s joint appearance in Richmond, VA by Ted Cruz and whackass GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli go?
When you’ve lost Cooch ….
burnspbesq
@Keith P.:
I sincerely believe that if we put in the work that’s necessary over the next three years, we can make the 2016 election the death knell for the Republican Party, just as 1852 was the death knell for the Whigs.
Gotta DO it, though. It’s not just going to happen.
MattF
@Elizabelle: As a better toon than I has said: “Ha ha.”
Elizabelle
@Keith P.:
I think the GOP losing the House gets more doable the crazier they get.
Business really cannot stand the level of uncertainty and lunacy the GOP has unleashed.
scav
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Well, the current ranters on their Hooverounds are ranting while atop the shoulders of taller and saner individuals. They’d built up momentum as sane pragmatists and could coast on that for a while, while the blithely unconscious kept ticking the boxes based on previous rep. We may still very well be in the coasting phase, except they might be finally be shouting loud enough, flinging spittle and rocking the boat enough to attract the attention of the spryer members of the aforementioned unconscious.
In short: They didn’t build most of the successes. They inherited them and are living wildly off the proceeds.
amk
@Elizabelle: He is just posturing before the elections. Hope the virginians don’t fall for it. Again.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
I’m starting to believe that the problem the business organizations like the Chamber have is that they’re run by Republicans who are conflicted between advancing the interests of their members and fealty to the GOP. The business community should have come out much more strongly than they have on a number of items, including the current hostage taking. I think they’re rhetoric has been muted because the Republicans that run them don’t want to fight their own party.
BBA
If we came out of this Constitutional crisis with a de facto parliamentary system of government (as the House seems to insist we have), I’d be pleased. Sure Republicans would be in power at first, but the system as a whole would be more stable.
Sadly the result would probably be, we’re parliamentary whenever Republicans control a house of Congress, we’re presidential whenever there’s a Republican president, and in the rare 1993-94 or 2009-10 case with Democrats in total control, the Republicans should still get everything they want, because shut up, that’s why.
Kay
@Baud:
They don’t really “get” canvassing. It’s funny because they’re where we were in 2004. They’re obsessed with yard signs. Yard signs are something you hand out to placate county chairs. They don’t do anything, yard signs, in and of themselves.
What she’s asking them to do is pretty simple: go out and locate “yes” voters and bring that back. This is anecdotal, but the people who were the most rude to her were not the men (and it’s mostly men). It was the young GOP women, women around her age, late twenties/early thirties. Now, I met with “their leader” a coupla weeks ago at the office and I had no problem with her. So what’s that all about?
I actually took a nap when I got back yesterday. Went to bed. I was just exhausted. It was like pulling teeth getting them to give her the walk sheets they brought back. By the end I was just barking at them: “she needs those.” The point is to take the lists and make a “yes” voter GOTV list. I don’t know how to do that and either do any of them. She does.
Mike in NC
@Punchy:
Two-pronged GOP “strategery” for winning back the White House in 2016: (1) Attack Hillary Clinton with bad 20-year-old jokes, (2) Field a candidate who’s a joke to most of the electorate. Brilliant!
Matt McIrvin
@Jeremy: Based on Sam Wang’s analysis of gerrymandering effects, the Democrats are going to need to be at least 5 points up in the national House vote to retake the House. Right now their advantage in the generic House poll is more like 2 points (which doesn’t even take midterm turnout effects into account), and the current crisis doesn’t seem to be affecting partisan preferences much at all.
I think Republican House control looks pretty safe at the moment. But we’re more than a year out.
TAPX486
According to the Orangeman, there will be no cr or debt limit bill w/o some sort of Obamacare provision. Two thoughts on that:
1. Since Obama has been accused of being a dictator might as well earn the title and send in the tanks to surround the capital until the GOP surrenders.
2. The Senate should grant Orangeman his wish and send a CR and debt limit back to the house in which Obamacare is converted to a single payer/Medicare system. Since he wants an Obamacare rider then give him one
Woodrowfan
“You can’t underestimate the depths of the ignorance of the US people. They have no idea what is going on.”
a few years back some of my wife’s family came to visit. Her one sister-in-law is a sweet lady, but as thick as frozen lard. She pointed at the capitol building and said “there’s the White House, where the president lives)
Me: No, that the capitol building.
Her: What’s that?
Me: That’s where Congress meets.
Her: What’s that?
and yes, she’s a reliable Republican vote, because Jesus and little babies.
It’s also depressing how little my students know about how government operates. But hey, they passed their high school exams and got decent SAT scores so they got into college! Actual knowledge? Not so much in evidence….
dmsilev
The NYT commits an act of journalism this morning, with a story detailing the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy and its long-set plans to use a government-shutdown crisis to try to attack Obamacare. While the basic structure isn’t new, the story does a pretty reasonable job both tracking the money and demonstrating that this was a willful act of sabotage.
Mandalay
I think it is possible that this story is a hoax. The image was submitted by a political reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle “specializing in California state gubernatorial politics”, yet all we get is one close up photo?
She didn’t take any other photos to show exactly where the buttons were being sold, and even though she is a political reporter she didn’t interview the person selling the buttons – what kind of reporter is that?. If the image was really taken at the GOP convention then she had a real story yet chose not to follow up…why?
Nobody else is claiming to have seen the buttons, and she tweeted an hour later that the buttons were no longer on display. Other news sources are reporting the story but are wary, being careful to use the word “reportedly”. And the AP and the Sacremento Bee also took photos at the convention, but did not find those buttons.
Also worth noting that some of those insults about Hillary Clinton have been around for twenty years.
So maybe it happened. Maybe it didn’t. But if it really happened she was derelict in her duty to follow up on a big story,
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Elizabelle:
Business’ ability to influence the teahadists has been minimized by the fact that they’re from safe seats. They only need enough money to get on the ballot and do some local advertising. The only threat they face is a challenge from their right and as long as they hold to the tea party line that’s pretty difficult to imagine. John Boehner, their ostensible leader, is too afraid of losing his speakership to bring them to heel. They are free of the constraints that in the past would have reigned in their craziness and thus a default is a non-zero possibility.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Romney destroyed Obama in the race for yard-sign supremacy in 2012.
Baud
@Mandalay:
Wow. That is some inspired CT stuff there.
mai naem
Watched Up with Steve Kornacki. I’ve always liked Harry Reid. I know he comes across as wishy washy etc. etc.Wwhat was said on the show agrred with what I’ve always thought of Reid – that he’s a tough old schemer underneath with a realistic view of what can be achieved.
Also listened to Savannah Guthrie on MTP. I used to like her on her MSNBC show and thought she’d become a fluffball since she went to the Today show. I thought she did a pretty good job with MTP. She actually asked some followup questions. I also thought Rand came across as a bit of a fool but I don’t know if that’s because my biases pretty much make my think he’s an idiot no matter what. .
Baud
@mai naem:
Kornacki pissed me off this morning by suggesting that the House put the Senate in a bind by agreeing to give federal employees back pay.
MattF
@Mandalay: Lots of shit being thrown around there, but no actual logic. FYI, ‘logic’ means premises + inductive step -> conclusion.
Elizabelle
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Good morning Higgs!
I’m thinking the craziest of the Tea Partiers in the safest seats will hang on. But a lot of those House districts are closer, and this is a demonstration of the GOP’s destructive power, and the inability of the saner GOP to prevail over the crazies among them.
Yes, there is a difference between having a GOP or Democrat as your congresscritter.
Plus, I’d be interested in the GOP deficit among women voters.
Especially once their kids and grandkids get better healthcare coverage, and women get used to having contraception and other health expenses covered by their insurance plans.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I believe that far more people than we think in the business community, including Wall Street, are not acting on greedy rational grounds, but are actually completely freaking insane and will financially destroy themselves if it means taking out Obama. A substantial fraction of the big-money folks may actually be Tea Partiers and rooting for a default, even if it ruins their portfolio.
TAPX486
@dmsilev: As I read the article I kept thinking replace Obama with Clinton and Obamacare with Whitewater and you have Hillary’s vast right wing conspiracy all over again. The VSP laughed when she said it but she was on to something. I think the term ‘vast’ might be an overstatement but certainly ‘large’ is not.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
The Koch bros and others definitely fit into that scenario. I don’t think most Wall Street and big business types do. They just want to make as much money as they can.
Mandalay
@Baud:
You don’t find it strange that a political reporter (allegedly) took just one close up photo, but did not take a photo to show the store selling the buttons? You don’t find it strange that absolutely nobody else saw the buttons? You don’t find it strange that a reporter for California state politics (allegedly) took the photo yet did not even speak to the store owner about the buttons?
You are absolutely certain that the story is true, and cannot possibly be a hoax? Really?
Baud
@Mandalay:
No. I don’t know how many photos she took. Most stories only have one photo.
Proof that no one else found the buttons. I don’t find it strange that our media ignores attacks on Democrats.
No.
Any story could be a hoax, including here on Balloon Juice.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Elizabelle:
Good morning to you, Elizabelle! I sure hope you’re right.
A long time ago I dated a woman who was unrelievedly pessimistic. I once asked her why she was. “Because you’re so often right,” was her answer.
Gex
@Schlemizel: Hell, that’s what the TP was originally supposed to be. Remember they weren’t Republican or Democrats. They were about economic stuff, not culture wars. Until they ended up grabbing on to the anti-gay, anti-woman, voter ID crap.
What today’s young libertarians refuse to grok is that their preferred policies DON’T WIN if they don’t bolster their vote count with the culture wars. There’s a reason why the GOP went this way in the first place.
And in any event, I never see any of them bother to check which justices vote for the 4th and 5th Amendment gutting cases they hate so much. So you are right. They are reliable Republican voters. When the idea of economic and political advantage for white men is the cause you care most about, and self awareness is off the table, there’s no other option.
Baud
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
I actually think pessimists subconsciously only remember the times they were right.
geg6
@Matt McIrvin:
Too true. In a three mile stretch along our road, a major artery in our part of the county, there were two Obama signs (ours and a union guy up the street). We were outnumbered about seven to one. Granted, Obama lost here, but I loved keeping the sign up for a week after the election. Theirs had all mysteriously disappeared by the time I drove to work the morning after. If I could have had a dollar for every time someone around here waxed eloquent on the beat down Obama was going to get based entirely on their yard sign theories that always failed to take into account the fact that Beaver County, PA is not a microcosm of the entire nation, I’d have a new car paid for in cash.
Suffern ACE
@Matt McIrvin: yeah. There’s a little bit of rich people worship amongst the liberals that hold that the rich just simply have to be smart, and if we believe that they are smart, they’ll be secret liberal.
Those crazy ideas come from somewhere and they aren’t just concocted by secretly liberal rich men who want to rile up the masses merely to get rid of the SEC and the IRS. No, those crazy ideas are actually the ideas of crazy rich people.
dmsilev
@TAPX486: Yeah, that’s why I chose that phrase. The Times doesn’t use it, of course, but they map out the various connections and follow the money around, and it’s pretty obvious what’s going on. Right away from the lead paragraphs of the story:
Also, Ed Meese? Can’t those Reagan-era bastards have the decency to just go away and stop fucking things up?
Matt McIrvin
@Matt McIrvin:
…I might want to amend this. Looking more closely at Wang’s articles, the critical margin is closer to 4 points, and applying less smoothing to the generic House polls suggests a move toward the Democrats that could be there.
Mandalay
@MattF:
I’m pointing out that a political reporter for California state politics has chosen to make an allegation that cannot be proved or disproved. I find that suspicious.
Imagine that offensive buttons were allegedly being sold at a Democratic convention, and the only evidence was one close up photo. Would you also believe that story?
TAPX486
@Baud: It’s certain possible that the story is a hoax but given that the GOP is the party of the ‘rape is ok’ crowd, it is plausible. I suspect if it is a hoax there are a few Clinton haters thinking to themselves ‘gee why didn’t we think of that’!!
becca
@lockewasright: GOP/conservative men are generally uncool and undesirable and still angry girls didn’t like them in high school. They are out for revenge, puny little dicks that they are.
Woodrowfan
I would want more evidence because while there is a long history of hateful anti-Democratic buttons being sold at conservative meetings, but there is not nearly as much previous history of hateful anti-Democratic buttons being sold at Democratic meetings.
MattF
@Mandalay: You must find lots of things suspicious, including the Continuum Hypothesis.
amk
@Mandalay: Same CT with you don’t find it stranges in each line. How about you proving it as a hoax since you are the one claiming it? You don’t find it strange that gop won’t do something like this? Oh, that’s right, you admire rep peter king for his bravado words.
Baud
@Mandalay:
I don’t know. Let’s ask ACORN.
Matt McIrvin
@geg6: The yard-sign thing worked all right as psyops to get Republicans jazzed up and Democrats depressed. But it was expensive psyops. The actual payoff in votes was nowhere near worth the amount that the Romney campaign must have spent on it.
You rarely saw Obama/Biden yard signs because the Obama campaign didn’t give them away. They used them as a fundraising device only: you could buy one by donating to the campaign. Because the Obama campaign knew that they didn’t actually do any good in themselves.
RaflW
Very telling bit in the NTY today: 5,000+ Kentuckians have applied for ACA coverage (a combination of individuals and families, so the exact number over 5,000 isn’t yet known).
Not 5,000 accounts created, that number is reported to be over 10,000. But somwhere north of 1,000 Kentucky households per day have applied for a health policy to be issued ASAP when the dreaded Obamacare descends on Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell’s old Kentucky home state.
That’s already a lot of Kentuckians who are actively taking steps to reject the right-wing ‘conventional wisdom’ of the KY GOP.
Mandalay
@TAPX486:
That is precisely why it would be a good hoax – because it is plausible. As shown on this thread, everyone just blindly assumes that the story is true.
Well maybe it is, but the complete absence of any supporting evidence is noteworthy.
geg6
@Mandalay:
What’s the motivation here for a conspiracy? To paint the CA GOP as hateful toward women and Hillary most particularly? Do you really believe anyone on earth has to be convinced of that? Have you seen the GOP’s numbers with women? Jeebus.
Baud
@Mandalay:
Nothing blind about it. A reporter put her name to a story about what she saw. Unless there is something in her background to make her not a credible witness, then that’s enough evidence for reasonable people, in the absence of any evidence (and not just questions) to the contrary.
GregB
I also think that the GOP didn’t actually figure in demographic shifts into their redistricting calculations.
I think some of those districts are going to slip away from them much sooner than they think.
So in preparation for 2014 they are going to watch New York’s mayor race won by the liberal Democrat Bill DiBlasi, then Corey Booker will be the only elected African-American in the US Senate and then Terry McCauliffe will dispatch Ken Coo-CooNutty. Their only victory will be RINO Chris Christy winning in New Jersey. Another Northeast liberal!(Said with tongue in cheek).
We just have to figure out what is going to be the wingnuts’ beerhall putsch moment, or firing on Fort Sumter moment.
geg6
@Matt McIrvin:
Well, I got mine by canvassing and GOTV. They gave them to us at HQ. But you’re totally correct about the rest. I tried to explain this to people, but they were impervious to evidence.
Baud
@GregB:
Or defaulting on the debt.
Anya
Boehner: Agree to our demands or the U.S. gets it!
@Mandalay: If this was a hoax (which is possible) wouldn’t the California GOP issue a denial right away?
Mandalay
@amk:
It cannot be proved, nor disproved on the information I can find. If the store owner could be interviewed and admit to selling the buttons then that would prove it. But for some odd reason the political reporter chose not to speak to the store owner, and chose not to present a photo of the store that was allegedly selling the buttons. And I can’t find any reports of anyone else seeing the buttons.
So does that prove that the story is a hoax? No, but you would have to be pretty gullible to assume that it is true.
Not at all. It is entirely plausible. But that doesn’t make it true. It could be a very plausible hoax.
becca
@Baud: the Kochroaches are being exposed, especially in comments, of a front page article in the nyts.
It’s good that more people are becoming aware of the evil wrought by these sociopaths.
Idea for the day: ponder inheritance tax vs entrenched wealth.
piratedan
@geg6: a quick check of my google-fu shows three stories related to the buttons, nothing from the GOP that says that its false or untrue… and it’s not as if the GOP isn’t used to trotting out the big lie upon need, after all, we ALL know who’s shutdown this is, (Pelosi, Reid and Obama’s…. natch) and considering that this is the party of “legitimate rape”, not sure why Mandalay finds this implausible.
GregB
@Matt McIrvin:
It certainly got Peggy Noonan to drop her scotch bottle and head to the keyboard to crow about Romney’s impending landlside.
Baud
@Anya:
“without a serious conversation”. Those are weasel words. Means nothing.
IowaOldLady
I’ve come to hate the word “conversation,” as in “we need to have a serious conversation about assault weapons/the wisdom of crashing the economy/the wisdom of health insurance.” WTF could “conversation” mean in that context?
aimai
@Mandalay: Why would it be a hoax? Have you not seen similar or identical buttons elsehwere?
Schlemizel
@Regnad Kcin:
Preston Brooks was a US Senator who felt Sen Sumner had insulted his cousin during a debate on the floor. To retaliate Brooks snuck up on Sumner (who was frail to start with) while he was seated at his Senate desk. Without allowing Sumner to defend himself Brooks beat him with his walking stick, nearly to death,
Cassidy
@Schlemizel: And was hailed as a hero by the South for it.
dmsilev
@IowaOldLady:
Translating from High Wingnut, it means “Give us everything we want”. That’s what most phrases in High Wingnut mean.
Mandalay
@Anya:
A denial of what? How can the GOP issue a denial when the reporter is not identifying the store that allegedly sold the buttons?
Suffern ACE
@IowaOldLady: what about Devil’s Advocate? You can’t have a serious debate without one.
dmsilev
@Cassidy: Don’t forget that Brooks also had a friend there who used a gun to keep anyone from coming to Sumner’s aid.
Southern “honor” at its best. Sherman should have salted the ground after he burned the place.
amk
@Mandalay:
Shorter you: I am trolling.
Schlemizel
@burnspbesq:
I have been doing that for 55 years & am too old t stop now. AS described in an earlier thread I live in a safe CD. I believe Franken is safe but will work for him just to be sure. A couple go rounds back we canvased the hell out of suburban Mpls & ran a huge GOtV. We were able to flip the state gov to DFL. Sadly, this battle will not be won in MN we need to figure out what to do about Ohio and places like that. My reach is limited but I do what I can
dmbeaster
@Mandalay:
If you think it is possibly a hoax, you have a short memory. Just remember the 2004 purple heart band-aids, which were equally offensive and a bit hit at the national GOP convention. This is how the GOP rolls.
MattF
@Suffern ACE: That ‘devil’s advocate’ link needs to be sent to a lot of people. Particularly a few dozen who write for S***e.
IowaOldLady
@Suffern ACE: Great link!
@Baud: Weasel word is right.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
My husband helped us yesterday, so he’s a loner, he canvasses on his bicycle and he’s done this a time or two. He listened for about two minutes, took his list and took off.
Later he pronounced it a “circle jerk” and what he means by that is they’re only talking to each other. They had this idea where high school students would drive around and actually plant yard signs at the houses of those who requested yard signs, so they spent an enormous amount of organizing energy there. It’s a really nice idea, the high school students feel good, they feel good, but no one knows who is planting these yard signs, they won’t understand the whole “kids working for their school” idea because they won’t know about it.
When we looked at the precinct breakdown of how they lost in 2011 (this is the second try) where I live (and where they live, too) the west side, did fine. It’s higher income and they turn out for public schools, they turn out generally.
Where they got killed was lower income east side, where my office and clients are. The “yes” voters there didn’t turn out because the lower the income the more sporadic the voter.
gogol's wife
Just got out of church. Thought for the day: “So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous — therefore judgment comes forth perverted. I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what God will say to me, and what God will answer concerning my complaint. Then the LORD answered me and said: Write the vision: make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.” Habakkuk 1: 1-4; 2:1-4. Seems appropriate to the days we live in.
dmsilev
@Anya: Boehner left himself open for an obvious counter. He said that the votes weren’t there for a clean CR or a clean debt limit. The obvious response, which Chuck Schumer made a few minutes later on the same show, is “prove it”. Bring the clean resolutions to the floor of the House and have the vote.
Boehner won’t, at least not yet, which means that he probably thinks that the votes _are_ there to pass them.
scav
@dmsilev: entirely like a toddlers wail. Babies you have at least the option of checking their diaper (and they too expect you to clean up after them) but toddlers wails are usually want want want mine mine mine he was mean to meeeeeeee
gogol's wife
This righteous comment got moderated, so I’m trying again:
Just got out of church. Thought for the day: “So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous — therefore judgment comes forth perverted. I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what God will say to me, and what God will answer concerning my complaint. Then the LORD answered me and said: Write the vision: make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.” Habakkuk 1: 1-4; 2:1-4.
celticdragonchick
@aimai:
I think they are more like benthic bottom feeders…consuming the shit of other organisms.
becca
@Mandalay: I admire your skepticism and take your point.
Lame hoax, tho, if it is. Who would be surprised it’s true?
Amir Khalid
Remember when, back in the 2008 presidential campaign, some bright spark noticed from a photo that Hillary had — gasp! — wrinkles? I didn’t think she was the best candidate her party had then, but I would have thought less of, say, Obama had one of his people made a fuss over wrinkles on a 60-something person. I find these “KFC” badges even more offensive. I wonder why whoever made them doesn’t realise they embarrass the Republican party.
Schlemizel
@dmsilev:
In my darker moments I think some mass hangings for treason in 1865 might have solved a lot of problems we have today. Lard knows there were plenty of deserving candidates & it would have given the mouth-breathers someone besides the US for their condition.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Amir Khalid:
Embarrassment only works on those who have shame though.
MattF
@Amir Khalid: It may be that you’ve never had up-close and personal contact with a real Clinton-hater. Those buttons are mild.
gogol's wife
@Schlemizel:
I don’t know who Preston Brooks is, but I thought you meant Foster Brooks, and that is probably appropriate too. (comedian whose shtick was always being inebriated)
Mandalay
@dmbeaster:
That is precisely why it would be a good hoax – it feeds into preconceived notions. But just because the story is plausible does not necessarily mean it is true. The reporter chose to present her claim in a manner that cannot be proved nor disproved.
AdamK
@Valdivia: You know who I don’t want representing my side? Miley fuckn Cyrus, that’s who.
Amir Khalid
@gogol’s wife:
I remember seeing Foster Brooks on TV, and reading that in real life he was a teetotaler.
piratedan
@Mandalay: wow, if only you’d shown the same skepticism when it came to Greenwald’s reporting….. /////
gogol's wife
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
I thought maybe shtetl law was like a Jewish version of sharia law.
Montysano
@Schlemizel:
Fixed that for you. As George Carlin famously said, the planet will be just fine; we humans just won’t be around any more. Like him, I take a certain comfort in that.
aimai
@MattF: Yes, a quick google search turns up this one:
http://www.zazzle.com/stop_mad_cow_anti_hillary_mug-168600963228464132
Mandalay is just trolling because why would you deny what anyone who lived through the Clinton years know–the right wing, actual real people who were adults at the time, absolutely paddled in shit when it came to the Clintons. Hillary Clinton was and is accused of being a drug runner, a lesbian, a murderess, and now of course she is being accused of keeping a muslim lesbian lover (Huma Abedin). Its a constitive part of Republican attitudes towards people in general that once you define someone as “the other” or “the enemy” anything you say about them, no matter how vulgar or how factually untrue, is fair game. Read any social psychology text about authoritarians–read Bob Altemeyer’s book or Dean’s book “Conservatives Without Conscience” and you will be given all the research and plenty of examples.
Mandalay’s non point is “why would anyone print and sell such disgusting stuff?” Anyone who has ever attended a Bircher or Republican event knows that this stuff is standard. They sell it because they can. Jeebus–they don’t even bother to do more than recycle the insults from year to year. They aren’t even topical, generally speaking.
Citizen_X
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
Nice try, but your Jedi tricks won’t work on me.
Schlemizel
@gogol’s wife:
If Foster Brooks was not dead he could play Boehner in the musical version of this weeks events
BTW – in earlier comment I meant to say “someone to blaim beside the US for their condition”
Davis X. Machina
Or logical, or much of anything else. Those buttons make me sad. People should read more history — especially the people who make buttons. Besides the Vietnam War, nothing split the post-war left in this country as much as the internal struggles between the anti-communtist liberal left, and the socialist left.
It’s as if Arthur Schlesinger Jr had died in vain.
Schlemizel
@Montysano:
Well we are not going alone! We are going to bring down thousands of other life forms with us. It won’t be the end of life on earth but life as we know it will be gone forever. What comes after us is anybodies guess.
GxB
@debbie:
I sure as hell can…
Davis X. Machina
@IowaOldLady: It’s a synonum for ‘diktat’. Whenever my principal uses “conversation” in that way, it means ‘I’m about to make an ill-considered snap decision base on my gut, the last TED talk I saw, or the last person with a D.Ed. who talked to me, and I’m going to do it with no input from stakeholders’.
Suffern ACE
@Schlemizel: apparently, it is jellyfish. Jellyfish are among the winners.
Mandalay
@aimai:
The GOP have sold offensive products in the past. That does not mean that they did yesterday at the GOP convention in California, and the evidence supporting the claim that they did is pretty flimsy in my view – one close up photo, with no information on the specific store selling the buttons, no interview with the store owner, and nobody else claiming to have seen the buttons.
Maybe it happened, and maybe it didn’t. But posters here, including you, appear to conclude that the story automatically has to be true simply because of what has occurred in the past. And then you feel entitled to attack me just because I have a different view of the evidence to you.
This is not even remotely true. My post was about flimsy evidence being posted by a political reporter.
Just One More Canuck
@Schlemizel: “The dead have risen and they’re voting Republican”
SRW1
Misogyny must be extremely neurotoxic.
piratedan
@Mandalay: wow….next up, you want to tell us all how the GOP are really working for the good of the country and we’re simply unable to wrap our heads around their end game?
Chris
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
The problem with things like environmentalism, feminism, and left wing causes in general is that they bring up things that a lot of people find embarrassing; people hate being told that their consumption model is ruining the planet for future generations, or that they’re benefiting from unfair privilege over women (or poor people, or nonwhite people, or whatever) rather than being true Horatio Alger stories like they think of themselves. So yeah, when you try to bring that to their attention, they hate you for it.
But the teabaggers are the opposite of that; they go up to these people and tell them “there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you, in fact you’re the Exceptional paragon of the entire human race, and all your problems are someone else’s fault, someone who’s trying to undermine you because they’re jealous of how awesome you are. Vote for us, and we’ll fuck over all these people!” That, people come to like flies to shit.
TAPX486
@dmsilev: I have been hoping that Boehner is playing 3 level tic-tac-toe and will bring the debt limit to a vote at the last minute. I’ve been hoping that the debt limit is the hill that he has chosen to die on, not the CR. However given his comments today I’m no longer so sure that is his fall-back position. He went pretty far out on the limb with his comments. It will be very hard for him to walk them back in any meaningful way. I think if his plan had been to hold a last minute vote he would not have drawn such a bright red line in the sand.
In the meantime we have Calgary Cruz – ‘The debt ceiling should also be used as leverage “for some significant structural plan to reduce government spending” and to “avoid new taxes,” Cruz said.’ I’m afraid that there is a significant percentage of the GOP that doesn’t want to just rollback the 2008/2012 elections, they actually want to rollback all democratic wins to 1932. They would be quite happy returning to 1928, if not 1872,
Matt McIrvin
@GregB: I guess if your real purpose is to convince your supporters that the election was stolen after you lose, a yard-sign blitz is a great idea!
Chris
@lockewasright:
This.
Sarah Palin embodied everything they want in a woman; nicely shaped so they don’t mind looking at her, dumb as a rock so they don’t feel threatened, and adoringly telling them that they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Naturally, lots of women noticed and didn’t think it said anything good about either Palin or her voter base.
Matt McIrvin
@geg6: Ah, that makes sense: they were still using the sign as an incentive for something else, because the main advantage of them is that people want them.
scav
@piratedan: But do we really know that the Republicans are so, well, Republican? Can we really trust the media let alone our own memories which have been scientifically proven! to be fallible! They just could just be universally loving, soft-spoken defenders of each and every single desire of women and homosexuals and everyone differing from themselves.
Chris
@Baud:
Yep. Tribalism is just as big a thing among elites as it is among regular people. The tribal fealty of rich Americans to the Republican Party is not only very real, it’s actually the oldest such tribal connection that I can think of in our history (older than Confederate/Republican, older than labor/Democrat, older than any ethnic group’s association with one or the other party).
(ETA: yes that is a repost of what I said yesterday)
Chris
@GregB:
One wonders how the campaign might have gone differently if they’d spent all that money they wasted on voters that were already solid Republicans, and spent it on outreach to others instead.
This is something I noticed on their blogs all the way back after 2008; they were absolutely convinced that the reason they lost wasn’t that they hadn’t reached out enough to nonconservatives, but that they hadn’t spent enough time talking to conservatives themselves. Any talk about how moderates might have not liked the GOP’s last eight years was handwaved in some way or other. So of course they doubled down on talking to themselves, and lost again in 2012.
They seem to suffer from the same delusions many liberals had when they lost the Nixon Democrats – that it’s all a misunderstanding and if they only went to them and explained their liberalism slowly and nicely and respectfully enough, these guys would totally change their minds and come back into the fold. (Only they’re teabaggers, so “slowly and nicely and respectfully” becomes “loudly and angrily and obnoxiously.”)
piratedan
@scav: you’ve rocked the foundation of my belief system to the very core, I should change party affiliation immediately and begin a subscription to Mandalay’s newsletter
martha
@Mandalay: the reporter, Carla Marinucci, is a long time, well respected reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and other Bay Area outlets. She was there when I lived there decades ago. She’s not just some chump who trolls the backwaters or makes stuff up or some unknown entity to anyone who has read or listened to SF (especially) political reporting for years and years.
Just a data point for others reading this interesting exchange.
TAPX486
I think its time to lighten the mood around here. From a blog by JEN ML over on Huffington : 10 ways Congress is like a toddler:
. They love the sound of their own voice, and they think everyone else does too.
2. They try to manipulate us with crocodile tears.
3. They whine when they can’t have their own way.
4. They love to read Dr. Seuss.
5. They don’t know what irony means, so it’s adorable when they tell you that Green Eggs and Ham is one of their favorite books, even though it’s a story about a guy who refuses to try anything new and strange because he’s afraid he’ll hate it and then finally he relents and realizes it’s amazing.
6. They don’t understand where babies come from.
7. They like expensive toys and hate school.
8. They are selfish and always looking out for themselves and their own best interests.
9. They think they are precious snowflakes living in a bubble and have no idea that there are consequences to their actions.
10. When they get angry, they take their toys and go home to pout.
Get your sh*t together, Congress! ALL of you! Don’t forget — you have jobs now, but elections are coming and this kind of behavior gives me an itchy voting finger…
Your mothers need to put you in time out. I’d say you need a good spanking, but I think too many of you would enjoy it!
aimai
@Mandalay: Ridiculous and you know it. You are making an extra-ordinary claim: that a reporter who put her name on her piece, and ran it by an editor, made a false and utterly trivial claim in the piece. You are the one making the extra-ordinary claim and it is on you to prove your accusations. She says merely that in the course of reporting her story she saw X. If you don’t believe her you prove that the buttons weren’t there. As for me, personally–you are asking me whether I believe my own extensive experience of the kinds of things that are sold at bircher/republican rallies–things that I’ve seen with my own eyes. These buttons she pictures are, of course, mild compared to stuff that they have sold previously. Why would the market change? You need to demonstrate that the market has changed –has their been an influx of people with good taste into the Republican market for chotchkes? Have they stopped hating Hillary Clinton? Have they stopped being sexist?
jon
@El Cid: He might settle for the original, Founding Father-Approved, Three-Fifths Compromise, but nothing less.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mandalay: This is the same Cal GoP that denounced the last Republican to hold state level office as a RINO we’re talking about. If these buttons are real or not the take away from the CalGoP convention is “we Republicans needs to reach out more to the libertard moonbats that constitute two thirds of the voters of California explain to them why they are such awful scum to get their votes” Though to be honest I am surprised they aren’t doing any personal attacks on Jerry Brown.
Patricia Kayden
@amk: Yes it would be nice if more white women punished the anti-reproductive rights party. We’ll see what happens in VA.
Patricia Kayden
@amk: Yes it would be nice if more white women punished the anti-reproductive rights party. We’ll see what happens in VA.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: It was a tweet and a twitter pic, ffs. It wasn’t an article.
Mandalay
aimai:
No, you and the reporter are both making extraordinary claims.
Firstly, there is no “piece”. The reporter merely tweeted a close up photo of some buttons and claimed that the picture was taken at the GOP convention yesterday. But she did not identify the store or the owner, and nobody else has seen the buttons. I find it “extra-ordinary” that a reporter would make such a claim, but choose not to provide any supporting evidence when it would have been trivial to do so (by taking a photo of the store, and speaking to the owner). Bear in mind that the job of the person making this claim is a reporter for California politics FFS. How the fuck can you be a political reporter and not speak to the store owner, and not take a picture of the store to prove it really exists?
Secondly, if this story really is true why is her own newspaper (SF Chronicle) not running the story? And why are other news sources such as Huffington Post reporting about “buttons that were reportedly spotted”.
Why? Because at this stage there is no fucking supporting evidence that the story is true. Nothing.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Mandalay: You could check her Twitter feed for more info if you’d like.
https://twitter.com/cmarinucci/status/386680889033248768
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mandalay
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think your comment is misdirected (ffs). I am not making any such claim, though another poster is. See posts 191 and 197.
Mandalay
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Thanks for the link. There is absolutely nothing there which corroborates the reporter’s claim.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: No, it was not misdirected. You are complaining that it is unbelievable due to things like the reporter not following up with the owner and not posting other pics.
gene108
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
There are a lot of dumb rank and file Republicans.
There are also so damn evil genius types still working within the GOP.
Think Bush, Jr. and his campaign brain, Karl Rove.
The evil genius types figured to leverage the CU decision to maximum effect in 2010 local races.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Mandalay: She said where she took the picture. Are you claiming she didn’t take the picture there? If so, do you have any evidence?
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mandalay
@martha:
Ah, the “appeal to authority” approach. I wondered how long it would take before that was proffered to support the position that the story must be true.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud:
What the media whores ignore, of course, is that the clean CR is at sequester funding levels, and that was the compromise made for the clean CR.
So Obama, Reid, and the dems have offered a compromise in the clean CR.
The Rethuglicans have rejected the compromise they negotiated, because it doesn’t give them everything they could ever want.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: You misunderstand the appeal to authority fallacy.
Mandalay
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
No she didn’t. She said she took the photo “outside VIP reception”. That means nothing. Why is she not identifying the specific store? Why would she (allegedly) take a close up photo of the buttons, but not also take a photo of the store, or speak to the store owner, given that she is a political reporter?
I am claiming that there is no supporting/corroborating evidence for her claim at this time. Maybe it will turn up later.
It’s tough to prove a negative , and maybe she did take the photo at the convention. But I have posted my specific reasons for doubting her claim many times in this thread.
Gian
@Mandalay:
You need better bait on the line. Trolling with that you might catch a waterlogged boot
Mandalay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well that is accurate. but I am not claiming there was any article, and never did.
YellowJournalism
Um, that is a hoax because that image has been floating around Facebook and Twitter for years.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: But you are demanding a level of detail that an individual tweet cannot provide. Why do you dismiss the observation by a known and respected reporter that she saw something in a certain place?
ruemara
@Mandalay: You’re not an authority on anything. Why should your claim be worth more than hers? She never said the “store”, she said they were on sale at the convention in a tweet. It’s not the angle of whatever she was investigating at the CA GOP convention. You’re acting as if she’s casting a massive slur on the good reputation of the CA GOP and that somehow, a reporter decided to hoax us all to bring down the estimation of such honorable people.
Mandalay
@Omnes Omnibus:
To be clear, I do not “dismiss” it – it may be true – but I am skeptical.
In particular, given that she is a “respected reporter” for the SF Chronicle, why you think they are not running her story? It is a pretty hot and newsworthy story if true. The only reason I can think of is that there is no supporting evidence that it is true. (Of course they may still run it, but as of now I don’t see it.)
Chris T.
Ah yes, it’s such an extraordinary claim! Republicans never insult Hillary Clinton! They don’t pass crazy bills that demean women, oh no! Republican leaders and rank-and-file are always so respectful and kind!
Haydnseek
@Mandalay: It’s not a story, Mandy. It’s merely a tweet. It wouldn’t be a story in any event. “Cali Repubs sell insulting buttons at event! Film at 11!” Yeah, that’s a hot, newsworthy story. They’re repubs, Mandy. It’s what they do. They’ve been doing this shit forever. I’m surprised that the buttons were that kind. Expressing skepticism that they would sell such buttons betrays a heartbreaking lack of connection with current reality. If this isn’t the case, nice troll!
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: Why would she tweet the pic if she hadn’t seen it? What is in it for her?
Mandalay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Nonsense. She could have tweeted a second photo of the person selling the buttons. She could have done many things to improve her credibility. All we have is one close up photo of the buttons. Don’t you expect a bit more from a “respected” political reporter?
Supposing some reporter posted a damning photo – but nothing more – about some product being sold at a Democratic convention? Would you take that at face value as automatically being true?
Ruckus
@Schlemizel:
Not trying to be contrary here but that really is what we are doing. It is what all insurance is really about. Let the entire group pay for the losses of the people who need whatever monetary protection we are providing. In the case of healthcare insurance a huge proportion of expensive treatments now go to us olds. Yes younger people need health care, yes middle age people need health care and we should all be paying for needs of all of us. And many of the 20-40 folks know they need health insurance, even if not at this very moment. As an example I have been paying into Medicare for all but four years of my working life. But I’m not yet eligible for it(sooner than I want to admit but not yet) I paid it forward. That’s what we are supposed to do. But if one sees one self as invincible, as many youngsters do, they see no need for paying it forward. Some of them grow out of that. Some of them are just idiots.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay:
I would be less likely to accept it as true absent further evidence than I would be wrt the GOP. Do you know why? History.
Mandalay
@Omnes Omnibus:
She may hate Republicans. She may be a fervent supporter of Hillary Clinton. She may desperately want to come up with a scoop. Who knows, but none of those reasons are implausible.
Regardless, there is nothing to corroborate the claim, and her own paper is not running the story.
MattF
@YellowJournalism: Old joke, new button:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/special.asp
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay:
It’s not really a huge story. It is a water is wet situation.
Haydnseek
@Mandalay: …….and what a scoop it is! I’ll bet she’s already planning the party she’s going to throw after winning that Pulitzer Prize! Hell, buttongate figures to be the story of the decade! You keep grasping at straws that were imaginary to start with, Mandy. Drop the shovel. Step away from the hole.
Not Adding Much To The Community
Mandalay, it’s never too late to go fuck yourself.
Ruckus
@Haydnseek:
Hey! Let him/her keep digging. It’s fun watching the willfully ignorant never figure out why people give up trying to inform them that they are willfully ignorant.
Ruckus
@Not Adding Much To The Community:
That comment is going to put a serious dent in any attempt in getting us to agree with your name.
joel hanes
@piratedan:
Even if Yeshua and his ministry are mythical, somehow we have received certain texts: this chunk of moral sentiment known as the Sermon on the Mount, which is pretty damned amazing and progressive no matter what its actual provenance. That and Matthew 25 and the golden rule being the whole of the law — revolutionary stuff, brilliantly presented.
It’s a damned shame that so many who claim to honor Him spend all their time mouthing the words, and completely miss the spirit that’s supposed to be the entire point.
joel hanes
@Mandalay:
maybe it happened. Maybe it didn’t.
Thanks for this. It’s important that we don’t let ourselves believe and repeat lies; the reality is bad enough.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Mandalay:
I’m guessing that you’ve never been to a convention or trade show since you keep referring to a “store” when there’s no such thing on a convention floor. Care to try again in a way that doesn’t display your ignorance?
The word you’re grasping for is “booth” or possibly “table,” not “store.” Start from there.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): You don’t understand, Mandalay isn’t accusing anyone of anything; just asking questions, in the same way as a Cavuto Mark makes something a question.
SpaceSquid
Someone somewhere is getting a lecture about how Democrats have poisoned political discourse from a white man wearing one of those badges.
johnny aquitard
@scav:
And yet they get so angry when told ‘you didn’t build that’.
Teabaggers: Incredibly stupid and narcissistic.