Via Raw Story, here’s a steaming mug of fair-trade schadenfreude as minions of an online Tea Party grift complain about being fisted by the Invisible Hand:
The conservative Tea Party News Network website (TPNN) lost most of its staff on Thursday following a mass resignation over the site’s “despicable practices,” Politico reported.
“You regularly show contempt for the people who make all your financial success possible,” the group said in a letter to site owners Todd Cefaratti and Kellen Guida. “The staff who work around the clock to produce timely and breaking content is regularly reminded that ‘writers are cheap.’ The audience is regarded as unsophisticated simpletons.”
It almost sounds as if these roughly squeezed bags of pekoe are complaining about Job Creators! Fear not; there’s room for you at the ramparts, comrades!
catclub
Accuracy in media!
SRW1
“I am shocked, shocked, shocked that there is grifting going on here.”
MattF
“They were stealing from idiots and we weren’t getting our share.”
ET
This would only be a surprise to the “unsophisticated simpletons”
Belafon
The free market is for those “others.” The rest of us should be earning our living the same way Mitt Romney and the Koch’s do, off the hard work of others.
//
NonyNony
Could be said about probably 90% of business owners – probably 100% of business owners who no longer work in the trenches. Definitely 100% of the business owners who started their businesses to fleece the rubes.
Well, writers are cheap these days. There are people on the Internets just giving their writing away!
Their site is specifically cultivated to appeal to unsophisticated simpletons! It’s a way to make it so that the small expenditures on writing aren’t a problem for the people reading the site!
I swear – right wingers have no capacity for self-reflection, do they? Right-wing labor policies are ALL ABOUT reducing the cost of labor to increase the money going into the pockets of the owners of the business. That’s the entire right-wing model of economics – trickle-down theories are all based on the idea that more money in the hands of the owners of production leads to better results for society as a whole.
I do get a kick out of these stories of right-wingers discovering that the Invisible Hand is giving them the finger, but ultimately it’s pointless. Will any of these people understand that their problems are actually the outcomes that their right-wing ideology is trying to cause for people in their class? Doubtful.
boatboy_srq
@catclub: That, and
“Labor is cheap” is the constant whinge heard from People Inconvenienced By Having To Pay
ForWorkersMore Than Once,and is used to browbeat otherwise good and potentially loyal staff.AMinNC
Wait, wait, wait, conservative owners of businesses don’t automatically share the fruits of their employees’ labor with the employees, but instead keep it almost exclusively for themselves? Unpossible! Ayn Rand told me that ALL business owners are absolutely bursting with integrity and would never steal surplus value from their workers.
Please disregard, oh, essentially all of recorded history to keep that myth alive in your tea-filled hearts (and empty wallets, sad to say).
The Ancient Randonneur
So who are the Maker, and who are the Takers in this scenario? Paging Ms Rand. Ms Rand to the nearest WHITE courtesy phone please.
different-church-lady
@NonyNony:
I think it goes deeper than that. The problems you’ve identified are a subset of the a larger truth: all of right-wing culture is based in social belligerence. Contempt is a way of life. They disrespect their audience and they disrespect their labor because disrespect is the only value they have.
Bobby B.
Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas.
It is a good sign when a man’s higher nature comes forward
A bad sign when his lower nature comes forward
When retainers take charge
And the master stays back
Scooby dooby doo wah
beth
There was a story on the NBC Nightly News the other night about a San Francisco restaurant that pays a living wage with full benefits to all the employees. There’s a $1.25 surcharge listed on the menu that explains what they’re doing and the restaurant is doing really well, high profits and very low employee turnover. As I watched it I realized that was the first time in many years that I’ve seen that take on business portrayed in the media. I was actuallly waiting to see if they’d put some MBA type on to explain why this type of business model has to be wrong but was pleasantly surprised that they didn’t. Maybe we are learning. Here’s what I hope is a link to the story: http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/one-restaurant-s-recipe-for-giving-full-benefits-to-employees-400608835919
Kay
This is a really common fallacy among Tea Partiers here (and also among people who should know better – national pundits).
All we need is more “transparency” and none of these theft and scams and grifts would arise. “Transparency” is the new “regulation”.
Citizen_X
@Bobby B.: From the Bow Wow Te Ching?
Scamp Dog
The poor dears are hurt that all their efforts aren’t being used to for the benefit of the country as a whole (or at least the good, upstanding citizens like themselves), and instead are being leached away by the people at the top. That’s what the conservative movement has always been about, you dopes! Good like finding an organization that matches your ideals AND some money to pay you.
beth
@Kay: And we all saw what happened when the IRS (the agency tasked with making sure non-profits handle their money correctly) tried to do any investigating.
Chris
Cretinous infants who made a living promoting the idea that workers are totally treated awesomely all over, that no regulations are needed because rhe bosses are just awesome, and that anyone who complains is a communist busybody are shocked to find out it applies to them to.
The Moar You Know
They are. Writers are cheap, too. I fail to see the issue here. Your Galtian overlords told you the entire truth about the scam operation you were a part of, and just precisely where you stood and what you were worth in the grand scheme of things, and you got offended and stormed off in a huff?
Shit, that’s the precise plot of every Ayn Rand book ever. You’d think they’d be thrilled.
Ingrates.
Kay
@beth:
They should ALL be ashamed of the hyping of the IRS story. Complete and utter BS from the get-go, clearly a campaign designed to discredit and weaken the regulator.
Liberal pundits are as much to blame for that as anything the Tea Party pumped out. They based an entire media narrative on a single word “targeting”. They loaded that word up with so much malicious intent and conspiracy that it was ludicrous. The IRS is allowed to “target” any category of filing they want. The idea that they’re supposed to wander around in the weeds and treat every category equally is insane. That’s what regulators do: they look for patterns and target. Media took the word “target” and added “the Tea Party” without a shred of evidence, for months. They invented the malicious intent.
boatboy_srq
@different-church-lady: Hammer. Nail. Impact.
Comrade Dread
“This is the worst kind of discrimination! The kind against me!”
Belafon
@The Moar You Know:
Every conservative knows they are the type of people that Galt would take with him. They just know it.
It’s like their version of God: They’ve made John Galt in their own image. I personally would love both God and Galt to lay judgment on them.
The Moar You Know
@beth: Is that how they’re trying to spin it now? The restaurant owner made headlines a few years ago for the surcharge, said it was because of SF’s policy that all employees had to have “living wage” and health coverage, no exceptions, and he was going to go bankrupt and wanted all the customers to understand how this would destroy all business.
He’s a full-throttle conservatard, of course.
And by the looks of it, he missed his calling in PR.
japa21
@Kay: Even when it became clear that all groups were being reviewed pretty much equally, the targeting meme continued.
beth
@Kay: Oh I couldn’t agree more. I have always said that the IRS director, when asked if they singled out Tea Party groups for scrutiny, should have answered “of course we did. It’s our f**king job!”. He would have lost his job anyway so why pussyfoot around? Looking back, I wish there was a hell of a lot more firm pushback to all the nonsense that started on 1/20/09 – we’d be a better country today if there had.
cmorenc
@NonyNony:
That’s because a key element deliberately employed to inhibit wingers from understanding this dynamic is to misdirect and stoke their resentment toward undeserving inferior or meddling “others” whose impositions are allegedly the main force unjustly interfering with and holding back good folks. Beyond just being a partisan mouthpiece, that’s the other primary function served by Faux News.
Kay
@japa21:
It did, and it’s not like they didn’t have transparency! Propublica had the whole nuanced picture the whole time, in their usual excruciating and elaborately reported detail. Documents, filings, graphs, whatever you want.
They had the information. It just wasn’t the information they wanted.
Punchy
@beth: What’s mind-blowingly fucking amazing about that story is that it only costs an extra $1.25 to do this for their employees.
Edit: OK, now I see that this wasn’t done so much as a generous thing, but a “fuck this law, I gotta make max scratch somehow” greed maximizer.
beth
@The Moar You Know: Are you sure you’re thinking of the same place? This owner was a woman, they interviewed employees who’d been there for years and seemed quite happy, they have full benefits (including dental and sick days) and have over $1 million invested in their 401k plans. Even if the owner’s a full on wingnut, it still seems like this place is head and shoulders above most restaurant gigs.
Cervantes
@The Moar You Know:
If the restaurant in question is Zazie, the owner is Jennifer Piallat and not at all the kind of person you’re describing.
Buddy H
@NonyNony: Well said.
Ryan
Grifters with consciences and ethics?
Cain
@Kay:
I think though some people have missed that at least these group of people have a sense of ethics and did call them out. Sure, we can make fun of them in beliving in an ideology that has turned around and gave them the shank. So I appreciate the fact that they are calling out the ethical ill doing.
Belafon
@Punchy: For most companies – such as Wal-Mart – labor is a small part of their total costs, so raising it doesn’t raise the cost of doing business that much. And in a lot of cases – like Wal-Mart – skimping on employee pay just makes the employees less enthusiastic about doing their jobs, which ends up costing the company.
SatanicPanic
@Kay: When I heard that I thought- you people should be happy they’re going after your scam organizations. Were they so fucking naive that they thought every last one of those Tea Party orgs was on the up-and-up?
Napoleon
@The Moar You Know:
The Department of Labor has her bio on their website and it does not sound like the same person you are describing.
Kay
@Cain:
That’s a good point. There really IS a Tea Party contingent who loathe crony capitalism and rip-offs. The difference between them and anti-corruption liberals (and it’s a big difference) is the more jaded Tea Party members think the solution is to get rid of government. They really do. They think the only way to clean it out is to end it. They exist. It’s a faction.
Mike E
@different-church-lady: See: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Assholes, definition of (“…people who demend all social interaction happen on their terms”).
Buddy H
@Kay: Yes, and I never understood their logic. They’re anti-wallstreet but at the same time they’re anti-overregulation. Do they have brains?
jonas
@The Moar You Know: That’s a different restaurant, or coffee shop IIRC. According to the NBC report, Zazie’s owner has run her place like that from the very beginning (10 years or so now) — this isn’t some righteous asshole Obamacare protest surcharge or something.
boatboy_srq
@Punchy: Was that another Obamacare Tax line item (like what Papa John’s was doing)? Sheesh.
EDIT: nevermind: I see this has been answered in better terms.
Buddy H
COCONUT CREEK, Fla. — A Florida police dog is being kicked off the force after biting a doughnut shop worker and an officer in separate incidents.
Officials say 4-year-old Renzo had been with the Coconut Creek Police Department for more than a year. The Belgian Malinois bit an officer in November while tracking a suspect. Last week, he burst out of a patrol car and bit a Dunkin’ Donuts worker in the calf.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel reports Renzo and Officer Carl DiBlasi went to the doughnut shop Feb. 11 to meet a police sergeant. The sergeant approached the patrol car and began to pet Renzo. The dog lunged at her and DiBlasi struggled to restrain him. Renzo broke away and bit the worker who was nearby.
The retired dog will now live with DiBlasi.
Buddy H
Renzo can get a job writing for the TPNN
RareSanity
@Ryan:
No, just people that actually thought they were going to be the beneficiaries of the grift, only to find out that they weren’t beneficiaries or targets of the grift…they were the grift.
NonyNony
@The Moar You Know:
I think you may be thinking of the idiot in Florida who owned a number of Denny’s and was going to put a 5% “Obamacare surcharge” on his tickets before Denny’s corporate smacked him hard for the bad PR he was causing.
There were IIRC a few other examples of conservatives touting the “Obamacare surcharge” idea to get customers up in arms about them having to provide healthcare. I think the most memorable example was that idiot from Papa John’s who thought he could generate outrage by telling everyone that he’d have to raise his prices by 15 cents per pizza if he had to provide healthcare. I mean he was right, but the outrage was directed toward HIM and was mostly of the “if it’s that goddamn cheap why aren’t you already doing it” variety and not the kind he was expecting…
boatboy_srq
@SatanicPanic: A lot of them probably did think that. There’s a fantasy among the Teahad that they’re all Good Righteous Moral Upstanding Xtian Citizens – and while the Xtian part is likely close to the truth the rest is all up for grabs. Then again, these are the business owners convinced their employees are cheating them; the vendors who cut corners to increase their profits (and if their customers get sick/injured/whatever from consuming their product it’s their own fault); etc etc. Standard Objectivist Libertarianism: it’s never their fault.
Bubblegum Tate
@NonyNony:
You said everything I had to say., right down to the fact that these people will fail to make the connection between their ideology and the treatment they’re getting. Ask not for whom the Galt galts, for the Galt galts for thee, teabaggers.
catclub
@Kay:
This is the standard M.O of the right wing griftopia. Raise money from the rubes, contract out work to a private company owned by you – or your wife. Profit. First entry in the list is Newt Gingrich.
And even with transparency it is totally legal ( within certain very wide limits.)
Mike in NC
So we have a “Tea Party News Network” because FOX News and CNN aren’t extreme enough for these drooling nutjobs?
ruemara
@Napoleon: like, say, not male.
@Mike in NC: yep. They were too liberal
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Belafon:
Sort of. Keep in mind that a lot of their costs are for things that they buy from suppliers and that those suppliers all have labor costs, too. So, yes, WalMart itself could raise wages without significantly raising prices, but if we affect that change economy wide, it would have a significantly larger effect on their costs than just calculating their direct labor expenses. Still worth doing, but not as cost free as a first order analysis would lead you to believe.
catclub
@boatboy_srq: The Xtian part is interesting. You can find many cases where a right wing writer will note: “If Christian is in the business name, be sure to be paid in advance, in cash, because these people think they have a pass.”
Cause they have been burned.
raven
Give em a light and they’ll follow it anywhere!
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
I’m going to really like this new job. I made the right choice. The only problem is that every other person who works the post is a flaming right wing nut bag. They’re all competent, dedicated, and friendly as long as we aren’t discussing politics, so they’ll all make fine co-workers, but yesterday I was informed that the housing crisis was entirely caused by Jimmy Carter telling banks to make mortgages to black people (combined with all sorts of factual errors, such as Fannie Mae being created by the HUD Act of 1978 which also forced banks to make bad loans to black people, a statement which by itself contains three false claims), the 14th Amendment didn’t make federal law supreme over state law (technically true since John Marshall had made that clear decades earlier, but that wasn’t his point), and that, “Obama is a traitor.” The last is, indeed, a direct quote.
Fortunately, once training is over in a few weeks it will be just me in the security office for the whole shift and I’ll only need to interact with the other security officers for about 20 minutes a day. And, as I said, they’re perfectly pleasant people to deal with so long as certain subjects are avoided.
raven
Nobody pays any attention to people who say “meme”!
Buddy H
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I feel your pain, as the saying goes. In my long and varied career in a variety of big and small businesses, I shared workspace with some VERY vocal NRA enthusiasts, racists, Rush Limbaugh fans, etc.
Made me wish for a small cubicle in an isolated part of the building. Or the ability to work from home.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Buddy H: Oh, this hurts to read. I just had to (very, very reluctantly) take a dog back to the place from where we adopted him, he was an out-of-control biter. You want to feel like an utter failure at life? Return an adopted pet.
This was not puppy teething. He bit when he got mad or frustrated and he bit to make it hurt. Not a warning shot. We are thinking he was separated at the wrong time from his mom and littermates and didn’t learn the biting rules.
At any rate, I’m glad DiBlasi is taking him home, but hope he doesn’t have any kids around. Training a dog that does aggressive biting out of using that as a method of getting their way is virtually impossible. You can (and this is where I ran into a real moral problem with our adoptee) train them out of biting you. I was convinced I could do that. But my neighbors have a five and three year old, my nephews are five and seven, and the nephews are little shits and would certainly provoke any dog that had ever thought about biting a person into doing so. I couldn’t have that. I hope Officer DiBlasi can deal with this, it will take a long time, a lot of patience, and in the end is, put nicely, not guaranteed to work.
Chris
@Kay:
Maybe if the word was “profile,” conservatives woulda liked it better
CONGRATULATIONS!
@NonyNony: No. I lived in SF for a long time. The place I am thinking of is definitely in SF and is NOT Zazie. Which I am very familiar with and in a very good way.
The dickhead may well be out of business by now.
Tom_23
Collective action by the workforce. Sounds like a union.
Capri
@The Moar You Know:
If you watch the segment, the owner of the place featured is a woman. I think you’re thinking of something else.
Sherparick
@AMinNC: How can they steal when they, the Galtian Heroes, create all value. These moochers should have been grateful that they were allowed a couple hours to sleep and eat and to get our name of their Rightwing Grifter Resume. Next time, we just bring in interns!!
P.S. I am snarking in voice of the owners of this site.
Couldn't Stand the Weather
@different-church-lady:
I think disrespect is a symptom of the contempt you mention; to me, they have contempt for their workers, their audience, and everyone else. Other than that small distinction, I agree a hundred percent.
Betty Cracker
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: That’s the minefield I have to tiptoe through on many family occasions. The best strategy is just to refuse to discuss politics by mutual consent. It only took around 25 years to arrive at that!
Kay
@catclub:
It literally scares me, because I get doomday-ish and I start to think “oh no! no one knows how to make money anymore without stealing it or skimming 15% off some hinky and questionable enterprise”.
Jamey
I feel bad about this…
I wish that TPNN had also infected its workers with anthrax.
Kay
@Chris:
Wouldn’t you question the whole premise? A group of career IRS people in Ohio/Kentucky went out of their way to target Tea Party groups?
Do these people know anyone who has done a job like that a long time? It’s a job. Any political fervor was gone after the first 6 months. They probably hate both Parties. When I was with the postal service we used to hate mail from DC- any mail from them. It mattered not a bit who was President :)
Buddy H
@Betty Cracker: The problem with several co-workers was that once I made a relatively mild remark about not agreeing with Rush Limbaugh (this was back in 1993 when he was a rising rock star) they tagged me as the “office liberal” and hungered for debate. The NRA guy would saunter up to my workstation, put one foot on a chair, lean his arms on his knee, then lecture me on the evils of gun control. It became tiresome.
And when you’re stuck at work, you’re a captive audience.
I’m so glad I’m out of that place…
Related note: the owner of that company was extreme right wing. Toward the end, our paychecks were bouncing. But his wife still boasted about all her QVC impulse purchases.
Frankensteinbeck
@different-church-lady:
This. Hardly any conservatives believe that trickle down works, except in a ‘this must be true because liberals don’t like it’ way. The motivation is cruelty. It’s about sticking it to the other guy. Power rush, crab bucket resentment, racial hate, just plain asshole sadism – it has its flavors and variations, but the motivation is cruelty, not economics theory.
Linnaeus
Cheap labor conservatism, ladies and gentlemen.
catclub
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I thought that this was going to be a ‘Florida Dog’ post to parallel ‘Florida Man’ posts.
And it kind of is.
ranchandsyrup
i love your writering, Betty. :)
Betty Cracker
@Buddy H: Anyone who invaded my cubicle with that shit would get a crotch-load of scalding hot coffee! Nah, not really, but I’d be tempted! I’d probably just stick my fingers in my ears and sing “LALALALA.” Worked in kindergarten, still works today.
Elizabelle
Another disillusioned innocent: Transvaginal Bob’s wife, Maureen McDonnell — former first lady of Virginia — sentenced to 366 days — a year and a day — for her part in their corruption grift.
That’s a serious sentence. It’s long enough to get someone deported after finishing. Although Maureen is not deportable.
Whether she or he ever serve any of their sentences, I cannot say. TVBob’s out on appeal.
I hope the chef who blew the whistle comes out of this best.
Josie
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: @Betty Cracker: My middle son’s in-laws are perfectly nice people who are extremely conservative. They live in the same town as he and his wife, so we always visit when I go there. He has made me promise to keep quiet about politics and I have kept my promise, although it has not been easy. I can’t imagine having to face that every day at work.
Elizabelle
Yup. Maureen’s free on bond during the appeal too. She-it.
In honor of her previous career as a Redskins cheerleader:
Hey hey ho ho
It’s off to prison you might go
bemused
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
I think it’s interesting that the angry rightwingers need to introduce politics and who is to blame for everything wrong, anytime, anywhere, at the drop of a hat to people they have just met. They just start ranting. This doesn’t happen much with liberals unless they get an idea they have met fellow liberals.
Elizabelle
Thought of a second verse for my Maureen cheer:
Goddamn. Whoa Whoa
The problem is that we don’t know.
Justice for all my a$$.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@CONGRATULATIONS!: May I just remind you again that you are not a failure, but rather a responsible pet owner. Responsible both to the kiddos around and the pup, who will at least have a chance with diligent (and competent) training from where you got him He may still need to be in a home without children, but he’s got a shot at life since he’ll get an education. Thank you for doing the right, but hard thing.
gian
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Last week a police dog attacked the officer’s 4 year old. Resulted in a leg amputation. Rialto police and Hesperia home
Couldn't Stand the Weather
Can’t picture Mrs. McDonnell as a cheerleader. Just can’t.
I could see Condoleeza Rice, Megyn Kelly or Pat Nixon as a Redskinette before McDonnell.
As for the disillusioned teabagger staffers… no pity for those brain donors. Their teatard bosses piss all over everyone else and tell all and sundry that it’s raining. But, not special snowflake you?
Whatever, guys.
Reality, what a concept.
Just Some Fuckhead
Tea party gravy train is going to end when we don’t have a black president any more. Make the money while ya can.
Buddy H
@bemused: Yes… I had a plumber working on my sink who launched into a rant against Al Gore and Barbra Streisand and all the other global warming hoaxters.
He did a shit job, by the way. I found out about a year later when the pipe burst, and another plumber criticized his work.
The absolute WORST experience was back in 1990… I was moving into a house, and there were some carpenter ants and/or termites. Called an exterminator. It was just me and him in the house. I was new to the area, and asked him about the nearby city.. He went into a long speech about the n****rs, how they were criminals, but not too dangerous, etc. He finished up his remarks by saying they should all be exterminated. I was tempted to call his boss, but I was too paranoid because he knew where I lived, and he seemed psychotic enough to take revenge if his livelihood was threatened.
Co-workers, tradesmen, in-laws… some nasty opinions out there. And they’re just itching to share them.
Couldn't Stand the Weather
@gian:
What the fuck is up with the training of these canines? Aren’t the breeds the cops use somewhat smart (allegedly)?
And, that kid… he’ll go through life minus a limb because some trainer didn’t know how to do his damn job? Never mind that the kid will never trust a dog again.
Calouste
@Couldn’t Stand the Weather: All these people think they are special snowflakes, because their parents told them the sun is shining out of their ass and their pastor tells them they are among the chosen and whatever not. Which is why, to combine it with another discussion on this thread, they have contempt for everyone else because every one else obviously is not a special snowflake like these special snowflakes.
And indeed, it can be rather crushing for these people when they bump into reality.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
I think it was bad what they did, and it is nice to see someone powerful prosecuted, but in the great scheme of giant grifts they seem like minor players.
She seems genuinely crazy, for one thing. Maybe people didn’t know but there’s obviously some real problems there.
jl
Chumps deserve no mercy. Out onto the streets they should go. If they were real creators and makers they would have been on top of the cash, instead of doing flunky garbage like, you know, the actual ‘.work’. But they did not get into the cash flow, so they aren’t they ain’t. aka, the didn’t so couldn’t so shouldn’t. Out with them! Why not let the winners win, for just this once! OK!?
/snark
Kay
@jl:
The dissenters could do a real expose. Name names. Look for where the money went. This is just a tantrum, really. They could seriously hang these people out to dry.
NonyNony
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Naw – the grifters will be fine as long as there’s a Democrat in the White House. They did quite well under Clinton, and that was back in the days when they did most of their work by mail (via the US government subsidized postal service). The fact that he’s black opened up a few new angles, but with the crop of marks that they’ve cultivated it doesn’t matter who the Dem in the Oval Office is, they’ll be able to pull money for years.
The thing that will kill the grift the fastest is another few years of the GOP controlling every branch of government – but even there they made money off the rubes by exploiting the 911 tragedy to scare the crap out of them and get them to buy their commemorative coins and guns to fight off the “muslins”.
Cervantes
If only the resigning workers really were dewy innocents, one might be able to work up some sympathy. Whereas they are mostly a pack of shameless charlatans and NRA fetishists, and the less anyone sees of their “timely and breaking content” the better off we all are.
As for Cefaratti and Guida: the one learned nothing of value at business school and the other has God on his side. What (else) could go wrong?
Couldn't Stand the Weather
@Calouste:
I expressed surprise at these particular (snow)flakes because they are right in the office with these Galtian Makers™ and have been working cheek to jowl, I suspect for a while, with the OvenMitt3000 wannabes. The staffers should have caught on before now that management (and I use the word loosely) held them in very low regard.
But I can see you’re right. I should know this by now. No teabagger could see the contempt was also for him, cuz SPECIAL.
Ruckus
@RareSanity:
Really the problem is they thought they should be getting a bigger cut. They didn’t mind creating crap and taking the money, they just didn’t realize that for the takers, everyone is a mark.
different-church-lady
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You think they’re all just going to retire during the first female presidency?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Betty Cracker:
Last week, someone posted an article from (I think) the BBC that said the only way to get someone whose mind is fixed on a topic is to ask them to explain how it works rather than trying to challenge their facts. I think it’s akin to the Thanksgiving Method of dealing with wingnut relatives that I stumbled on.
But with coworkers, the safest bet is probably just to change the topic to sports without other comment.
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Socratic method: brilliant, timeless, underutilized.
Elizabelle
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Your fellow officers sound like fodder for a new novel.
Maybe murder victims.
Villago Delenda Est
@NonyNony:
Which takes us right back to the simpletons thing.
They deserve to be serfs.
boatboy_srq
@catclub: Xtian in the biz name is a BIG red flag. But you’ll notice that the Teahad is fairly specific in its Xtianity. Hobby Lobby is a key example: the BIZ name may be inoffensive, but the OWNERSHIP certainly stinks. And as with so much of the rest of Xtianity, most Christians aren’t especially welcome any more than any other faith.
bemused
@Buddy H:
“Just itching to share” their opinions describes it to a tee. I can’t decide if they really believe the majority of people think exactly like them or they are eager for a verbal rumble with a possible liberal or both. No matter, it seems they have an overwhelming compulsion to rant all day long always on the verge of hysteria. That has to be an exhausting way to live.
Villago Delenda Est
@NonyNony: Anyone with a “D” behind their name is automatically an usurper of the crown that was created by Saint Ronaldus Magnus and passed down to the Bush family. The wingtard gravy train lives on this.
Mandalay
@Elizabelle:
Although they are still not behind bars, if it’s any consolation their lawyers will be squeezing every last dime from the McDonnells.
The best case scenario is that the lawyers milk them dry, their appeals fail, and they both still end up in the slammer.
Southern Beale
Pro-tip: anything containing the words “Tea Party” is a scam. We had some schadenfreude over the scam that was Tea Party TV here in Tennessee about three years ago. I mean, seriously: the billionaire who was TN financial director for Republican Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign fucking DESERVES to get scammed.
Just as the idiots donating to Ben Carson’s presidential campaign DESERVE to get fleeced.
These people are idiots. Fools and their money. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Southern Beale
Why am I in moderation? Don’t you people know I have no moderation?
boatboy_srq
@different-church-lady: Aren’t they tuckered out after “Hillary’s first Presidency” in 1993-2000? IIRC they were griping about how she was the one actually running the country back then…
muddy
@bemused: They listen to ranting all day long, on the radio, on the Foxnoise, maybe they think this is what educated discourse sounds like.
And of course, so much of it is based on “what will make dem libs mad”, not actual positions, so they need that payoff.
Chris
@bemused:
Yeah, that’s been my experience too. The people who walk up to you and declare their politics in the first five minutes and go off on tangents about all their pet peeves… are all conservatives. Maybe it comes from the “real American” arrogance of assuming any normal people must agree with you.
Karmus
Haaa haaa haaaaa haaa … (pause for breath) haaaaah hahahaahhahaaaa (passes out).
(But so worth it.)
jl
@Kay:
” The dissenters could do a real expose. ”
I hate that what I have read about the GOP and their grifter associates has made be so cynical, Kay, but what precisely would be the point?
The GOP knows very well what is going on. Apparently there is a revolving door between the GOP and the grifters. Do you think the GOPers do not know who they are renting and selling their mailing and email lists to? Their marks seem incapable of understanding how they are scammed. The reactionary wing of US politics makes its living that way. Who there gives a damn what any Democrat would say? They are unlikely to be prosecuted because of the political storm it would create.
Those who know don’t care, and those who should care (because they are the marks) are incapable of knowing.
So, I figure, work on GOTV in 2016, save the ACA, and see if we can make mental health treatment more available to the GOP base, at least those still salvageable? I try to think of ways to help, work out my bad karma, and that is all i have come up with on it so far.
boatboy_srq
@Elizabelle: According to WUSA “a year and a day” makes this a matter for Corrections. So there’ll be some mandatory time-in-cell. About time. Although, it occurs to me that her most grievous sin was not corruption itself, but her willingness to be corrupted by the wrong end of Big Tobacco (Star Scientific and not Altria).
Tommy
@bemused:
I might come here and rant from time to time. But I bet 99% of the time I am not. When your default position in life seems to be outrage that must be, as you said, an exhausting way to live life. Not how I want to live my own!
jl
@jl: Also seems to me that the big money GOP funders must know by now that these organizations skim off far more than half the money. The money suits must consider it the cost of doing business.
Parallels to organized crime, and white collar crime shake-downs arise, I think.
Edit: I remember when HW Bush was pres, and it first occurred to me that the GOP was devolving into little more than a white collar crime ring. But I had no idea what I would see over the next decade. If someone from the future told me, I would not have believed it.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I’ve used the Thanksgiving Method with some profit on relentless wingnuts who won’t take “let’s change the subject” for an answer. My favorite gambit is still “How ’bout them Gators?”
Mike in NC
Back in the mid-90s I was among a group of IT folks brought onto a new CSC contract in Falls Church, VA. Staff meetings quickly turned into the Rush Limbaugh Fan Club. Fortunately we all had separate offices, so that bullshit was mostly avoidable. One guy soon got fired and a couple of others transferred to other tasks, and I moved on to another company when the project looked like it was going to get cancelled.
Best thing about retirement is not having to deal with asshole coworkers.
Belafon
@Buddy H: I have a creationist in the office. The latest thing just now was “Scientists have to make assumptions about how fast strontium decays and and therefore cannot know the age of the rocks.” Something about a book by geologists about how the science of geology is wrong. I finally had to speak up.
Ruckus
@Josie:
It ain’t fun. It is a small place and we all have lots of work that we have to work together to accomplish a lot of the time so I try to keep to myself as much as possible. Also no one is a flaming ass conservative so that helps but I’m by a far, far distance the most liberal one there. What I find is that a lot of things have common threads and can be discussed, it’s their solutions that don’t make any sense. First, if you have money, you must be smart, because they work for a living and while the money is OK it isn’t great so having a lot makes you smart. Second, all liberal policies take from the working and give to the lazy poor, therefore all liberal policies are bad. They’ve been told this forever, OK the last 35 yrs, it’s on TV(Fox) so it must be true.
You have to shake their world view and prove to them that what they know is false to make any headway and that’s very, very difficult. There can be some grain of truth to most any side but like the anti-vaxers, one death from something they don’t like wipes out hundreds or thousands of deaths from something they don’t care about.
boatboy_srq
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): CONGRATULATIONS is definitely doing the right thing – but the adoption place isn’t likely to think so. For whatever reason most of the pet adoption resources I know of blacklist anyone who adopts and returns (for any reason). I feel for CapC, and I well understand how hard it is to admit that your pet is untrainable to the point of being dangerous, but I fear that any future adoptions s/he will get will only come through BJers.
@CONGRATULATIONS: should we be on the lookout for your next pet? I know a couple hobbyist-level breeders…
Elizabelle
@Kay: Yeah. I think Maureen has a whacking personality disorder. Something is mentally/emotionally wrong with her.
She kind of dragged TV Bob into the morass, but he had been Attorney General and did not do anything to get himself or her out of it. Plus there was other unethical conduct apart from Jonnie Williams: something very odd about a home they were renting out; don’t recall the details …
I hope that TVBob and Maureen do not skate. These were federal charges, not state. Virginia had this charming tradition that lawmakers don’t need much in the way of ethics laws, because their morals are so elevated or whatever …
I don’t think legislators should be in charge of drafting their own ethics regulations. Nothing but self-dealing. It undermines the institution they profess to love and respect.
jl
@Betty Cracker: I just enjoy the show now and try not to laugh too hard in their faces. Some wingnuts in my family have gotten to the point where every single thing you try to talk about, every topic, any random word can be a trigger.
Like
tree, or snow, or ice: global warming
Gators: endangered species
dentist: fluoridation, health care reform, Obamacare
Main irritation is my difficulty in keeping down the smirks and chuckles.
bemused
@Chris:
If I get into a conversation with a liberal on politics, our speaking decibel levels don’t go up and usually there is laughing or groaning about the insanities but no one seems to get red-faced with anger or loud. We aren’t interested in talking loud enough so that everyone within 30 feet can hear our conversation as I have observed rightwingers doing in stores, on the street, pretty much anywhere. They want everyone to hear their pearls of wisdom as they look around belligerently. It’s almost amusing at times.
Tommy
@Mike in NC: Those days. Worked in Falls Church and Tysons Corner for years (in the 90s) for an ad agency. My first job was actually at a firm that tracked large Federal contracts. I could speak procurement speak. My clients were all the Federal Divisions of Fortune 200 firms. CSC was one. IRS Tax Modernization contract. I think we might have broken the law with them. We did advertising pre-award of the contract. Oh memories …..
Elizabelle
@Mandalay: Time in the slammer could be a good thing for them, if either becomes genuinely contrite. Neither of them seem there yet.
It would definitely be a good thing for Virginians, and an example to any other tempted lawmakers. (A state delegate is serving a much harsher term already.)
Plus it solves that dreadful “what to wear” problem for Mrs. McDonnell. Not the Joneses either had been planning to keep up with, but — if either develops any facility for self-reflection at all — this could help them.
Cynics will say it’s one of the stages to doing the “I saw the light and I’m saved” grift.
Ruckus
@Just Some Fuckhead:
While there is a lot of truth to that, the color of the president’s skin is a catalyst for many of them, not the whole cause. They are still idiots of course.
boatboy_srq
@Mike in NC: Falls Church. ‘Nuff said. Same place had their Episcopal church defect to Anglican (of Nigeria) because Canterbury was too librul.
bemused
@Tommy:
We aren’t thinking about politics in a highly agitated state of mind every second we are awake.
Villago Delenda Est
@jl: It’s an open secret in the GOP that the entire Ron/Rand Paul organization is nothing more than a grifting operation. Hell, the deserting coward’s campaign organization was pretty much the same thing.
If an ethical bone was found anywhere in any of these douchebags’ bodies, it would be the classic man bites dog story.
MomSense
Is our teabaggers learning?
boatboy_srq
@jl: The bald-facedness of Newt’s Contract On America and the Shrub years were real shocks. I think one reason resistance to the Shrubbery was the persistent illusion that the [mal]administration couldn’t possibly be as malignant as it appeared.
Elizabelle
@MomSense: Prezactly.
Thank Dog Korra has a more modest learning curve.
Ruckus
@MomSense:
Not very likely.
They may see the evidence but they probably will reach a conclusion that makes no sense at all. But then if common sense was so common, more people would have some.
Calouste
@Elizabelle: So when TVBob and the most recent ex-governor of Oregon both end up in the slammer with Blagojevich, does the incarceration rate for American governors exceed that for the general population?
Elizabelle
@jl:
I subscribe (digitally) to the NYTimes, which allows one to request “news alerts” on topics of personal interest.
Weirdly, a few of my alerts recently have arrived this week in Spanish.
Am assuming it’s a programming glitch at the NYTimes, but were we wingnuts, can’t you see and hear the sputtering: That god-damned Obama. Now he’s making us all learn Spanish! Because he’s going to give the country to the illegals.
Tommy
@bemused: I hope I am not. Sure politics are important but I think most people here get it isn’t all there is in the world. In the early morning thread here I talked about my love of walking and mountain bikes. A person noted they didn’t have any sidewalks in their town. I was like same here. I didn’t then take this to Obama or some vast conspiracy against the Republicans that make sidewalks. I just don’t have sidewalks in my town. Maybe a reason I don’t know.
NonyNony
@jl:
You’re making an assumption not in evidence – that the money suits are smarter than the rest of the GOP base.
Some are and are cynically exploiting the base to get what they want. But many people with money are just as bone stupid as anyone else.
I think the Kochs in particular are marks who have been taken by a few different groups – Karl Rove’s outfit IIRC got quite a bit of funding from them and the money mostly seemed to pay for the staff of Karl Rove’s group. The difference between that and scaring the crap out of retirees to get them to donate to your group out of fear of the Black Muslim Democrats is one of degree, not really one of kind.
The Kochs were, by the way, raised to be marks for these kinds of grifters. Their father was a die-hard Bircher who taught them to believe in Bircher nonsense. Show me a man who believes Bircher nonsense and I’ll show you a man ready to hand you his wallet if you can convince him that the Commies don’t want you to have it.
Elizabelle
@Calouste: Very good question.
And you’ll notice that Democrats were not defending Kitzhaber to the bitter end, or much at all once the story started coming out.
Or rallying about Blago or the now forgotten fool who may have tried to purchase Obama’s Senate seat.
Tree With Water
From my keyboard to God’s ear let this Bill O Really? story have legs.
May it turn into a firestorm that sweeps O’Reilly’s career away, as into a whirlwind.
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by Murdoch’s incessant toil to deceive shall be sunk, and until every lie uttered by a FOX forked tongue shall be exposed, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether”.
Mandalay
@NonyNony: A kinder, gentler Koch brothers?….
Koch brothers team up with liberals to battle US addiction to mass incarceration
A few on the right such as Rand Paul have decided that if you throw the left a few crumbs (e.g. felon voting rights, drug sentencing) then you can suck in some of the undecideds in the middle.
I don’t see that with the Koch brothers, but I’m sure they are up to no good here.
Tommy
@Elizabelle: I clearly can’t speak for all of the IL liberals. We wanted Blago gone. Not huge fans of Quinn. Now we have a Republican in Governors Mansion. Do the math.
My House district has been D for 80 years. Let me say that again. 80 years. We lost it. Run bad candidates you lose elections!
Ruckus
@NonyNony:
Someone has to hold that wallet, (and rifle though it while doing so!) so better genuwine mercans than commies! Who better to protect you than a red blooded, chain smoking, cowboy? Harder to say that now that even the ex commie in charge rides a horse shirtless. Which of course should make one even more disgusted but whatever.
Marmot
@Belafon: So what happened?
I get so angry with their idiocy, I begin to shake. I wish I could laugh in their faces like a lot of y’all apparently do.
bemused
@Tommy:
A whole lot of rightwingers have a hot hatred for bikes and those who ride them. You should hear them complain about money spent “wastefully” on bike trails in our area. Rep. Jim Oberstar was an avid bike rider and got money appropriated for our trails which bugs them to this day.
Villago Delenda Est
@MomSense:
Probably not. Just hoping for a payoff to stop spouting off.
Ruckus
@Marmot:
Laughing at them doesn’t really work either. The real problem is that their minds have no setting for inquiry. Belief, that they have, questioning inquiry, not so much. And of course belief is based on acceptance, not evidence, so evidence has little sway on changing their minds.
boatboy_srq
@Tommy: How do we find good candidates and persuade them to run? I would be a much better County Supe than Delgaudio (for instance), but I’m not about to have my life turned upside-down and the pieces put under a microscope.
RSA
@bemused:
Maybe if you were constantly being told that those insanities are part of a persecution of you for your beliefs…
Bill
Tea Bagger employees get treated exactly as Tea Baggers say employees should be treated, and they don’t like it.
Color me shocked.
Mandalay
@Tree With Water:
Sadly, I think not – the O’Reilly examples are not in the same league as those of Brian Williams for bullshitting and embellishment. And the author of the hit piece, David Corn, is an odious Village grifter (and a former liberal doormat on FoxNews).
muddy
@bemused:
Open carry opinions.
boatboy_srq
@bemused: Bikes are bad because they don’t support Big Oil and because they cause accidents when Big Oil supporters run into them. Hybrids/electrics are similar, which is why “rolling coal” is such a fun pastime for wingnuts. Ditto LED or CFC lighting. If they’re not constantly conspicuously consuming they’re not being Patriotic™.
muddy
@Tree With Water: O’Reilly is like a gigantic 3 year old.
bemused
@RSA:
Sure if you are highly susceptible to fear mongering. I’d say liberals are widely persecuted for our beliefs but most of us don’t dissolve into hysterics.
Ruckus
@boatboy_srq:
This.
As I was sitting in my now defunct business 4-5 yrs ago, waiting for customers who would spend any money on themselves, I tried to figure out what possible thing I might do. Running for office seemed one possibility but then of course I had no money to spend weeks/months attempting to get elected. And to get elected you generally have to start at the very bottom and work your way up. There are exceptions of course, Al Franken for example. So by the time you can maybe affect any realistic changes it will take something like 20 yrs. Not a real positive prospect for someone in their 60s.
Elizabelle
From May 2014: Here’s a BBC item on subtly changing people’s minds. By having them explain a process. The Best Way to Win an Argument
FWIW, the word “Socratic” never appears.
Was there something more recent?
Tommy
@boatboy_srq: My short response is you don’t find them. Sad! My dad could win the House seat in his district just by waving his hat around. No chance he would run. Not a single chance.
Belafon
@Marmot: I shake too. I stood up and told him that the reason radioactive dating is used is because it correlates with other observations. That shut him up, and he stopped talking to person in the cube next to me about it, and moved on.
I think I annoy him because no one else challenges him on his winger stuff. I try not to do it too often, not enough blood pressure medicine to take care of that, but I occasionally do.
I’m thinking about asking him if, as he stated, “All things are possible through God” then why couldn’t God have created the Universe 15 billion years ago and let it run its course to today. It drives me nuts that, if they believe in an omnipotent being, he’s not really omnipotent but can only do what they believe.
bemused
@boatboy_srq:
We recently bought light bulbs and joked about the people who stocked up on incandescents and betting that they were now quietly buying LEDs, etc as the cost has gone down pretending they were never against them in the first place.
Paul in KY
@CONGRATULATIONS!: When he bit you the first time & you whopped him (I assume), he didn’t get the message & continued. Sort of a dumb animal, IMO.
Paul in KY
@Couldn’t Stand the Weather: You couldn’t see a bleached blonde floozy as a cheerleader?!
muddy
@Ruckus: Have you seen Man with a Plan? It’s delightful.
Marmot
@Ruckus: Oh, I’m sure laughing at them doesn’t change their minds. If you can make them look foolish in front of others, that helps you beat their point.
But I just want to keep a level head.
catclub
@Mandalay: Have the Koch brothers shorted CCA?
One wonders.
boatboy_srq
@bemused: I was side-by-side with some wingnut in Home Depot about six months ago, who saw all the options and griped about Al Gore and Fascist Libruls. I asked him “so, you like sending all that money to Dominion Power month after month?” His jaw dropped – but not a sound emerged.
Chris
@Belafon:
I’ve gone through various phases of believer and nonbeliever since childhood, but this is one thing about them that always drove me insane regardless of what my stance on the “God” thing was at the time.
Marmot
@Elizabelle: Cool! Thanks.
Elizabelle
@Marmot: Not sure it’s what they were discussing upstream.
Hoping Mnemosyne or others will check in to confirm or update.
But hope you like it!
muddy
@Belafon: A woman who had previously seemed quite normal informed me one day at work last fall that we were in the End Times. She said it as though it had been on the news last night. The proof was changing weather and ebola. She said the weather would be getting a lot worse though, those who were left were really going to see some bad weather, there was some detail. She then reassured me that God had promised not to drown us again though. Honestly I didn’t see where drowning was worse than being burned up in hurricanes and volcanoes, but I could tell I was supposed to be reassured by this info. I mean, I know the Bible story about the rainbow but nevermind.
Elizabelle
@boatboy_srq: Well done, sir!
If you were overheard, a few fellow shoppers were mentally high fiving you.
There’s an idea for a thread: “go to” responses for wingnut idiocies one encounters in daily life. Betty Cracker??
I would not have thought your response up, and it’s marvelously effective and not mean.
Calouste
@Elizabelle: The incarceration rate for US adults is about 1%. Are there 300 governors still alive? That might be close. And I’m sure if we would limit the incarceration rate to adults over the minimum age to become governor (30 in most states), it will be a clear win for the governors.
Gex
@catclub: I remember back in the earliest days of the Internet, a lot of independent web designers issued warnings about working for churches. You could quote some of them a price, agree to it, and do the work. Then they’d pressure you to donate your work “for God” and try very hard not to pay.
It was common enough that it was regularly discussed in the industry.
Marmot
@Belafon: Glad to hear I’m not the only one whose reactions get in the way.
On the fundie god stuff, it sure is odd they don’t realize his desires parallel their own too neatly. But the relatives I have trouble with are mostly Right Wing Authoritarians of the free-market stripe.
Marmot
@boatboy_srq: That’s what I’m talking about!
Belafon
@Marmot: This quote might help:
Anne Lamott: “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all of the same people you do.”
bemused
@Elizabelle:
Good idea. Nothing changes their minds but it would be nice to have some snappy but not provocative answers just to shut up some annoying stranger in a store or an acquaintance. Probably with family or neighbors just best to change subject.
Elizabelle
@muddy: Not drowning; we will be wandering the plains for drinkable water. Especially water not poisoned by fracking chemicals.
And our prairies will be in flames.
It’s God’s Plan. He gave us brains, but also greed, and a lot of very bad types have way too much money.
Elvis Costello, “God’s Comic” (great song): wherein word from the Almighty:
and later:
Bitter Scribe
I wonder…what was so “vile and unacceptable” about these videos of “street altercations”? Were they just gross, or was there some sort of racial element to them?
'Niques
@Ruckus: I made some of my conservative friends think differently by pointing out that there are thieves at every economic level . . . and questioning the value of addressing those at the bottom fudging paperwork to get $70 worth of food stamps, while ignoring those at the top taking the equivalent of an entire country’s net worth out of circulation.
The Raven on the Hill
Seems that nearly a million bad Obamacare tax forms (1095-A) were sent out by Healthcare.gov and Covered California. Corrected forms will follow.
Not surprisingly, the anti-Obamacare people are having a field day. Myself, I think the complexity and miserliness of the ACA, and the “helpfulness” of the Republicans made some big screw-up pretty much inevitable, but, still, day-um.
gian
@Couldn’t Stand the Weather:
The cop put dog in back yard. Dog I think supposed to be in a crate. Kid went into yard to look for mom.
Tragedy ensued.
Poor kid
Waynski
@Betty Cracker:
If you can get mutual consent. My father, a RWNJ, refused to comply even though my brother, sister and I (liberals all) asked him many times not to bring up politics at family gatherings. Eventually, we simply ignored whatever it was he was ranting about and he eventually stopped. No one likes to be shunned. It’s a lot like the “Don’t feed the troll”rule but in person.
Ruckus
@Waynski:
Turning your back and just walking away calmly works pretty good but that’s difficult with family, especially parents. Shaking one’s head or laughing while doing this is a bonus.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Elizabelle:
I’m pretty sure that’s the one — it was referred to last week but it wasn’t a current article.
lou
@Elizabelle: The Washington Post’s local columnist had a terrific piece about Maureen McDonnell. It explains a lot of her issues, and what a jerkoff her husband was.
The money quote:
The column doesn’t excuse her actions but certainly provided a lot of context.
Her husband really threw her under the bus. It also shows the whole problem with the Republican version of womanhood. If she doesn’t want to live that life? Too bad. At least on the Democratic side, lots of women married to politicians have other things they’re doing with their lives. I always admired Howard Dean’s wife for keeping on with her job as a doctor.