And Jim Webb just facebooked himself out of consideration for the current and any future Democratic nomination.
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And Jim Webb just facebooked himself out of consideration for the current and any future Democratic nomination.
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Russ
Jindal scared him off.
Baud
And he was so close to winning the nomination.
Kerry Reid
“Won’t SOMEBODY think of the bigots?”
Baud
@Russ:
I would like to see Bobby Jindal pick a chimp as his running mate so he could run as BJ and the Bear.
Scotius
He sure is taking an interesting approach to getting the nomination isn’t he? Let’s piss off the entire voting base of the Democratic Party. Is Mark Penn managing his social media?
jl
Was it ‘facebooked’, ‘facepalmed’, or ‘faceplanted’? Better check on that to make sure you got it right.
SatanicPanic
anyone supporting him should have known better
Baud
Sadly for Cole, given what happened in the 2012 Democratic primary in West Virginia, Jim Webb will win that state.
jl
And did in the midst of the most offensively unimaginative, cowardly, trite and predictable dithering over a public controversy that I can remember. He would have been a distant runner-up to Chaffee.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Some people just don’t want to have to stop and think about their assumptions when comes to race. Webb appears to be one of them, which to me is an automatic disqualifier for president. We already had 8 years of an irreflective idiot who believed the same thing on Wednesday that he did on Monday, regardless of what happened on Tuesday. We don’t need another one, even if he does have a D after his name.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: his Aqua Velva would’ve triggered all kinds of daddy issues that most Villagers just control a bit better than Tweety.
There’s a lot to admire about Webb– few Republicans did as much to actually oppose the Bush war, he made a lot of votes that must have been hard for him, and he gave Obama a stirring endorsement in VA in 2012–, but his fixation on the “Scots-Irish” and “Appalachian heritage” always gave me a bad vibe.
kindness
I knew Webb was stubborn but I never took him as stupid.
Shame on me.
beltane
There’s always room for one more in the Klown Kar.
Tripod
Hey – that’s Howard Dean’s schtick. cues Dixie
What with all the party of Lincoln types getting wobbly, there’s a clear opening for a Jeff Davis Democrat to take a principled stand on the SC capitol lawn.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Given the positive things he has done, this is more tradgedy than anything else — his inability to step outside himself and change with the world is sad.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Well, you know what happened on Tuesday? The RWNJ’s went ballistic over Colbert saying that.
Turgidson
Yep, Webb seems to think his road to the White House goes through the backwaters of Appalachia and the Deep South. Good luck with that, Jimbo.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He is a good ‘aginner, and good soldier, and a good supporter. He does not look like a good leader. And it seems we are entering an era of public debate that exhausts his spirit and imagination.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Ed Kilgore, another son of the Southern Scots-Irish, had a post on Webb, building off this by Max Blumenthal
and Kilgore looks at the actual effectiveness of the Dixie-mancing strategy
Tripod
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yea…. I don’t know about that. His five-hundred ship Navy was too nutty for the Reagan White House, and they were the morons who couldn’t say no to any kind of useless DOD spend.
Turgidson
He did the country a solid by convincing the Virginia voters to shitcan George Allen in 2006, and he was a solid Obama surrogate in 2008. Been kinda downhill since then.
piratedan
I guess Webb is more Presidential particle board than lumber
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Tripod: I guess you could make the case that Any Democrat could’ve beat George Allen between the wave and Maccacca, I have no idea what the bench was like.
fuckwit
Also, meh. I liked his policy on the wars. I’m glad he was able to take a seat from an R a ways back. Never saw him as presiential material though, and his attitudes towards race have come out and are very unappealing. Do not want.
Gimme some Bernie or some Hilary and I’m happy.
LWA
@Baud:
Nah, a big hairy guy like oh, mebbe Christie or even better, Scalia, would make a better bear.
They might rescue the Log Cabin vote.
Carl Nyberg
Webb’s campaign always seemed more like he was running for the 1960 Dem nomination than the 2016 Dem nomination.
As I noted on Twitter, if there was a last minute debate before Iowa Caucus and Webb were detained by an extraordinary event and if the debate was hit by a meteor (all other current candidates wiped out), Webb still wouldn’t be the frontrunner.
I don’t see a path to the nomination.
Even if Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders & Martin O’Malley all have meltdowns, I see new candidates entering with more support than Webb will get on his best day.
* Joe Biden
* Kirsten Gillibrand
* Al Franken
* Sherrod Brown
* Howard Dean
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Anyone who listens to “Mudcat” Saunders is a blithering idiot. I was never tempted to support John Edwards in aught-eight, even though he said some pretty words about poverty, because A) he came across as a phony, smarmy bastard, and B) he confirmed impression A by hiring “Mudcat” Saunders.
David Koch
Remember when George Allen dressed up like a Confederate general
Cacti
Once a Dixiecrat, always a Dixiecrat.
Tripod
Clearly, If the Democrats nominate a damn Yankee, they’ll need a son of the south to balance the ticket.
Cacti
@Baud:
I don’t think Cole would mind much.
I remember him front paging an op-ed from Webb about “There’s no such thing as white privilege because poor white people in Appalachia” and agreeing with it heartily.
David Koch
Wingnuts on twitter are having a meltdown over the stars and bars being lowered.
Oh, the tears of unfathomable sadness are so yummy and sweet
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: I say we lock Mudcat Saunders and James Carville in a windowless room and throw away the key.
Gin & Tonic
@David Koch: Maybe I’m being pedantic, but isn’t that *not* the Stars and Bars? Isn’t there a difference between Lee’s Battle Flag of Northern Virginia and the “Stars and Bars”?
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Webb won a low-turnout primary over an unexciting Mark Warner-ish technocrat named Harris Miller. Webb was at that point a darling of the DKos crowd, like Stephanie Herseth and Paul Hackett. I remember the results, having done my part as a fresh transplant to Virginia, being excited about Webb and populism and sticking it to the corporatists of the DLC and so forth. Ah, 2006.
Redshift
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, he was basically a really good argument for always having someone on the ballot. George Allen was considered a prohibitively strong candidate – right up to the moment when he wasn’t.
I never understood why Webb even considered running for president. He hates campaigning, he hates fundraising, and he seemed to hate most things about being in office.
beltane
@Baud: No offense to West Virginia, but in a hypothetical match-up between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, West Virginia is one of the very few states, and the only Eastern/Southern state, that would go to The Donald. Who cares who they support in the primary. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/24/1396173/-Just-for-kicks-this-is-what-Clinton-s-hilarious-landslide-over-Trump-would-look-like
NonyNony
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“Ah, Mr. Webb – we’ve found your problem. You’ve got a dumbass campaign adviser clogging up your engine. You really should have flushed that before entering a presidential race you know.”
beltane
@Gin & Tonic: Carville would somehow emerge a few weeks later, suprisingly well-fed and content.
David Koch
Anchor baby Piyush Jindal’s horrid rollout is being panned by everyone, even the wingers
Cacti
@Gin & Tonic:
You’re correct.
The Stars and Bars was a field of blue with a circle of 13 stars, with two horizontal red stripes, and a white stripe in the middle. What’s known as the “rebel flag” is the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia.
The battle flag was incorporated into the second and third flags of the CSA.
FlipYrWhig
@Redshift:
Also he seems to hate “people.” Which, ironically, is probably one of the things about him I like best.
KG
@Gin & Tonic: yeah, the stars and bars is a different flag. the one that has been flown is either known as the rebel flag or the southern cross. though calling the southern cross the stars and bars will tend to piss off a confederate.
A guy
The problem in this country is not the rebel flag. It is the loss of the traditional mother father family. It is instance upon the death penalty and the tolerance of abortion. It is tolerance for sloth. It is lack of exercise. It’s an incredible lack of self respect. There no embarrassment in getting a subsidy. In sum, as a country we are getting weak and we are going to pay the price very soon,
gf120581
@Redshift: It is odd. Webb left the Senate after one term because he said he didn’t want to spend his life in public office and wanted to go back to his writing career. It’s weird that he would even consider a presidential run.
On the subject of George Allen, it may be hard to recall now, but back then, Allen was considered by many to be the likely GOP frontrunner in 2008. The 2006 race was supposed to be an easy win that would boost him towards a WH run. Then he opened his mouth, “macaca” came tumbling out, and it all got flushed down the drain.
David Koch
@beltane you’ve mention on different occasions that you live in Vermont. So let me ask you why is Bernie Sanders so frightened of gun control? Is Vermont that big of gun state?
As an outsider I see Vermont as the deep blue state that Obama won with 67% of the vote. You would think Sanders would feel safe in opposing the NRA in such friendly confines. Yet when ever Sanders is asked about gun control or the NRA he turns white as a ghost and begins to terrible in fear.
:
Baud
@beltane:
I saw that. Amazing.
Redshift
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I went to Mudcat’s talk at the first or second YearlyKos/Netroots Nation. The could be summarized as “if the Democrats are smart, they’ll abandon or compromise on everything their base supports to try to appeal to good ol’ boys.” I walked out halfway through.
The man’s a pigheaded idiot who’s been coasting for years on his success getting Warner elected the first time. I’d put anyone who hires him in the same bin with people who hired Bob Shrum.
Cacti
I saw that the mayor of New Orleans suggested losing the Robert E. Lee statue and renaming Lee Circle.
Right wingers of course were aghast, but it led me to wonder…
Did Robert E. Lee ever even set foot in the City of New Orleans?
Gin & Tonic
@A guy: Weak. I give this a 2 out of 10. You need to work on your fundamentals.
Doug R
@piratedan: we call it oriented strand board or OSB. ;)
chopper
so there’s a ‘rightly’ way to use the battle flag that isn’t at all racist? if so I ain’t seen it.
NonyNony
@gf120581:
He’s got “friends” like Mudcat Saunders whispering in his ear and telling him that it’s his time to be President.
Given some of the stupid bullshit that has come out of Webb’s mouth over the years, I have to wonder if the idea that a black president being followed by a woman president isn’t jarring his sense of self so much that he’s doing some really stupid things.
jl
@Gin & Tonic: DougJ been out of practice. He might be exploring how much effort he has to expend in order to stir up something.
KG
@Cacti: I can do you one better, in Long Beach, California has an elementary school named for Robert E Lee. I drive past it every so often and am just baffled. Long Beach has just shy of a half million people, white people make up only a plurality (46%) of the population (and if you are counting only non-Hispanic whites it’s as low as 29%), it’s pretty much everything the confederacy would have opposed and yet there it is…
ETA: apparently things may be changing now.
Redshift
@gf120581: The other interesting thing is why that was such a tipping point. I turned out that nearly every reporter who had covered the state had a story about Allen being incredibly racist, but they were old, so they weren’t “news.” One he made the topic relevant, they all started coming out, and that’s what sunk him.
For all the talk of him as a presidential or VP prospect, I suspect the presidential campaign coverage wouldn’t have been as restrained, even if he never made such a slip. Still better that we didn’t have to suffer with him as a senator before he crashed and burned.
kped
Webb never had a shot. He is essentially white Harold Ford Jr. He is “third way”, a centrists rep, and has no actual constituency to even win 2nd place in a state. This was the final nail in the coffin, only if you hadn’t noticed he’d been cremated long ago.
Carl Nyberg
@beltane: in a hypothetical match-up between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump…
There are plenty of GOP candidates the Corporate Media pretend are serious contestants for the GOP nomination. Most of them aren’t.
* Ben Carson
* Chris Christie
* Carly Fiorina
* Lindsey “The Coward” Graham
* Mike Huckabee
* Bobby Jindal
* Pataki
* Rick Perry
* Santorum
* Trump
Some of these people are so minor or pathetic they’re not worth making jokes about except in the aggregate.
maya
@chopper:
Toilet paper.
beltane
@David Koch: Yes, Vermont is that big of a gun state, and outside of Burlington hunting is something of a religion (though not a religion I personally follow). The politics here aren’t really comparable to the rest of the country. As much as I love this place, the state’s progressivism can be seen as a case of white privilege writ large.
KG
@beltane: i’m not much of a fan of Hillary, but I would love to see this happen. If only to see the reaction of the “if only the Republicans would nominate a TRUE CONSERVATIVE!” crowd.
NotMax
Jeez Louise. What’s next? Something akin to this?
And ya know, the KKK were job creators, providing valuable income to carpenters, rope makers and muslin and percale mills.
Gin & Tonic
@jl: Didn’t someone (maybe you) post a link a couple of days ago to a 10-year-old John Cole post? I read through it, and within the first page or two, there was DougJ. That’s a kind of form you don’t ever lose.
Redshift
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He does have a strong sense of (economic) social justice, and he published an op-ed on the subject in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Class Struggle,” so he not all bad. But his outsized regard for poor Appalachian whites has always made him blind to the large racial component to that injustice.
NotMax
@A guy
You left out “precious bodily fluids” and “purity of essence.”
Just sayin’.
gf120581
@Redshift: Actually you did. He was running for reelection in 2006.
It’s weird that Allen tried to make his political comeback by running for the Senate again in 2012, given he openly didn’t like the gig (he said he found the Senate boring). If anything, I though he’d try to run for governor again, a job he actually semed to like. But he didn’t, Kaine took him out and now he’s pretty much finito as far as politics go.
Considering the “macaca” mess, Allen also did himself no favors with how he handled it. It was like a “what not to do” guidline to handling a public gaffe. And then he added to the fire when the reporter asked him about his Jewish heritage (which was admittedly a sort of bizarre question) by saying she was “making aspirations” and then backpedling, but saying he wasn’t really Jewish and that he was “going to eat a ham sandwich.” He just opened the floodgates to reporters uncovering every possibly racist thing he’d ever done and given Allen’s lifelong love affair with all things Confederate, he gave them tons.
gian
@chopper:
I think it could have a display in the museum of tolerance. Maybe by some history about slaves building the US Capitol building. Like the pyramids of old
FlipYrWhig
@kped:
What? No, I’m sorry, that’s totally wrong. Webb is more like Brian Schweitzer without the colorful personality. He’s literally a Reagan Democrat. “Third Way” is like Evan Bayh or Mark Warner, finance capital, high tech, and deregulation. When people on the left say that Democrats should be “populists,” they mean they should appeal to people like Webb and the people Webb identifies with and stands for. If you don’t much like the sound of that, well, keep that in mind the next time you get excited about the potential of economic populism.
Redshift
@A guy:
This is some of the laziest trolling I have ever seen, and I will not tolerate it!
(See, the country is improving already!)
jl
@Gin & Tonic: I never have, do not now, and never will link to past current or future John Cole posts. But you might be right. DougJ might just be really busy and this is best he can do. It was a presumptuous little troll post with pretensions to fine oak.
JPL
@Cacti: It looks pretty much like the GA flag.
A guy
All, thank you for the replies. You proved I’m right. No death penalty. No abortion. A mom and a dad raising kids in a loving simple heterosexual relationship. That’s all it take to turn the world around. All else will fall in to place, by natural order.
LWA
@NotMax: As well as “ethics in gaming journalism”.
Cacti
@JPL:
Yep.
That was done purposefully by the GA leg. They figured it was a bit more subtle than the battle flag.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Redshift: Yup. Webb is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps he was thinking he was running for VP or assistant secretary of State for SE Asia or something.
My only “dealing” with him was writing him an angry note when he ran to the press the evening of Scott Brown’s election saying, “Well, we can’t vote on ObamaCare now – we have to wait until Brown is seated.” He sent me a rather firey note back a week or two later. Wasn’t afraid of pissing off a constituent, and donor, even more. ;-)
He has absolutely no chance now, and honestly didn’t before. I wonder if he’ll even announce now. But if he doesn’t, what will he do with his (tiny) PAC?
Curious…
Cheers,
Scot.
NotMax
@jl</a.
There’s an app for that? Cool.
:)
chopper
@Redshift:
still don’t know what exactly the hell is wrong with sloths.
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
@Redshift:
Indeed. I remember when I first learned about Webb at a deecee Drinking Liberally, from a guy working on his fledgling primary campaign who asked me to sign a petition to get his name on the ballot. Then eedad and I went to a fundraiser.
He seemed so cool in those dark days…..but he lost me when he dissed the ACA.
ETA: It must be said, though — he’s utterly unclassifiable. That is a real rarity in politics.
Russ
@beltane: the folks outside of Chittenden County and the major populations center, Snalsbans, Rutland, Barre-Montpelier temper the state blue, and the rest bend red in may ways but are not radical and are not seeking identity with open carry and such.
NotMax
Dang it. Code fail. The fingers are faster than the eye. Fixed.
@jl
There’s an app for that? Cool.
:)
lamh36
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The only reason I know “Mudcat” is because when I used to watch/listen to Stephanie Miller’s show, he was a frequent call in guest.
As I said on FB, I thank Webb for his service, but FUQ HIM.
I’m at the point where I’m done coddling some white folk feelings in regard to racial issues. Like most Black folk, I tend to just politely smile or ignore what the say or just let the subject die off in conversation. No more, funny enough, Black folk really do try to avoid talking race relations among mixed company, especially in the work environment where alot of the time you may be the only Black person in the room or in attendance.
JPL
@Cacti: Barnes created a flag with all the flags of GA. It really was ugly but I thought it worked. Perdue ran on the promise that he would let citizens vote on whether or not they wanted the old flag. When it came time to vote for a flag, the battle flag was missing.
Businesses encouraged Barnes to change the flag, and said they had his back on reelection. Well they forgot that promise.
NotMax
@A guy
The downside – we’ll be chest-deep in unicorns
Gin & Tonic
@A guy: I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Germy Shoemangler
I saw a brief clip of Pataki being asked about the flag controversy. He said it should be left to the states; it’s not something a presidential candidate should have anything to say about.
And nobody cared!
At this point, Pataki could announce he snuck that cat into the air glider. Did it just to be mean.
And nobody here would even notice.
beltane
@Russ: I live in the NEK and there aren’t many open carry nuts even here. In fact, I haven’t encountered any of them. Still, because the crime rate is extremely low, people have a sense that gun violence is something that happens far away from here and is of no concern to them at all. I was not living here at the time, but a friend once told me that the NRA campaigned hard against Bernie during his first campaign for Congress. He won regardless, but perhaps it made him fearful. It’s just speculation, but I have a feeling that overall gun ownership in the state is down since then-the younger generation just doesn’t seem as enthused by hunting culture as their parents and grandparents.
FlipYrWhig
@eemom: You know, I think I gave Webb some token sum of money in a fit of DKos-inspired passion. I’m still on the Webb PAC e-mailing list. He’s just SUCH a type. Like Carl Nyberg was saying, he’s like a grumpy throwback to the Democratic Party circa 1960.
Joel
@A guy: This is like Muggsy Bogues impersonating Dikembe Mutombo.
FlipYrWhig
@beltane: The younger generation isn’t as enthused by wood-stove heating culture either, I’d bet.
Gin & Tonic
@Germy Shoemangler: I am more likely to be elected President next year than George Pataki is.
beltane
@FlipYrWhig: My sons agree with you!
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Willing to lay down some real folding money that you and he receive the exact same number of electoral votes.
;)
SuperHrefna
Whew! I’m so glad Webb decided to have a nice chew on his foot, I was getting worried about the chances of him getting on the ticket as veep. And his position on race creeps me out. He’s not all bad, he has some interesting things to say about class and inequality, but in this big diverse country we just can’t be doing with politicians so clannishly focused on the white working class.
BBA
@JPL: The real Stars and Bars are so utterly forgotten that in the ’50s Georgia replaced it with the Battle Flag to show their commitment to racism. Then when the Battle Flag became an embarrassment to the “New South” they went back to a Stars and Bars-based flag and nobody really cared that they were replacing one piece of Confederate imagery with another.
I wonder about Florida. They can reasonably claim that their red saltire comes from the Spanish colonial era. But Alabama also has a red saltire and only a small part of it was ever a Spanish colony, and for a much shorter time than Florida.
Germy Shoemangler
@Gin & Tonic:
I’d like a balloon-juicer in the White House. It’d make for some entertaining press conferences.
Jimgod
@lamh36: Side-note on Stephanie Miller, I gave up on her due to her slavish hackery to anyone with a D after their name. She would kiss Saunders’ ass, she attacked Kucinich for musing about impeaching Obama for Libya (which was stupid) then had him on her show weeks later and kissed his ass, totally ignoring the whole issue. It’s just an intellectually bankrupt way to do a radio show. D good, R bad. Sometimes the Ds are bad too. I’d go back to listening if she’d dump the politics and go back to the comedy like she did in the 90s but I’m sure that’s wishful thinking….
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@A guy:
Yes, Dylan Roof murdered 9 black people at their Bible study group because of Obamacare.
You should probably stop talking now.
ms_canadada
@chopper: I know, eh? I find sloths utterly fascinating to watch…slowly I turn…
fuckwit
@David Koch: vermont is a very RURAL state. with lots of DEER. and very, very many hunters. yes it’s blue, but it’s rural blue, which means, they like their guns up there.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Jimgod:
Funny, as I pointed out this morning, her dad was a Republican(Barry Goldwater’s running mate).
joel hanes
@Tripod:
His five-hundred ship Navy was too nutty for the Reagan White House
Not sure what you’re talking about here.
It was a 600 ship Navy, and Reagan went there. From Wikipedia :
During the reign of Reagan, we Bay Area folks watched almost the entire “mothball fleet” that for decades had been anchored quietly in Suisun Bay get pressed back into service, even when there was little military justification for another 1945-era small tanker or minesweeper or troop carrier in nearly-operational order.
In succeeding years, some of those ships came back to mothball moorings; the others were scrapped.
Keith G
If you follow Eric Holder (remember him) on Twitter, you would have read this tweet a bit ago:
JPL
@BBA: When someone calls it the Confederate flag, I know they don’t know the history of the flag.
Jimgod
@BillinGlendaleCA: A bit confused here. You pointed it out on her show? Anyway, I don’t know if she’s overcompensating based on that or if she thinks that’s what’ll sell to her audience. Either way, I just gave up. I don’t want to have a total inverse of the stupid-ass right wing radio. I used to listen to Neil Rogers from Miami and the way he did it was great; yes he was liberal and would advocate for that as needed, but it was first and foremost an entertainment show, which kept the audience in and gave them a laugh. It wasn’t politics 24/7. But what do I know? I’m not a radio station owner so I don’t count…
LWA
@Germy Shoemangler:
“Breaking News- Today President John Cole unleashed a torrent of F-bombs on the White House Press Corps after it was suggested that he invite Speaker Gohmert over for a beer summit to reassure him that there were no plans to use Ameros to pay off the national debt….
No, wait, wait, I am getting an update here…Oh- it was actual bombs, in fact…”
joel hanes
@ms_canadada:
slowly I turn…
inch by inch …
step by step …
jl
@LWA: F-bombs? Punches in the neck all around, with seconds for dumb questions. Where do I contribute!
Omnes Omnibus
OT: this One Million Years B.C. thing on TCM is weird as fuck.
Redshift
@gf120581:
Geez, how could I have forgotten that? Must have blocked it out. It does make it clearer why he was considered so formidable; knocking off incumbents is always hard.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Jimgod: Somebody mentioned her this morning, I said that I remembered her father from his AMEX commercials back in the mid 70’s(“Do you know who I am?). Her father was William Miller a conservative Republican Congressman from New York and was on the 1964 GOP ticket as Goldwater’s VP.
lamh36
Not for nothing, but here’s a great pic for the next Open Thread?
Geeno
@Gin & Tonic: The rectangular version without white border is the Army of Tennessee, the square version with a white border is the Army of Northern Virginia. The rectangular version without border, but a blue lighter than Navy Blue (the proper color for the aforementioned flags) is the Confederate Naval Jack. Any other variation of the St. Andrew’s Cross flag you see does not represent a true flag of the Confederacy, but rather some bastardized phony flag. Make sure you tell the bearer of said symbol; they’ll be grateful for the correction.
beltane
@Omnes Omnibus: You have to be 17 and stoned to appreciate it fully.
Germy Shoemangler
@LWA:
John Cole for president.
Anne Laurie VP.
Zandar Supreme Court Nominee
Betty Cracker Attorney General.
Richard Mayhew Healthcare Czar.
Patricia Kayden
@Turgidson: I recall that Webb campaigned for President Obama in 2012 too. He wasn’t going to win the Democratic nomination anyways so I guess he’s shooting himself in the foot for the hell of it. He can pretty much say anything he wants now.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s classic-era Raquel Welch in a fur bikini. Any actual plot line is strictly incidental.
Germy Shoemangler
@Omnes Omnibus: Valley of the Gwangi made an impression on me when I saw it in a theater as a kid.
muddy
@David Koch:
Pretty dramatic description.
I think it’s more about the fact that Vermont has extremely liberal gun laws, but doesn’t have the gun violence problem that usually goes along with that. It’s not an issue here, so Bernie has never needed to get into it. His concerns are elsewhere, and it’s not like everyone one can focus on every issue with the same intensity.
He genuinely thinks that class is the major thing, and I think he finds guns to be a distraction from that. He has support amongst many working class Republicans in Vermont on that basis, Of course he would like to keep this support, and gain it elsewhere. It’s not about fearing the NRA. If there was a big problem in Vermont with guns then he would be/would have been addressing it. But it’s not so he hasn’t.
He hasn’t been planning his whole career to run for president and making sure he has checked all the boxes.
JPL
@lamh36: Rev. Pinckney’s wife and younger daughter were hiding under a desk in another room. I can’t imagine what that was like. It’s amazing how well he lived his life and the legacy he leaves.
Omnes Omnibus
@beltane: Well, I’m neither.
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): That was the impression I was getting. Glad I wasn’t missing metaphor about the evils of capitalism or something.
Redshift
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I actually got to buttonhole him in person at some local Dem event. I don’t even remember what the issue was (not the ACA, though.) He didn’t go off at me, but I could sense the pressure rising.
In line for a 2008 event, I met a guy who was a buddy of his from back in the Vietnam days, who said “yeah, he’s pretty tightly wound.” That’s about the most apt description I’ve heard. And yet another reason why a presidential run is unfathomable.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Or, as the sweaty teenage boy said when asked about it after viewing, “It had dinosaurs in it? Really?”
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s also about the Ray Harryhausen effects. What, those two things aren’t enough for you?
Germy Shoemangler
@NotMax: And it was a remake. I’ve seen a little of the original film but never the whole thing.
Here’s a scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upBlYi0PnJo
SFAW
@A guy:
I’d say “you mean ‘self-awareness’,” but I don’t think you’d get it.
muddy
@fuckwit: In Vermont a hunting license is license to carry. But people don’t walk around strapped like assholes because it’s frowned on culturally. Not by effete liberals who obviously don’t count, but by the Real Vermonters ™.
To get the hunting license you have to complete the hunter safety course. I heard the state started letting people do it online, which i think they will come to regret. The public shaming portion of the festivities for those who do it wrong is quite helpful.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Germy Shoemangler:
I just discovered that the Harryhausen wiki is called Gwangipedia:
http://gwangipedia.wikia.com
SFAW
@Germy Shoemangler:
you forgot:
“a guy” for Village/National Idiot
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Raquel Welch and Ray Harryhausen… I think that qualifies as _three_ things worth watching.
SFAW
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
For some of us, if you have the first, the second becomes unnecessary.
Germy Shoemangler
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I was very young when I saw Gwangi on the big screen and the special effects blew me away. I don’t even remember the plot.
The original 1940 “One Million Years BC” was nominated for academy awards; nice miniatures and sets, but the dinosaurs (from what I’ve seen) were just real lizards with spikes glued on their backs.
Heliopause
Hypothetical question for those who follow the debate stuff. Suppose all of the GOP candidates are polling at exactly 3% (this site lists 33 official and potential candidates). Who would be in the debate?
Woodrowfan
@Gin & Tonic: yes, the “Stars and Bars’ was the national flag, not the battle flag you see all the time.
NotMax
@Germy Shoemangler
Could be much, much worse. They could be showing this.
:)
Omnes Omnibus
@Heliopause: I think they have a dance off.
Germy Shoemangler
@NotMax:
like the 2016 GOP candidates…
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@muddy:
This is where I repeat the story that, as an 11-year-old girl, I outscored everyone else in my hunter safety course, including all of the adult men. I was a pretty good shot, too.
My dad bragged about that until the end of his life. He really enjoyed bringing it up with his hunting buddies.
Redshift
@Patricia Kayden: I don’t think Webb is personally at all racist, despite his willingness to overlook the racism of the people he glorifies. He’s basically the public-figure equivalent of that guy on Facebook who responds to discussion of white privilege with “how can you say I’m privileged!?” (Though in this case referring to his kind of people, not himself personally.)
Tripod
@joel hanes:
Fuck… you’re right. The Reganauts came up with it.
When they binned the whole stupid idea, Webb resigned in protest.
Redshift
@Heliopause: Remember, it’s Fox News deciding which polls to use. They’d just commission one of their special Fox News polls guaranteed to put whichever candidates they want over the top.
Schlemazel
“The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.”
. . .
“Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.”
– Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens the “Cornerstone Speech
Their heritage IS hate
Patricia Kayden
@Redshift: Not racist. Just tone deaf to his privileges. You’re right that he appears to be clueless. It’s alright for him to be proud of his Scot-Irish heritage but he has to acknowledge that inasmuch as that heritage overlaps with the Confederacy, that is nothing to be proud of.
mai naem mobile
I heard/read somewhere that Webb has lost some important campaign staff and is essentially not going to run.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Germy Shoemangler: What? No CGI in 1940?
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: It had a Harryhausen dinosaur. That was fun.
muddy
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): That’s excellent. Nice memory with your dad.
Germy Shoemangler
@BillinGlendaleCA: No, but they had Carole Landis. She was quite beautiful and convincing.
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: It also had a gold painted turtle.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Plot would have just been a distraction. And so unnecessary.
Elizabelle
Moar dino on dino action.
They get more dialogue than the actors.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Schlemazel:
Butbutbut that can’t be possible, because white people keep telling me that the Civil War had nothing to do with race. Are you telling me they’re lying or stupid? And do I really have to choose?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@lamh36:
Ugh. His daughters look like they’re about the same age as my late brother’s two daughters.
raven
He’s the motherfucker that will tell you what a bunch of traitors anti-war Vietnam Vets are. I have always said fuck Jim Webb.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: Tuned in too late to see that. Next time.
raven
raven
Webb hammers Bush in that editorial as well.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Yeah, I always wondered how collegial those two were in the senate.
Schlemazel
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I just had this discussion with an asshole I work with yesterday. He didn’t like hearing the traitorous bastards words. There was a lot of “butbtbutt”
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: This movie has almost everything (except dialog) even a girlfight.
WaterGirl
@raven: Reading that makes me want to smack someone!
raven
And about the Wall:
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: Wondering if it was quick to film. None of that pesky dialogue, and the sets are minimal or outdoors.
Wicked good pterodactyl.
raven
Funny that I am re-watching Generation Kill, David’s Simon and Ed Burns brilliant mini-series about the 1st Marine Recon and their first few weeks in the second Iraq War. There is one officer in the whole battalion that is worth a shit. I turn it off and here’s a thread about Jim Webb.
catbirdman
@Baud: lol
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: This movie is insane! I mean who came up with feeding Raquel Welch to the baby pteros?
ETA: And now… Dialog.
Tripod
He wasn’t killed or even murdered. This was an assassination. Senator Pinckney was assassinated.
jonas
@KG: it’s pretty much everything the confederacy would have opposed and yet there it is…
Southern California had strong Confederate sympathies at the outset of the Civil War. Union troops from Northern California had to pretty much occupy the area to secure it from Confederate interference and possible secession. Those sentiments persisted for a long time…
Brachiator
@raven: Reading this crap reminds me of the dumb nonsense the neoconservatives used to suck us into Iraq. And that they are using again to suck us into a war with Iran.
raven
@Brachiator: And yet, in the full article that I posted, he’s hammering Bush et al for Iraq.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@chopper:
Dunno, but Jack Aubrey debauched Maturin’s sloth once.
Omnes Omnibus
@Comrade Scrutinizer: That sounds more something being wrong with Jack Aubrey.
Brachiator
@Heliopause: How is this a problem? We have all kinds of media and broadcast options. The GOP masters have plenty of money. Have multiple debates, like college basketball. Flip a coin to decide who ends up in the East or West debates. Put the stuff on YouTube or wherever. The press and political junkies can watch it as often as they like. Switch up who appears with who in later debates.
lamh36
Wow!
I never heard the story that Maddow is telling about the first African American male cheerleader at Ole Miss, who refused to wave the Rebel Flag, instead the white cheerleaders would wave it.
Maddow is now interviewing him!
John Hawkins is his name!
Find the video guys!
Brachiator
@raven: I see the link to the full article. I will look at it later when I get home. The part about Kerry is wrong in all kinds of ways, and ways that echo neocon arguments.
raven
@Brachiator: Yea I know, I was in the VVAW so it still stings.
jl
@Brachiator:
” Have multiple debates, ”
Every GOP hopeful gets a participation trophy.
Brachiator
@A guy: Didn’t Ben Franklin want the sloth to be our national mascot? Or maybe that was the actor George C Sloth.
joel hanes
@NotMax:
Could be worse. They could be showing [Gator Bait]
or this, without Joel and the ‘bots
or this
Ruckus
@raven:
Kerry and his VVAW compatriots portrayed their fellow veterans as unwilling soldiers, morally debased and haunted by their service. While this might have fit a small minority, the most accurate survey, done by the Harris Poll in 1980, showed that 91% of those who went to Vietnam were “glad they served their country,” 74% “enjoyed their time in the military” and 89% agreed with the statement that “our troops were asked to fight in a war which our political leaders in Washington would not let them win.”
That poll doesn’t track at all with the people I was in with or with my friends in the 60-70s. I know that some would agree with the questions, but those numbers seem to be backwards.
Omnes Omnibus
Vaguely related: Every state flag is wrong, and here is why. Written by DougJ’s troll crush.
Matt McIrvin
Barron’s predicts that the Republican nomination is John Kasich’s to lose:
http://online.barrons.com/articles/who-will-win-the-gop-nomination-1433557143
This may be the stupidest thing I’ve read this week.
joel hanes
@jonas:
Southern California had strong Confederate sympathies at the outset of the Civil War.
William Brewer’s journals from the 1854 California geological survey expedition record his disdain for the pockets of seccessionists he encountered — usually in the context of publicly drunk and rowdy miners.
AxelFoley
@lamh36:
Word.
Suzanne
@raven: Of all the dumb things that Jim Webb has said, his “criticism” of Lin’s Memorial might be the one that bothers me the most. The sheer amount of racist bullshit that she got for that design, as a young student, was horrible and ridiculously shameful.
catclub
I am hoping to hear the expression “Treason in defense of Slavery” on a national broadcaster.
Anyone think it will happen? Have I missed it?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: That was pretty funny, but California was a Republic. We’re actually quite proud of that. It’s about the only thing we have in common with Texas.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Matt McIrvin: Speaking of stupid things, Jeb!’s campaign spent a bunch of money mailing me a thick envelope today, presumably asking for money. I ripped it in half and threw it in the recycling.
(I gave McCain a small donation before the 2000 NH primary (I gave Bradley money then, too. I had this weird idea of trying to move both parties a little…). Jeb! seems to be using that ancient old mailing list. A winning strategy!!1)
Cheers,
Scott.
David Koch
@muddy: if it isn’t about the NRA then why did he vote to immunize gun corporations from all lawsuits in perpetuity?
Rural hunters in Vermont don’t care if some multinational corporation is sued by a widow in San Francisco for selling cop killer bullets and Mac-10s with suppressors. That’s an NRA thing.
Shana
@FlipYrWhig: Yeah, with you on that. I happily voted for him for Senate and was glad he was there. But then again, I saw him in a living room candidate event and I have never seen anyone who so palpably didn’t want to be campaigning. He was uncomfortable, couldn’t ask for money, seemed to just hate the process of getting into the Senate. I’ve been wondering these last few months how he thought he could possibly get through a presidential campaign.
Doug R
@Jimgod: she says on the show that it’s politics with fart jokes sorry you’re so easily offended
jonas
@joel hanes: Wow — great blog on the Whitney survey. Thanks for the link.
Adam Lang
@A guy: Oh really?
Aleta
@joel hanes: thank you.
Librarian
@BillinGlendaleCA: And now, some are calling for California to get rid of its flag: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0614-abella-bear-flag-20150614-story.html
Stillwater
This comment from Adam Smith sums the mess up perfectly.
“It should not be used in any way as a political symbol that divides us.”
But Jim, the confederate flag IS ACTUALLY a political symbol of us (US) divided. That’s the whole damn point of the thing. Goodbye Jim.
Sherparick
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ironically, Webb won his senate seat in 2006 because of George Allen’s “Macaca Moment,” which means that the Virginia Blacks and Asians came out to vote for him in droves as the “not George Allen” candidate on the ballot and he got the hippie, non Scotch-Irish vote because he was really right and good on the Iraq war. He might done a little bit better than the average Democrat in the deep red counties of Virginia, but it was not why he won.
As someone who shares those Scotch-Irish roots, I think he has always been a bit deranged on the topic (also, his male chauvinism has been off the charts), and I would only point out to him that lots of Scotch-Irish (like my G-G Grandad) fought under the Stars and Stripes and hated the Stars and Bars (from Kentucky, East Tennessee, West Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, as the Scotch-Irish who served in the Pennsylvania’s Bucktails and other Northern regiments). The irony of Webb’s story is that the majority of Appalachia stood with the Union against the rebellion during the Civil War and he is basically spitting on those people..
Jimgod
@Doug R: Ummmm, that’s not what bothers me about the show but thanks for playing.
Kerry Reid
@raven: Larry Heinemann had the loveliest and most sorrowful response to the swiftboating of John Kerry, which I herewith offer as another fuck-you to Webb.
Uncle Cosmo
@Brachiator: IIRC Franklin wanted the wild turkey for national bird–maybe that’s what you’re thinking of.